1085 : Serendipity At The Black Friar

One of the delights of the random scanning of old negatives is the occasional serendipity it creates. This weekend I am being taken for a belated birthday treat on a tour (crawl) of some of the more delightful pubs of London. And by chance this morning I scanned a negative of a picture taken 30 years ago of one of the pubs that I will hopefully be visiting : the Black Friar. Hopefully, the exterior will not have changed (it's a listed building) but it will be interesting to see if the beer has improved.

1084 Just What It Says On The Tin

Spent a fair amount of time trying to come up with a title for this shot - a re-scan of one of my 1980s negatives. But at the end of the day it is a garage with a black and white door. Just what it says on the tin.

1083 : Like The Shoreline And The Sea

I am getting caught up in Leonard Cohen lyrics again. This really is one of my very favourite images from the recent batch I have scanned and one which is bound to make it to the 2013 Calendar. It's Cleethorpes, it's the early 1980s, it's grim.

1082 : Stuck On The Pier

I think this is Cleethorpes: it looks a bit like Cleethorpes and I did take a lot of photographs there in the early 1980s. If so, that is Cleethorpes Pier, but where the rest of it is?. How on earth did the customers get to the end of the pier shows? It's one of the deep mysteries of life.

1081 : So Long Marianne On Gog Hill

The answer to the Leonard Cohen question was, of course, So Long Marianne:

Your letters they all say that you're beside me now.
Then why do I feel alone?
I'm standing on a ledge and your fine spider web
Is fastening my ankle to a stone.
Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began ...

So today we say so long to her on Gog Hill in Elland, photographed some 30 years ago.

1080 : Fastening My Ankle To A Stone

Houses clinging to a hillside in Halifax in the 1970s. And somehow they remind me of a Leonard Cohen lyric.

1079 : More Mills

Whatever period in my photographic life I go back to during my scanner-dipping, I seem to come up with pictures of mills. This was probably taken in the late 1970s and, I am almost certain, it is in Elland, West Yorkshire.

1078 : Lessons 1 and 2

Elland Street : 1980s

The first lesson of composition is to avoid strong vertical lines that dissect your composition. The second rule is to ignore the first.

1077 : I'm Still Standing

If proof were ever needed that I return like a lovesick Tomcat to a potentially stunning image, this shot of the rooftops over Elland is it. I suspect I have featured a similar view on Picture Post before, but this is definitely a different shot as I have never been able to scan these negatives before. The statue is on top of the old premises of the Huddersfield and Halifax Bank in Elland, West Yorkshire.

1076 : Feel, Shape And Balance

Another of my recent scans. I am not sure where the photograph was taken but it must have been on the edge of the moors. Wherever it was, I just like the feel of it, the shape of it and the strange balance of it.

1075 : Snicket In Halifax

Lovers of the photography of the late Bill Brandt will recognise the scene which formed the basis of his famous 1937 photograph, Snicket in Halifax. My photograph was taken some 40 years later and resurfaces almost 40 years after that when it emerges at the top of my pile of negatives to re-scan.

1074 : Mill Fire Escape : Halifax, 1980s

Nothing more to say.

1073 : Backstreet

Backstreet in Sheffield, taken some time in the early 1980s, at a time when we lived in one of these houses. Good houses, solid houses, happy houses.

1072 : Crookesmoor, Sheffield

This is the first of what will be a series of scans of large format negatives I took back in the 1970s and 1980s. I have been wanting to digitise these old negatives for ages but my existing scanner could not handle the format. My new scanner opens a door to these old 6x6 negatives and I will share them with you as I work my way through the negative file. This shot shows the junction of Crookes Valley Road and Crookesmoor Road in Sheffield.