Day: March 10, 2024

Winging It

I seem to remember that this photograph - which shows my father, me in his arms, and my brother Roger - appeared in the Yorkshire Post around 1951. We were at Yeadon Airport visiting a display of fighter planes that had recently seen service in the Second World War. I'm still not sure how we … Continue reading Winging It

A Familiar Pint

I've always enjoyed taking photos of pubs almost as much as drinking in them. This picture of Halifax's Ring O'Bells, next to Halifax Minster, was taken over 50 years ago. Much has changed over the last half century, but it is still just about recognisable.

Selfie

Back in the days when cameras were great chunks of metal filled with film, and photographers and their phones were anything but smart, the only way of achieving a selfie was to stand in front of a mirror and hope for the best. This was me, 52 years ago.

Humph

I took this photograph of the late, great Humphrey Lyttelton when he and his band played at the Marsden Jazz Festival in 2006. I also got the chance to talk to him briefly - what a wonderful man he was.

Annie In The Garden

A photo probably taken in the 1940s of my Aunty Annie in the garden of her house on Carbottom Lane, Bradford. I can just about remember visiting the house and marvelling at the rather grand stone fireplace that they had installed in the front room.

Quebec Street, Elland

One of two photographs I took of Quebec Street in Elland in the early 1980s. The street seems empty of people and almost empty of cars but full of atmosphere.

Fishing Boats

Can it really be sixty years ago that I took this photograph! I can still remember walking down the harbour and liking the curve of the rope and thinking “that might work”. No, it was only yesterday, surely. Only a moment ago. Only a lifetime ago.

Sheep

In praise of photographic accidents. I'm not sure what went wrong when I took this photo - perhaps the sheep moved, perhaps I didn't have the camera set up right. Those serendipitous angels of image-making stepped in and left me with something pleasing in a woolly kind of way.

Same Streets

I think this was somewhere in the Potteries, but it could have been any of the triptych of locations - West Yorks, North Staffs, South Yorks - I spent the first half of my life in. The same streets, the same chimneys: but the same pride in hard work, the same social solidarity.