Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
Bare Beacon
When I look back at the pictures I took of Halifax in the 1960s and ’70s – the town I have always considered home – several things stand out. The town had a greyness then that went beyond an over-reliance on monochrome photography. There were still plenty of mill chimneys breaking up the skyline. Most striking of all, Beacon Hill was bare, devoid of any meaningful vegetation.
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Good Taste
Sitting in a restaurant, whiling away the time while the others enjoyed their starters, I began playing with the reflections of the bottles behind the bar. Within a handful of seconds, my…
St Thomas And The Gasworks (Again)
This is another of those scenes I kept returning to in the 1960s, and I have several versions of it in my negative archive. Perhaps it was fortunate that I did my…
Here For The Day
This week, our weekly picture-postcard puzzle takes us to the United States. It is April 1906, and the writer simply tells us that his hand is still improving and that he is…
Shapes, Shades, And Stories
Sometimes you simply go somewhere and take photographs – no theme, no agenda, no expectations. As a record of a day out, it works better than any 5,000-word essay: shapes,…
Enjoy The View
I wish I could remember taking this photograph, but I can’t; after all, it was a long time ago. I must have been up Clifton way, looking down over the…
Leaving The Shed
This 1947 photograph came into my care through family hand-me-downs and shows a retirement party at a Bingley mill in January 1947. It is not clear whether the person retiring…
