Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
Nostalgia Noir
I can vaguely remember taking this photograph of Broad Street in Halifax from what must have been the top of the Bowling Alley in the late 1960s. It was back in the days of slow films and fast cars. You’d have to acquire a special Photoshop filter to get such crude results from even the most challenged smartphone today. They’d probably call the filter “Nostalgia Noir”.
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Mondrian’s Market
Black and white, light and dark: Bradford’s new Darley Street Market seemed to present photo opportunities with all the enthusiasm of an overstocked trader’s stall. There were loads of straight lines -…
Do Seagulls Screech In Cleethorpes?
Whenever I look back at the photos I took in Cleethorpes in the 1980s, I am reminded of the trauma caused by the gradual loss of my hearing during that decade. For…
Spring And All Souls
The panel which I featured a couple of days ago, showing Edward Akroyd laying the foundation stone for All Souls’ Church, is nothing compared to the rather grand bronze statue…
The Girl With The Throwaway Glance
19th century photography is photography of the constrained: studio photography of fixed poses, fixed smiles and fixed emotions. The twentieth century brought cheaper cameras and that meant photography of the…
Tired Souls
Right next to the Grade 1 listed All Souls’ Church in Halifax, there is a statue of the Halifax mill-owner, social reformer, Member of Parliament and church-builder, Edward Akroyd. On…
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