Neoplasticism And Halifax Borough Market

The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was one of the founders of the art movement known as Neoplasticism. His palette was limited to the three primary colours - red, blue, and yellow - along with black, white, and grey. The result was art composed of lines and shapes. As far as I know, Mondrian never visited Halifax, but it is hard not to feel that he might have found inspiration there after looking up at the ceiling of Borough Market.

The End Of The Film

I like to think that, when Bill Brandt walked up Old Lane in Halifax in 1937, he took his famous Snicket in Halifax photo. He then climbed to the top of the steps leading to the railway bridge and took his equally famous Halifax photo. After walking down the other side, he turned and cursed because he had run out of film. Conversely, I had one frame left - so here is the shot Brandt missed. (He would have had to wait a few years for Burdock Way to be built.)

Halifax - New York - Halifax

 

Where can you find Halifax in New York? The answer is on the fifth floor of the Museum of Modern Art on West 53rd Street. There, you will find a copy of Bill Brandt’s 1937 photograph, Halifax - a clear indication that it is regarded as one of the finest twentieth-century photographs. My interpretation, taken forty years ago and the fifth image from my chosen strip of negatives, is but a pale imitation of the original.

In The Steps Of Genius

 

Old Lane in Halifax was the setting for two of the finest photographs of the twentieth century. The fourth frame on my forty-year-old strip of negatives is my rather mediocre recreation of Bill Brandt’s magnificent 1937 photograph, Snicket in Halifax. The original is easy to find online, and it is worth noting that little had changed during the half-century leading up to my photograph of the same snicket.

Halifax

 

Bridge over bridge, concrete over iron, set against a hillside as old as time. Over my nearly eight decades, I’ve travelled widely, but Halifax was, is, and will remain my greatest source of inspiration. This is the third photograph from that strip of negatives taken forty years ago.

Bus On A Bridge

The second image in my strip of six negatives, taken 40 years ago, shows a bus on a bridge. The bridge is, of course, Burdock Way in Halifax. If you look closely, you may see that the bus is advertising even more local editions of the local newspaper. Forty years later, the photograph would have been taken on a mobile phone — which would also have been the platform for local news. The bus, however, would still be there!

Lest We Forget

Lest we forget the days when images were chemical stains on translucent cellulose acetate, and photographic imagination was limited by the number of frames left on a roll of film. This week, I am limiting myself to a single strip of six negatives, all exposed around Halifax some forty years ago. The first image is, as far as I can remember, of Oats Royd Mill in Luddenden, taken before it was badly damaged by fire in 1989.

What Goes Around ....

My postcard this week takes us back to a time when political cartoons were considered suitable content for picture postcards. It also takes us back to 1903–04, when the idea of free trade was being challenged by politicians advocating protectionism and the use of tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy - most notably Joseph Chamberlain, who urged the rest of Balfour’s Cabinet to join him. You would probably find similar cartoons on social media today - plus ça change!

Friendly Fire

 

For the past 848 weeks, Sepia Saturday has offered themes that allow lovers of old photographs from around the world to share their favourite images. This month’s themes are working their way through the elements, and this week’s theme is “fire”.My submission is this rather sweet photograph from, I think, the 1920s, which I have entitled “Friendly Fire”.

The Mist Of Time

Those who know the town of Brighouse can have fun with this picture - which I must have taken sixty or so years ago - trying to work out where I took it from and what the various buildings, fading into the post-industrial mist of time, are. Many have now gone, and most of those that remain have entirely different uses from those they had back in the 1960s.

Standing On The Edge

It seems so long ago - almost another age. The colours and styles may have changed, but then, as now, we stood on the edge and looked out.

Bare Beacon

 

When I look back at the pictures I took of Halifax in the 1960s and ’70s - the town I have always considered home - several things stand out. The town had a greyness then that went beyond an over-reliance on monochrome photography. There were still plenty of mill chimneys breaking up the skyline. Most striking of all, Beacon Hill was bare, devoid of any meaningful vegetation.

Good Taste

Sitting in a restaurant, whiling away the time while the others enjoyed their starters, I began playing with the reflections of the bottles behind the bar. Within a handful of seconds, my photograph had bounced from Thongsbridge to an AI mega-kitchen on the far side of the world, where it was cooked to perfection and served back to me. Good taste.

St Thomas And The Gasworks (Again)

 

This is another of those scenes I kept returning to in the 1960s, and I have several versions of it in my negative archive. Perhaps it was fortunate that I did my best to capture the scene in all its glory, because shortly afterwards, not only was the Gasworks frame demolished, but so too was the central feature: the tower of St Thomas’ Church in Claremount.

Here For The Day

This week, our weekly picture-postcard puzzle takes us to the United States. It is April 1906, and the writer simply tells us that his hand is still improving and that he is “here for the day.” The place in question appears to be the Pensions Building in Washington DC, where Civil War pensions were calculated and administered. The card was addressed to J. Hemmings, Esq., at the corporate headquarters of the Nobel Explosives Company. Make of all that what you will!

Shapes, Shades, And Stories

 

Sometimes you simply go somewhere and take photographs - no theme, no agenda, no expectations. As a record of a day out, it works better than any 5,000-word essay: shapes, shades, and stories.

Enjoy The View

 

I wish I could remember taking this photograph, but I can’t; after all, it was a long time ago. I must have been up Clifton way, looking down over the lower Calder Valley towards Brighouse. If you can’t get to sleep tonight, you could try the industrial West Yorkshire equivalent of counting sheep: counting mill chimneys. Then again, you could just relax and enjoy the view.

Leaving The Shed

 

This 1947 photograph came into my care through family hand-me-downs and shows a retirement party at a Bingley mill in January 1947. It is not clear whether the person retiring is the man or the woman at the centre of the photograph, but I suspect it is Abraham Moore, my uncle’s father, who worked as a weaving-shed manager. To be on the safe side, I have captioned the image “Leaving the Weaving Shed.”

Framed

When you’ve got a good subject - say, a fifteenth-century Grade I parish church - you need a good frame. What better frame for a church steeped in toil and industry than a nineteenth-century railway viaduct? My photo dates from a time when Halifax Parish Church was properly framed; now the subject remains, but the frame has long since been demolished.

Electric Houses And Botany Worsted Suits

 

Two adverts from Halifax newspapers 100 years ago today paint an interesting picture of society in the 1920s. One advert is for new suits, available from Sam Stocks for £5.50. The other advertises a competition to win a new house, fully fitted with electricity, or alternatively, a cheque for £2,000. If we apply the same ratio between the two prices and base it on what I paid for a new suit a couple of weeks ago, the new house would cost £56,000.