There is, of course, nothing "natural" about black and white photographs - they are about as fake as a Trumpian truth. They do however - B&W photos, not Trump - allow you to concentrate on shapes and lines and not get distracted by the extravagance of colour. Thus, the splendid Halifax Town Hall from Broadway … Continue reading Halifax Town Hall

A photo of mine from the late 1960s, taken from Godley Branch Road looking down on Halifax. I suspect I incorporated the tree because such things were so rare up Beacon Hill in those days. You wouldn't be able to take a similar shot today - you can't see the town for the trees!

I remember the sixties and seventies in monochrome. When I occasionally come across one of my colour photographs from those days, it somehow seems all wrong, like a Technicolor film on a bad day. Whilst the streets were grey and the skies were grey, the fish and chips - hot from the fryer -radiated colour.

I came across an illustration the other day of two children being hauled up a mineshaft. After a little research I discovered that not only was the illustration a “real” record of two actual named children, but even more surprisingly, it was based on the practices at a coal mine just a few miles away … Continue reading MINING FOR COAL AND A WARM BATH

Like anyone else, I can see the beauty in a natural landscape. Find me a photograph of craggy hills sweeping down to mirror-smooth lakes and I will swoon with the best of them. Get me a picture of ripe-rich grain swaying in an evening breeze against a bucolic green background, and I will pin it … Continue reading UNDER THE BRIDGE

Not that many people know of Salvador Dali's 1968 surrealist sculpture "Escape From Time In Heaven" which was on public display in Halifax in the late 1960s. I did go to see it myself and was very impressed by it - I even took the photograph you see here - but I have difficulty recalling … Continue reading Escape From Heavenly Time

I’ve always been attracted to this scene and I have photographed it a number of times over the years. These days it is the tamest of views, the mills, railway viaducts and steam have all gone. Back in the 1960s, however, it belched life along with smoke and soot and sweat.

Most of my old photos of Halifax tend to be looking down onto the town from the surrounding hilltops, providing the kind of view that we get from Google Earth and the like. When I abandoned the hilltops the results were layer after layer of chimneys, stacks and towers.