50 Shades Of Reality

An old negative of mine from 50 years ago with a dusting of colour provided by some Artificial Intelligence App. The results of such experiments remind me of the artificial colouring of vintage postcards during the first decade of the twentieth century: the results are not exactly accurate, but are attractive to the eye and … Continue reading 50 Shades Of Reality

Ticket To Ride

Uncle Frank collected bus tickets. That's not all: he also collected tape recordings of tv adverts from the 1950s, cigarette cards, and the occasional stamp. It was a relatively harmless pastime, and nothing like as disruptive to the family as, say, Auntie Amy, who collected husbands. I still have some of his old bus tickets … Continue reading Ticket To Ride

Walking The Dog

One element of the Peace Agreement which brought an end to the Where Shall We Go For Our Daily Walk Marital War, was a stipulation, insisted upon by my wife, that we had to go for a walk up Greetland at least once a month. Yesterday was the day, and a beautiful day it was.

Britannia Over Elland

For over a century, Britannia has sat on top of the old bank building and the end of Elland Bridge, flanked by columns of Aberdeen granite, two pubs, and a host of mill chimneys. Whether she was looking at the old gas works, watching the traffic of the new by-pass or scanning Elland Woods - … Continue reading Britannia Over Elland

Rediscovering The Fellow Travellers

This is a photograph of unknown origin, the type of thing some people call an orphan image, which I must have acquired at some point as part of a job lot of old photographs nobody wanted any more. There is, however, an almost painterly quality about it: someone has taken the time to pose the … Continue reading Rediscovering The Fellow Travellers

RIP In DPI

The colour has gone from my life. What was once a rainbow's worth of saturated hues is now an endless progression of grey on grey on slightly more grey. This chromatic calamity occurred suddenly yesterday evening, and was apparently due to a blocked nozzle. I attempted to clear the blockage with some patent mixture I … Continue reading RIP In DPI

The Scent Of Heritage

This is a photograph from forty years ago of Cannon Mills in Great Horton, Bradford. It is a hundred yards away from where my father was born and grew up. It is a mile away from where I was born and spent the first four years of my life. And yet, I hardly know the … Continue reading The Scent Of Heritage

The Beerage

This is a photograph from forty years ago of the statue to Michael Arthur Bass, First Baron Burton. It stood - indeed if Google StreetView is to be believed, it still stands - in front of Burton Town Hall, where the bronze baron supervises the car park. I took the photograph to illustrate a book … Continue reading The Beerage