When Markets Were Markets

 

This photograph comes from the same strip of negatives as the one I featured yesterday and, we now know - thanks to research by Paul Hartley and Michael Horsfield - was taken back in 1967/68. It shows the old Brighouse Market, not far from where the bus station is today. This was back in the day when markets were markets (corrugated steel and light bulbs hanging by a wire), men were men (donkey jackets and flat caps) and women carried bags big enough to hold a stone of potatoes.

Time Extinguisher

 

I've tried to make up for the lack of a precise date on this photograph of mine by going back to the archives of the Milk Marketing Board to discover when this "Thirst Extinguisher" advert was current. No success so far, but perhaps the Bedford van and the three wheeled car are better clues. My guess is that we are being transported back to the late 1960s. "Photography - Time Extinguisher"

Domino Run

 

I took this photograph getting on for twenty years ago. It shows Cowcliffe Hill Road plunging down towards a suitably undefined Huddersfield. It's that row of terraced houses that captures the attention: stone-slate dominoes lined up, ready to tumble.

Skegness Rock

 

You can cut this picture up into a dozen pieces, and each one will have Skegness running through it. It will have a bracing wind blowing sand up from the North Sea beaches, it will have slot machines and dodgem cars, plastic buckets, and caravan parks. A bargain bundle for only one pound.

Edwardian AI

 

This early twentieth century picture postcard image of the approach to Halifax Railway Station has the look of something that has been created by a cut-price AI image colourising programme. It wasn't; it was created by the Edwardian equivalent, a cut-price studio assistant with instructions to make the hills green, the sky blue, and the horses look happy. It wasn't true, of course, but anyone who has been within a hundred miles of Halifax will instantly recognise the scene.

Real People, Real Lives

 

Whilst photographs may start out life as things that are intensely personal - this is Aunty Vera, this is our holiday - after a century or more pressed in an album and becoming sepia with age and neglect, they become things of interest to us all. The scene, the clothes, who is there (and who isn't): this is the stuff of history. These are not idealised portraits of kings and potentates; these are real people living real lives a century ago.

Just Messing

 

Why do we take photographs? Despite a lifetime of taking them, I am no closer to finding an answer. It's partly about wanting to capture a moment or maybe share a visual thought, but that is only part of the answer. I was walking the dog yesterday and stopped to take a photograph. "What are you doing?" she asked as she sniffed a leftover slice of pizza near a rubbish bin. "Just messing", I replied.

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.