Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week could be made to measure for the two photos I am going to share. Although I chose the theme image, its connection to two old photographs I took some 52 years ago didn't occur to me until the other day when I was trawling through my collection of … Continue reading The Summer Of ’68
Category: Scanned Negatives
Halifax In Transition 1
In 1966 I took a walk around Godley Road and Beacon Hill in Halifax, taking photographs looking down on the town from the hillside. Halifax was already in transition - the mills were falling and the tower blocks rising - and the new Burdock Way would shortly cut through this part of town.
Fire In Halifax
These are four photographs I took in Halifax in the late 1960s. I remember the day well: I was walking up towards the library at Belle Vue when I came across a fire in one of the mills towards the bottom of Pellon Lane. I have published individual shots from this sequence before, but here … Continue reading Fire In Halifax
No More Nahums
I took this photograph of Salterhebble Hill in Halifax in the late 1960s for someone who wanted it as evidence in claim for compensation following an accident. Looking at it now, it is fascinating to see long-forgotten buildings such as Nahum's Union Mill standing where the Water Mill pub and restaurant now stands. This area … Continue reading No More Nahums
With Halifax As A Backdrop
On a regular trawl through my old negatives, I came across one of my favourite photographs from almost fifty years ago. It shows two young girls with the familiar sights of 1970s Halifax as a backdrop. Those two young girls from all those years ago are still part of my life: I married the one … Continue reading With Halifax As A Backdrop
Brighouse Basin Street Blues
During a regular scanning session of my old negatives, I came across this 35mm negative from the late 1960s - and I suspected that it had been taken in Brighouse Canal Basin. In order to confirm my suspicions, I took a walk there this morning and took a series of shots of the canal basin … Continue reading Brighouse Basin Street Blues
The Shaw Syke Redemption
The final two negatives from a 35mm strip shot almost forty years ago show what was left then - and I suspect, what still exists now - of the very first Halifax Station. Built at Shaw Syke in 1844 as the terminus for a branch of the Manchester and Leeds Railway, it survived less than … Continue reading The Shaw Syke Redemption
Snow, Grit And Cold Stone Steps
Two more from the same strip of negatives from thirty-nine years ago; two more from the area around Union Street and Hunger Hill, Halifax. Snow, back in those monochrome days, was a different entity: always dirty, layered with grit. These houses are built on a hillside, with their own terraced pavements up a flight of … Continue reading Snow, Grit And Cold Stone Steps
Back Hope
The second of the six negatives from 1980 : this was taken in Back Hope Terrace, Halifax, when standpipes provided drinking water and monochrome snow clung to the rooftops. It all seems so long ago.