This is the children's merry-go-round outside Marks and Spencer's in Halifax. The rain was falling and the scene was sad, so I thought it could do with a little cheering up. Is it art, or is it AI kitsch? By the time I'd thought about it, the merry-go-round had gone round.
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The Shape Of History
The raw shape of this scene is not all that different now to what it was when this postcard was first published more than a hundred years ago. Most of these buildings in this corner of Halifax are still in place: there's more traffic these days, of course, and those elaborate tram poles are long … Continue reading The Shape Of History
The Church On The Hill
St Thomas's Church has stood out like some spiritual beacon looking down on industrial Halifax from the hilltop at Claremount since the 1860s. However, in the 1960s, it lost its spire, then its congregation, then its religious status and slowly began to fade behind the ever-spreading hillside woodland. My photo captured it about ten years … Continue reading The Church On The Hill
Sunny Bunces
By the 1960s, all that was left of the once magnificent Sunny Vale Pleasure Gardens was a Go-Kart track, a rubbish-filled lake and a host of memories. There were two lakes - Victoria and Alexandra - and I am not sure which this one was. It is hard to imagine that this forgotten little valley, … Continue reading Sunny Bunces
Messing About
There is a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from messing about with old photographs (I use the phrase "messing about" in its technical sense - the experimental algorithmic application of miscellaneous digital filters). Here is what became of a 1960s photo of mine of one of the quarries in Northowram - I forget … Continue reading Messing About
Minster Memories
Sorting through some old photographs of mine from half a century or more ago, I came across this one of the then Halifax Parish Church (now, Halifax Minster). Dating the photograph is tricky - the fabric of the church itself hasn't changed all that much in centuries. The real time-stamp is, of course, Beacon Hill … Continue reading Minster Memories
Concentrated Nostalgia
Brown paper bags, pounds, shilling, and pence, headscarves and overcoats - it's almost as though someone had bought a tube of concentrated nostalgia and squeezed it all over this photograph of mine of Halifax Borough Market back in the 1960s. And if they really did sell tubes of concentrated nostalgia, you would have been sure … Continue reading Concentrated Nostalgia
Strangely Satisfying Shapes
The starting point of this image was a photograph I took in Brighouse Canal Basin thirty years ago. The shapes seemed more important than the details, so I messed with it a bit. The result is, I think, strangely satisfying.
The Beehive And Cross Keys
The Beehive and Cross Keys in King Cross Street, Halifax was built in 1932 following the demolition of two earlier pubs: yes, you guessed it, the Beehive and the Cross Keys. The new pub was a functional 1930s affair designed by local architects Walsh and Maddocks. Functional it may have been, but in addition to the … Continue reading The Beehive And Cross Keys
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