Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Marking The Passage Of Time In A White Vest


There are few things in life I enjoy more than scanning old negatives. I know that makes me sound like a "saddo", but so be it. Scanning allows you to go back and achieve two thing : first, correct mistakes made at the time of taking the original photograph, and, second, to counteract the ravages of time. Just think if these options were more widely available : you could go back to September 1972 and not have that final pint of cider which was the tipping point that led to the disastrous chain of events you are still not comfortable talking about forty years later. Just imagine what it would be like if, with one sweep of the Bamboo pen, you could remove all those collective aches and pains that have accumulated over the years. But you can't. You will have to sit back and mark the passage of time by counting the mill chimneys - or the drying vests - in this view over Halifax which I took back in 1966 and rediscovered and rescanned last night.

8 comments:

  1. That's a great shot, Alan! Very evocative, a bit of "Olde England" tucked in amidst that industrial landscape.

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  2. The 'clean' laundry hanging in the dirty air.

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  3. A photo redolent with the damp smoky air of Northern England.

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  4. Where would an Englishman be on a beach without his white vest? My 1960s 'cider' moment was black navy rum - never touched since.

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  5. Perpetually grey laundry. How sad to wear freshly sooted laundry.

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  6. This whole photo says mood. One can hardly believe that the atmospheric conditions wee so bad.

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  7. Super photo. How did people live past the age of thirty breathing that every day? The vests used to freeze solid on the line growing up in Scotland.

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