admin, Author at notquitelight.com

04 Jun 2015

OLD MILL STREET, ANCOATS 4.16AM

OLD MILL STREET, NEW ISLINGTON, ANCOATS 4.16AM – I’ve recently returned from North Carolina where people were astonished to hear, over an honest glass of Moonshine, that Manchester’s economic fortunes were so badly affected by the American Civil war. I told them about the statue of Abraham Lincoln, and the principled boycott of southern cotton that led to real hardship in the city. I also met a man who’d been part of the team that developed GPS mapping, who now […]

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02 Jun 2015

CHATLEY STREET, CHEETHAM HILL 5.26AM

CHATLEY STREET, CHEETHAM HILL 5.26AM – I’ve always wondered what was in the minds of the Victorian men that designed, and then constructed, the strange phallic tower that rises up from the centre of Strangeways Prison. Maybe the architect, Alfred Waterhouse, was obsessed with reminding the incarcerated criminals within of their weakness and powerlessness. Today, the surrounding streets see men slope past in their shiny cars, looking for women that will gratify their needs at a price that can never […]

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17 May 2015

HILTON STREET, MANCHESTER 4.31AM

HILTON STREET, MANCHESTER 4.31AM – It had rained in the early hours of the new day, and the roads were glistening with colour as fresh as a newly woven magic carpet. Any birdsong was drowned out by the raucous calls of girls and boys dressed in their finery, still away with the fairytale world of escape afforded them by the Manchester potion of music and drink. Dreamy eyed couples kissed at bus stops, desperate boys leapt in front of my […]

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15 May 2015

OLD MILL STREET, ANCOATS 4.27AM

OLD MILL STREET, 4.27AM – Old Mill Street, where the Ancoats Dispensary still exists, is at one edge of my project, the other being Strangeways. From redemption to restitution I suppose. This area, once the industrial core of Manchester, is now known as New Islington and was supposed to be the vanguard of urban development on this side of the city. And then the recession came. This particular morning the sky was clear, and the colours rich. It reminded me […]

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10 May 2015

THOMAS STREET, NORTHERN QUARTER 4.42AM

THOMAS STREET, 4.42AM – It was my first time photographing on a Saturday morning. The sodium lamps, neon and first gasp of dawn daylight created a filmic atmosphere, causing the buildings to look like the grand vision of a set designer, and the people in them extras, sent out on cue by a director eager to create the illusion of reality in this strange hour. This area of Manchester has, for centuries, been where people have come for pleasure, to […]

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Author Archives: admin

OLD MILL STREET, ANCOATS 4.16AM

CHATLEY STREET, CHEETHAM HILL 5.26AM

HILTON STREET, MANCHESTER 4.31AM

OLD MILL STREET, ANCOATS 4.27AM

THOMAS STREET, NORTHERN QUARTER 4.42AM

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