This view of Elland is taken from an old picture postcard, published more than 120 years ago. Of course, Elland has changed; most of those mill chimneys have gone, and blocks of flats stand where back-to-back houses once clung to the hillside. The river remains, and those roads that either snake along the valley bottom … Continue reading Snakes And Branches
Tag: Calendar
Enjoy The Music
A family sat outside a cottage relaxing and listening to music streaming from a wind-up gramophone. It's a classic "found photo" - dripping with detail and asking more questions than any government census form. We'll never get answers, but that doesn't matter: sit back and enjoy the music.
Digging For Memories
This is my father digging the back garden at our house in Northowram back in the late 1950s. He might as well have been digging for memories because there are so many of them in this picture: that lethal asbestos hut, those granite sets liberated from the nearby quarry, and that youth perched on the … Continue reading Digging For Memories
Keeping Watch
I've been taking this picture for 60 years. I've watched the names change, and I've seen the stone soot-black and bleached pale. I've seen the Hebble flow fast and slow. I've seen carpets and spreadsheets, dyers and diners. Here's hoping for another year to keep watch over this glorious Halifax.
Musical Conflagration
It must have been the same day as the "Fire In Halifax" photos I featured earlier this week as this image is on the same strip of negatives. This, however, is a musical conflagration courtesy of a brass band in People's Park, Halifax. By the look of things, the band outnumbered the audience.
Market Days
Brighouse is in the process of getting a new market. My photograph isn't of the old market - it's of the even older market. I'm not sure what the new building will turn out like, but I doubt whether there will be a corrugated iron roof nor tarpaulins stretched over banana boxes.
Life Preservers
I can never get over the ability of old photographs to capture and preserve life. This photo was probably taken during World War II. I have no idea who the subject was, but that doesn't matter. That moment of introspection, that moment when the wind caught her hair, will live as long as images are … Continue reading Life Preservers
The Walkway
I took this photo of Elland sometime in the early 1970s. It has all the ingredients: kids running across concrete walkways between soulless housing blocks and Elland power station fading away into a memory. Those kids will be in their 50s or 60s now, and the power station's long gone. The walkway is still there.
Reality Demolished
Today's photograph started life eight years ago - it was taken whilst I walked around Huddersfield. I messed with it yesterday, getting rid of a few distractions like significant parts of the town centre, whilst watching football on TV. It's not real, but there again, what is?
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