Guess The Building

Here’s a fun diversion for a miserable Monday morning: take a photograph of a famous Calderdale building, ask a friendly AI bot to turn it into an architectural drawing, and then ask people to guess which building it’s supposed to be. I’ll post the original photograph - and the location - at the end of … Continue reading Guess The Building

Neoplasticism And Halifax Borough Market

The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was one of the founders of the art movement known as Neoplasticism. His palette was limited to the three primary colours - red, blue, and yellow - along with black, white, and grey. The result was art composed of lines and shapes. As far as I know, Mondrian never visited … Continue reading Neoplasticism And Halifax Borough Market

The End Of The Film

I like to think that, when Bill Brandt walked up Old Lane in Halifax in 1937, he took his famous Snicket in Halifax photo. He then climbed to the top of the steps leading to the railway bridge and took his equally famous Halifax photo. After walking down the other side, he turned and cursed … Continue reading The End Of The Film

Halifax – New York – Halifax

Where can you find Halifax in New York? The answer is on the fifth floor of the Museum of Modern Art on West 53rd Street. There, you will find a copy of Bill Brandt’s 1937 photograph, Halifax - a clear indication that it is regarded as one of the finest twentieth-century photographs. My interpretation, taken … Continue reading Halifax – New York – Halifax

In The Steps Of Genius

Old Lane in Halifax was the setting for two of the finest photographs of the twentieth century. The fourth frame on my forty-year-old strip of negatives is my rather mediocre recreation of Bill Brandt’s magnificent 1937 photograph, Snicket in Halifax. The original is easy to find online, and it is worth noting that little had … Continue reading In The Steps Of Genius

Halifax

Bridge over bridge, concrete over iron, set against a hillside as old as time. Over my nearly eight decades, I’ve travelled widely, but Halifax was, is, and will remain my greatest source of inspiration. This is the third photograph from that strip of negatives taken forty years ago.

Bus On A Bridge

The second image in my strip of six negatives, taken 40 years ago, shows a bus on a bridge. The bridge is, of course, Burdock Way in Halifax. If you look closely, you may see that the bus is advertising even more local editions of the local newspaper. Forty years later, the photograph would have … Continue reading Bus On A Bridge

Lest we Forget

Lest we forget the days when images were chemical stains on translucent cellulose acetate, and photographic imagination was limited by the number of frames left on a roll of film. This week, I am limiting myself to a single strip of six negatives, all exposed around Halifax some forty years ago. The first image is, … Continue reading Lest we Forget

What Goes Around ….

My postcard this week takes us back to a time when political cartoons were considered suitable content for picture postcards. It also takes us back to 1903–04, when the idea of free trade was being challenged by politicians advocating protectionism and the use of tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy - most notably Joseph … Continue reading What Goes Around ….