In The Early morning Rain

 

This photograph of mine, taken a good few years ago, shows the Lisbon monument commemorating Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral's first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic in 1922. I particularly like the pigeon perched at the end of the wing, hitching a lift. I'm reminded of the Gordon Lightfoot lyric: “You can't jump a jet plane / Like you can a freight train.” Says who?

A Modicum Of Luck

 

Another example of what can be achieved through a combination of an unsophisticated camera, a semi-skilled photographer and a modicum of luck. I took this forty years ago - in Doncaster, I think - but you couldn’t do it these days: the all-too-smart camera would produce a perfect exposure and a forgettable image.

2611.070

 

When I was young, I used to dream about changing the world or writing the definitive book on the lives of the great British brewers. But as I have got older, my dreams have changed. Now, as I drift off to sleep each night, I think about my plans to complete the catalogue of my collection of old photographs. Given the boxes and drawers full of lost and abandoned old photos, you might say it is an impossible task. But then again, so was changing the world. Here's catalogue number 2611.070: it's the stuff of dreams.

Breathless In Sheffield

 

The photograph is from more than forty years ago and shows the steps leading up to Fitzalan Square in Sheffield from Bakers Hill. In the early 1980s, I commuted by bus and train between Sheffield, where I lived, and Doncaster, where I worked. Many a night, I would race up those steps in a mad dash to catch my bus home. Just looking at the photograph now makes me feel out of breath!

News From Nowhere No. 3,230

It was twenty years ago today (well, in fact, it was twenty years ago yesterday, but that doesn’t have the same musical ring to it) that I uploaded the first post to my News From Nowhere blog. Since then, there have been 3,230 posts and 3,913,493 visits. That first post featured a picture of the village of Burton Salmon in Yorkshire, and I’m reprising it for this special anniversary. If you want to know what I was doing in Burton Salmon back in 2006, you’ll have to become the 3,913,494th visitor to the blog.

That's Life

Street scenes like this one - which I photographed in France half a century or so ago - are wonderful reflections of everyday life. Nobody is posing, and no Sunday best clothes are on display; all you have is life in all its variety and confusion. There is no subject, and that itself is the subject. There is no story being told - which is a story in itself. That's life.

Long Time, Long Jump

 

I've been taking photographs for a long time. Here's one from sixty years ago, taken when I was still at school in Halifax. Some ran, some jumped, and others held the tape measure to see how far they had travelled. I just stood there and took photographs.

A Photo Of Time

 

It was such a long time ago. I look at the photograph now and search for myself. I find the hint of a look, the corner of a dream, and the start of a story. Yes, it is a photograph of me, but it is also a photograph of time itself.

Looking Down

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the view from Halifax, looking up the hillside towards the church of St Thomas on Claremount Road, is one that I have photographed again and again over the last six decades. The same is true of the view in the opposite direction: on so many occasions, I have stood amongst those stone gravestones and taken pictures looking down on Halifax. Here is one from 2009, when the church was still an active place of worship rather than the sad building it is today.

Exposed

Another of my Sheffield photos from the early 1980s. When using black-and-white film, cut out the grey middleman and concentrate on shapes and outlines - a fancy way of saying I didn’t get the exposure right!

Bruges Bronze

This was among some photographs of mine from the late 1980s, and I must confess that I had completely forgotten what it was or where I had taken it. A quick reverse image search provided the answer: "The image shows a historic bronze water pump spout in Bruges, Belgium, featuring a grotesque or Green Man face and water-spitting dragons or serpents".