I took this photograph in Akroyd Place, Halifax, in the early 1970s. It was fairly bleak and somewhat ominous even then. Fifteen or so years earlier, I remember being bussed to the Akroyd Place School Baths when it was even bleaker. I still have involuntary shivers when I pass where it used to be.
Tag: Scanned Negatives
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
Yorkshire Paradise
I took the photograph that became the basis for this image of Paradise Square in Sheffield back in 1980. There was snow on the ground, which was slowly being transformed into mucky slush. My digital messing has given the whole thing a brownish tint, which somehow suits it. Paradise - Yorkshire style.
The Crown
The Crown Brewery once stood on Bradford Road in the village of Northowram, just north of Halifax. It was built in the 1870s as a brewery by John Eastwood, a local farmer who had turned his hand to brewing a few years earlier. The brewery closed in 1900, and the building was finally demolished in … Continue reading The Crown
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.
Faith On Rhodes Street
It's a funny thing, faith. It asks you to park reason up a side street and wander the streets looking for meaning. Maybe there is meaning, but there again, maybe there is just an infinite greyscale of uncertainty. Or maybe there is just an old photo of Cross Rhodes Street in Halifax.
Priceless
I've spent a fair amount of my life taking photographs, and whenever I am tempted to question whether I would have been better off doing something else, I look at photographs like this one. It's far from being a great photograph; it's badly cropped and full of distracting shadows. But it's my father, and it's … Continue reading Priceless
Inconsequential Shed
Given enough time, even the most inconsequential images acquire value from a social and historical perspective. Walking under Halifax's North Bridge over half a century ago, I was taken by the hanging measuring bar on the old railway sheds. Within a couple of years, the building, the lines, and the hanging bar were but memories, … Continue reading Inconsequential Shed
Trident And TV
The industrial north has always excelled when it comes to contrasts: dark and light, green and grey, smoky chimneys and graceful statues. This photograph of mine is from the 1970s and shows the back of the Britannia Building, which stands at one end of Elland Bridge. Britannia sits aloft, holding a trident and a TV … Continue reading Trident And TV
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