Three For The Price Of One

 

I wanted something cheery for Friday the 13th - there is enough bad luck and misery going on around us at the moment without me adding to it. We also have a Sepia Saturday prompt this week that features family groups, so here is my brother (left), my mother, and I (I'm the cute one on the donkey). And as we are approaching Mother's Day, this is for you, Gladys. Happy, family, and mother: three for the price of one.

Nostalgia Noir

 

I can vaguely remember taking this photograph of Broad Street in Halifax from what must have been the top of the Bowling Alley in the late 1960s. It was back in the days of slow films and fast cars. You'd have to acquire a special Photoshop filter to get such crude results from even the most challenged smartphone today. They'd probably call the filter "Nostalgia Noir".

Mondrian's Market

 

Black and white, light and dark: Bradford's new Darley Street Market seemed to present photo opportunities with all the enthusiasm of an overstocked trader's stall. There were loads of straight lines - Piet Mondrian goes to Market - but there was also a slightly bleached quality to it, almost as though Hockney himself had visualised it.

Do Seagulls Screech In Cleethorpes?

 

Whenever I look back at the photos I took in Cleethorpes in the 1980s, I am reminded of the trauma caused by the gradual loss of my hearing during that decade. For whatever reason, I seemed to be drawn to open spaces, to that hinterland between land and sea where vision was king and hearing didn't matter. No doubt the seagulls screech in Cleethorpes, but I never heard them.

Hope

 

Yes, it's a bit dark, but the world is a bit dark at the moment. The question has to be: are the steps leading us into or out of the darkness? I took the photograph on Hope Hall Terrace in Halifax. Enough said.

Spring And All Souls

 

The panel which I featured a couple of days ago, showing Edward Akroyd laying the foundation stone for All Souls' Church, is nothing compared to the rather grand bronze statue of Colonel Akroyd of which it forms a part. Indeed, the statue itself is nothing compared to All Souls' Church, which it stands at the side of. Last week's spring sunshine showed them both at their very best.

The Girl With The Throwaway Glance

 

19th century photography is photography of the constrained: studio photography of fixed poses, fixed smiles and fixed emotions. The twentieth century brought cheaper cameras and that meant photography of the people by the people. Of the people leaning against a wall with arms folded, of the girl with the throwaway glance, of the dog snoozing in the shade.

Tired Souls

 

Right next to the Grade 1 listed All Souls' Church in Halifax, there is a statue of the Halifax mill-owner, social reformer, Member of Parliament and church-builder, Edward Akroyd. On the plinth of the statue are a number of decorative panels showing key events in his lifetime, one of which is the laying of the foundation stone for the church in 1856. The panel is now somewhat worn, weather-beaten, tired and forgotten. Tragically, so is the church it commemorates. 

Courage Brewing

 

This was Courage's Anchor Brewhouse, which was next to Tower Bridge in London, back in the 1970s. When I took the photograph, breweries were still big and located in the heart of our towns and cities. These days, breweries are either of the micro variety, or they are formless features on out-of-town industrial estates. As for the Anchor Brewhouse, you can now buy a small apartment there for as little as £5 million!

Droning On

 

These days you would just launch a drone, but back in the 1980s we didn't have drones (probably a good things seeing what else drones can do). If you wanted an aerial photograph like this one of Upperthorpe in Sheffield, you had to construct a brutalist concrete labyrinth (aka Kelvin Flats), climb to the very top, and take your photo. I like to think it was worth the climb.

Forsooth

 

Shakespeare Street, Halifax : A lane obscure, yet bearing a name of renown, once did serve as a stately portal to a playhouse, a haunt for souls who sought diversion and wisdom. Long hath it languished in adversity, and now is it haunted by sots and knaves.