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Tag : Manchester

21 Jan 2016
Stanley Street Cheetham Hill

STANLEY STREET 7.44AM

STANLEY STREET 7.44AM The temperature was only just above freezing. Instinct took me to the high ground above Redbank, where I could watch dawn advance across the edge of the city centre. A slither of flame red sky topped the far rooftops and, as if a hundred Popes were being chosen, puffs of white steam rose into the blueing clouds from much needed heating units. Whilst I watched, a man came and stood next to me. “I’ve tried to capture […]

19 Jan 2016
port street manchester at dawn

PORT STREET, 7.29AM

PORT STREET, 7.29AM I was helping a friend’s young boy build a Lego spacecraft the other day. It was too fiddly for him, and so I ended up spending an hour constructing a vision of the future whilst he went off and drew a house with crayons. I told his mum that when I was young we’d have a bag of bricks and make what we felt like. There was no need for instructions or showy add-ons that were too […]

05 Jan 2016
Oldham Street in Manchester

OLDHAM STREET 7.35AM

OLDHAM STREET 7.35AM The previous night I’d begun to read The Manchester Man, written by Mrs Linnaeus Banks and published in 1876. It details the life of Jabez Clegg, who was rescued in his cradle from the flooding River Irk, and adopted by the kind and hard working Simon Clegg, and Bess, his saintly daughter. This act of absolute altruism is set against the conditions of work and life that Mancunians had to exist in during the early 19th Century. […]

30 Dec 2015
Rochdale road Manchester at dawn

ROCHDALE ROAD 7.17AM

ROCHDALE ROAD 7.17AM I’d been out the night before in The Millstone pub, one of my favourite places in Manchester. I was watching the delicious chaos unfold before me when I noticed a woman that I’d had a drink with a few months earlier. Her name was Michelle, a born and bred Mancunian, who was drunk and sad. Her long, sequined dress wasn’t comfortable on her, and she had to walk with care in her high heels. We ended up […]

11 Nov 2015
dantzic street manchester at dawn

DANTZIC STREET 6.48AM

DANTZIC STREET 6.48AM It’s funny what things you notice in adverts, that lodge in your brain and then are played back to you in coincidental, real life moments. I’d seen that the Milk Tray Man was being resurrected, which is an odd idea when you think about it. A stranger, a loner, breaks into the house of a single woman, and leaves some cheap chocolates for her, signifying that she’s not only being watched, but that her home is also […]

01 Nov 2015
Jersey Street Ancoats Dawn

JERSEY STREET, ANCOATS, 6.07AM

JERSEY STREET, ANCOATS, 6.07AM Is the sense of change greater with Autumn than with Spring? As the year ends, the dramatic death of the leaves and the darkened days are perhaps linked more to a fear of the unknown than the hope and anticipation that arrives with May blossom and longer evenings. I set up my camera at the top end of Jersey Street. The city centre was beyond view here, although it’s almost close enough to walk, and I […]

28 Oct 2015
Tib Street Manchester at dawn

TIB STREET, NORTHERN QUARTER 7.27AM

TIB STREET, NORTHERN QUARTER, MANCHESTER 7.27AM When I tweeted an iPhone picture after this shoot I wrote “I didn’t end up where I thought I would”. Sometimes I set off with a clear idea in my head of where I want to be, perhaps having already been there previously, but sometimes things don’t appear as I think they will. Streets and views that look inviting in the day can simply not be as I want them to be in the […]

18 Oct 2015
MANGLE STREET BACK PICCADILLY

MANGLE STREET, NQ, 7.04AM

MANGLE STREET, NORTHERN QUARTER 7.04AM Back Piccadilly forms the city centre boundary to this current project. It’s a curious street, like a redundant spine, that more or less runs the length of the Northern Quarter. Around its liason with Oldham Street people perform a peculiar dance as they avoid bumping into one another on the narrow pavement, and vans and lorries block it whilst grumpy men unload goods into the bars, supermarkets and shops that face out onto Piccadilly. Away […]

03 Oct 2015

LITTLE LEVER STREET AT DAWN

LITTLE LEVER STREET 6.51AM A SLOW MOMENT FILM The area around Little Lever Street, just off Great Ancoats Street is still awaiting gentrification. The buildings are struggling to remain and the small, dark streets are pock marked by rubbish. At dawn most of us are in that state of sleep that allows dreams to fill our minds, and in these half lit streets can sense the ghosts of old Mancunia as the area awaits  its rescue. This film contains flickering. […]

02 Oct 2015
victoria station manchester at dawn

VICTORIA STATION, MANCHESTER 6.47AM

VICTORIA STATION, MANCHESTER 6.47AM Two nights before there had been the Autumn Equinox, when summer ends and the days tip towards winter. The moon had shone like a torch and was perfectly round, as if it had been drawn by an eager to please schoolboy with a compass. This morning, partly covered by cloud, it had the deflated look of an old leather football that had just been clogged towards touch by an uncultured centre half. Outside Victoria Station there’s […]

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