Soot

I have been visiting Halifax in West Yorkshire on and off all my life,  I can remember it when I lived there as a child. In those days we kids were told not to run our hands along the walls because they would end up covered in soot.

Yes, its true that just about every structure, every building bridge and wall was black in my memory. It was accepted as part of Industrial Britain.

Now that I am completely grown up I find these blackened walls just as fascinating, although this time from a photographic perspective. They are an endangered species. Ever since the early 1990s Halifax has turned the pressure washer on itself and street after street has emerged as golden grown sandstone and blinking in the sunlight. The transformation is remarkable.

Thus these grainy monochrome images from twenty years ago show historical traces that are becoming scarce and hard to find these days. 

Furthermore, there is also another technical problem. How do you photograph soot in sunlight? The result tends to be a slightly dark grey scene, rather than that rich black you are seeking.

Quite apart from the usual strategy of under-exposing to fool the camera light meter into making the right decision, one has to fight the impression that sunlight lends a certain optimism to the image. We were not after bright and cheerful, were we...

No, it seems the answer is to visit the town on a foggy November morning and take the HP5 film and the tripod. That way you might be able to portray the place as the gloomy and soot covered relic that it isn't any more :-)