FIRST LIGHT: 06.06 SUNRISE: 07.22 It was an odd morning, where I felt out of place, harassed by circumstance. It rained, quieting the birdsong. The man operating the car park was suspicious of my presence, and set me a deadline to leave. “Next time ask the boss for permission first” he said. There was no contact number on the signs, just warnings as to the cost of parking there without consent. Cars filled with construction men began to arrive, invading […]
THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS AVAILABLE AS A LIMITED EDITION PRINT, AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY VIA SAUL HAY GALLERY Fear comes with me when I work in the twilight. As I stand by my tripod, waiting for minutes to pass as I take my photographs, I’m as much engaged with risk, as I am with the scene before me, constantly casting around for signs of danger, animalistic instincts awoken by my isolation in darkened surroundings. In the stillness of half-light, everything is exaggerated. Sound, […]
THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS AVAILABLE AS A LIMITED EDITION PRINT, EXCLUSIVELY VIA SAUL HAY GALLERY… When is dusk? For me it’s a period of time that can last for over an hour. If you’re staring at a darkening sky, searching for the last of the light, it’s a state of mind as much as anything else. There was a sign on the railings that quite clearly stated that the park would be locked up at dusk. The winter sky was awash […]
THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS AVAILABLE AS A LIMITED EDITION PRINT EXCLUSIVELY VIA SAUL HAY GALLERY It’s not the clock that sets our feelings towards any particular space, it’s light, or its absence, setting that particular agenda. And now that it’s winter time, when dusk falls across the end of the working day, our familiar paths home become shrouded in darkness, altering our perceptions of known places. And so we tend to gather around around light. On a recent Friday tea-time, I’m […]
I actually began in Macclesfield Forest, on the night of the full moon for my project ‘Our Future is Ancient’. After sitting in the car for several hours, watching the trees defend themselves by twisting and twirling in the gusting air as rain fell hard and consistently, I decided to return to the city. The day was just emerging as I was passing through the Piccadilly area, so I stopped to photograph. It’s an area still awaiting its fate as […]
PICCADILLY STATION 04.22AM April 2020 LISTEN TO DAWN AUDIO FROM PICCADILLY Manchester Piccadilly comes into view not long after the London Road has bent under the Mancunian Way, on the way in from Ardwick. This terminus station was built high off the ground, the trains arriving and leaving by tracks laid on viaducts of tainted, red brick. The surrounding area sets the standard for Mancs, being a place of compromised promise, of bold ambitions impaired by the nagging ghosts of […]
ANGEL MEADOW, 4.36am April 2020 Listen to the birdsong at dawn in Angel Meadow It is still dark when I arrive at Angel Meadow, just to the north of Manchester City Centre. It is during the time of Coronavirus and, since this unnatural hibernation, I’ve rarely left home. I’m unusually nervous; fearful not of this twilight space, but of other humans, who may carry death in a single breath. I pull my mask further above my nose and follow the […]
The work ‘From Old Mill To The End Of Empire’ was recently displayed as a slideshow as part of the Not Quite Light weekend. This is the slideshow. NOT QUITE LIGHT PRESENTS… from Simon Buckley on Vimeo.
Livesey Street, 7.28AM The previous day marked 12 months since my first post on Not Quite Light. In that time I’ve become very familiar with the area stretching from Old Mill Street in New Islington to Empire Street in Cheetham Hill. And, like a parent noticing the subtle changes in their child’s development, I’ve seen a steady revision of the streets and wasteland that form the area in which I’ve photographed. There are few roads and alleyways that I haven’t […]
DUCIE STREET 7.18AM This was a morning when nothing much happened. The rain fell in great globules before declaring its ceasefire on the streets for rush hour. The need to keep the camera dry had helped me find a cubby hole on Ducie Street, a hidden entrance to a new building above the old canal. Beneath the bridge there was an opened sleeping bag and some cans, evidence that someone had been sleeping on the towpath. They were gone now […]