Stolen Ideas

More than ten years ago on one of my visits to Halifax, West Yorkshire, I went in search of unusual corners and angles. Halifax has always kept its little secrets, and if you search you can find plenty that hasn't changed for a century or more. Wandering around the converted Crossley's carpet mill I came across this striking steep footpath with the mill in the background and I knew it would make a great picture.

Here it is:




So: It came as a surprise to find I had taken exactly the same view that the excellent Bill Brandt had taken, standing in the same spot 60 years before. Comparing his picture with mine you can even match the cobblestones. Should I be miffed or flattered that he had the same eye for a picture as me? Since then I discovered that photographers seek this place out so that they can deliberately copy the great man's shot.


Halifax is slowly cleaning itself. In Bill Brandt's day* it was uniformly Matt black. Now most of the buildings are re-appearing blinking in the sunlight as golden sandstone.Back in the late 1990s when I took these pictures there was still quite a lot of black around.

Finally, here under the cast iron North Bridge there must be the maddest building in town. I suppose the plot would have been cheap, being as it was actually in the river Calder...



*I knew a Halifax local that met Brandt when he was visiting and documenting Halifax in the late 1930s. Brandt observed that you can't photograph poverty. However you do it, there is always a touch of romance about the image and never enough realism.

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