Halifax Piece Hall back in the 1970s and 80s: in transition between low carrots and high culture. Half full stalls and half empty walkways: dark days and wet cobbles. Everything is so much brighter now, the scale is so much grander.
Year: 2020
Scan To Survive
What else is there to do during lockdown than visit the past? Therefore, I scan to survive; and the strip of negatives that took the journey across the scanner today included a set of photos shot in a typically West Yorkshire field some fifty years ago. In the first photograph the field divide is a … Continue reading Scan To Survive
Kids These Days
Kids these days! They're surgically attached to their mobile phones. Never off them. You can't have a good old fashioned conversation with them any more, because they are glued to their phones. Now, when I was a lad ...... I received through the post today, a copy of Lilliput Magazine from October 1947 (has anyone … Continue reading Kids These Days
Mother And Child
This rather beautiful studio photograph that somehow found its way into my collection must date from the early years of the twentieth century. There is something about the look and dress of the woman that hints more towards Great War munition worker than Victorian housewife. There is an indented studio name near the bottom of … Continue reading Mother And Child
Too Beautiful
Can something be too beautiful for these difficult days? To idyllic for the dark times within which it is set? This footpath through the woods in Fixby tests the theory to its extremes.
Open Wounds And Cobbled Streets
Demolition : Dean Street and Granville Street, Elland (1970s) It is a sight you don't see much any more - demolition on a large scale. These days it's more discreet: hidden behind scaffolding and plastic sheets. This was Elland back in the early 1970s, when the demolition teams left open wounds: cobbled streets without a … Continue reading Open Wounds And Cobbled Streets
Bridge End Congregational Church, Brighouse
They loved churches and chapels in these parts. In the nineteenth century, every street corner or half-empty plot became potentially sacred ground - if it hadn't been occupied by a beerhouse already. The churches and chapels they built were often grand affairs, signalling piety without recourse to subtlety. And when the praying stopped, other uses … Continue reading Bridge End Congregational Church, Brighouse
The Cocoa Sheds Of Elland
OLD SHED, CHARLES STREET, ELLAND c1970 In the days of black and white,In total love I fell, andWe'd walk the streets all day and night,By the cocoa sheds of Elland. (With sincere apologies to John Betjeman)
Bluebells In The Woods
BRADLEY WOODS, FIXBY, HUDDERSFIELD Being limited in the distance you can travel allows you to discover beauty close to home. All too often we are fooled into the belief that grand sights have to be paid for with mindless travel over great distances. Only if you have sat crumpled up on a noisy plane for … Continue reading Bluebells In The Woods
alanburnett.com 