Welcome to the Website of Alan Burnett: writer, blogger, collector of old photographs, and devotee of all things pointless and inconsequential.
Waiting For The Cable To Drop
This is an old photograph, picked at random from the boxes and drawers of old photographs I live with. There is nothing special about it – I have no idea who Mac and Burbidge were – other than that it sums up everything I love about old photographs. I could no doubt feed it through an AI machine and it would come out looking clean and new … and somehow false. It’s the sepia patina of time that makes it special.
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Temple To Steam
While we’re on the subject of ancient monuments (see yesterday’s post), what about this fine obelisk? Built as a temple to Steam, the god of industry, it was worshipped by thousands of…
Them And Us
Down south, if they find a load of standing stones, they declare it an ancient monument and charge people £30 to look at it. Up north, we simply assume they’re there to…
Waves And Hills
I think this photograph of mine of Elland dates from the early 1980s, but I can’t remember the exact date (oh, how I wish we had metadata back in those pre-digital days).…
An Illustration
At what point does a photograph become an illustration? I’m not sure of the answer, but it probably has something to do with tones and lines. This illustration of Halifax…
Happy Birthday
Sometimes words aren’t really necessary: Happy birthday to my beautiful wife and my very best friend.
The Nature Of Reality And The Digital Dilemma
This “image” (I’m not sure what to call it, I certainly didn’t paint it in the conventional sense) is based on a photograph I took in Sheffield in the 1980s.…
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