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 […]
SHERBOURNE STREET, CHEETHAM HILL 7.22AM I was a still a boy when I first saw Strangeways prison. My mother drove past it, and the strange tower, rising up from amongst the dense walls, haunted me during that night’s sleep. Was this the future of men? Since then it’s inescapable presence, poking into the Manchester sky, has fascinated me. I’ve decided that Strangeways and Empire Street should form one of the boundaries for my project, and that the best place to […]
JERSEY STREET, ANCOATS 6.41AM The top of Jersey Street is separated from the creators and new residents of the regenerated Ancoats by a small, humped bridge. In front of the estate, that looked towards the flourishing city centre skyline, had been placed a Free School. The grey, fenced in Portakabins caused it to look more like a holding centre for refugees than a place of learning for young children. A man in a hi-vis jacket was patrolling the gate as […]
CORNELL STREET, ANCOATS, 6.24AM It felt, on this early Autumn morning, that there was a boldness to the birds singing their dawn songs, and the night sky was showing early pools of blue. Clouds shrugged and melted away, leaving a definite zing in the air. Soon there was a simple, unspoilt patch of sapphire colour above me and the day promised to be clear. I arrived at the bottom of the terraced streets that lie behind the Express building, an […]
PASSIONS, DUCIE STREET, 5.36AM This morning there was the musk scent of early Autumn. I breathed in deeply, and the air rasped the inside of my nose, causing my nostrils to flare. A softening mist embroiled the warm, enticing lights that illuminated streets as old as the professions that once lined them. An open doorway at the side of Passions massage parlour, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, revealed stairs leading up to a first floor that […]
RADIUM STREET, ANCOATS 5.43AM My alarm went off at 4am, and a couple of early birds were already chirruping as I turned on the light, causing me to hurry onto the street around 20 minutes later. In the the sky above me, though, there was not even a hint of daylight. For some reason, they’d begun their songs of hope a full hour before the dawn actually arrived, and I felt deceived. I pulled up my hood against the thumping […]
STORE STREET, PICCADILLY 4.43AM When I can see that the dawn will be clear and rain free, I try to look East, where, behind Ancoats, the sky begins its daytime shift soft and golden. As this morning began there was a stillness in the area, at odds with its past and its future intentions. Here, amongst tatty trees and unruly undergrowth, living is slowly encroaching upon working as factory units begin to quietly retreat, and flats trespass further into what […]
A PATCH OF GREEN, SWAN STREET 4.29AM I wasn’t intending to get up on this morning, but I was awoken by a panic dream, in which I was photographing in Manchester, but it was unrecognisable, and the dawn was taking away the darkness too quickly for me. So, unable to rest my mind, I left my bed and made my way down towards Victoria station. Along Swan Street two male friends were crossing towards the car park beneath the glowing […]
JUTLAND STREET, MANCHESTER 3.48AM – Jutland Street is perhaps the oddest street in Manchester. There seems to be no hill for it to have emerged from and yet there it is, steep as a Pennine and cobbled just like streets in the black and white memories of our grandparents. I was perched at Jutland’s summit under a Bible bright moon, that was defiantly refusing to leave the dawn sky above Piccadilly’s modern structures. To my right two men scuttled down […]
JUNE 21st, THE LONGEST DAY, 2015 The Longest Day began with me dancing on a table with my flatmate’s girlfriend. He’d been out with her to some do, and they’d come in full of wine and had woken me up, demanding that I get my shoes on and go out with them. We compromised by dancing in the flat and so, when I left to photograph at just after 2.30am, my spirits were as high as a buzzard circling a […]