Tag Archives: Bradford

Oct 16 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The City of Culture is Unready

Tuesday 15th October 2024, 5.25pm (day 4,800)

City of Culture sign, 15/10/24

In 2025, Bradford will become the UK’s City of Culture, and the sign proclaims this: from the rear, the slope on the left is one of the 2s, with the zero to the other side. Behind, a small part of the gigantic, desperate building site that constitutes most of its city centre at the present time. The bus station is entirely closed, having been declared unsafe a while back. You can’t get a taxi from anywhere particularly near the railway station. And all this with exactly eleven weeks to go until 1st January. City of Culture? Perhaps this chaos and neglect is, indeed, representative of the UK in this epoch.

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Sep 02 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape

The chemical plant

Sunday 1st September 2024, 2.50pm (day 4,756)

The area around Low Moor railway station, to the south of Bradford, is the most industrialised part of my local area. There’s plenty of photographic interest to be had within it, whether close-up or from more of a distance, like here. It’s nice that the windsock continues the diagonals of the cable and stairway, but its presence is somewhat ominous — and surely linked to the fact that Low Moor station is the only one I know where there are display boards warning of what to do if the alarms go off and the area needs to be evacuated. But it hasn’t happened…. yet.

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Jun 24 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The ruin of Bradford

Sunday 23rd June 2024, 10.00am (day 4,686)

Bradford works, 23/6/24

Bradford has featured on here reasonably regularly, this being its 27th appearance. It is one of those places that seems to be in a constant state of urban ‘renewal’. Presumably because it is to be the UK’s City of Culture in 2025, at the moment, a big pedestrianisation project seems to be consuming the whole of the city centre. This may be a good thing, in the end. On the other hand, the big Marks & Spencer store has closed — and in the UK, this is as good a marker as any that a retail centre is in trouble. This picture is taken early on but it wasn’t a great deal busier when I came back through at lunchtime, on a sunny summer’s day. Will all this beautification take so long that by the time it’s ready to go, there’s nothing left? (The bus station has fallen down, too.)

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Feb 22 2024
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The Low Moor Demon, with head

Wednesday 21st February 2024, 10.25pm (day 4,563)

Low Moor statue, 21/2/24

Since I last passed this way in October, this particular piece of random art has acquired a head — and a rather demonic head it is, at least to my eyes. Impressive though. What this is, and why it sits in a yard next to Low Moor railway station, I still have no idea.

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Nov 02 2023
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Daily Post, Interior

Spinning machinery

Wednesday 1st November 2023, 2.20pm (day 4,451)

Spinning machinery, 1/11/23

November opens with a far more interesting day than October closed. A day off work was called for, with Clare’s company. This is taken in the Bradford Industrial Museum, which is free to entry, easy to reach from home and has been there all the 23 years we’ve lived there, only I’ve never been there before. Worth a visit though.

On this shot, the game is to spot the asymmetries that are not the fault of the photographer. As in the puzzles in magazines — how many can you see…? I have at least six that trouble me.

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Oct 16 2023
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The Low Moor sculpture park

Saturday 14th October 2023, 1.30pm (day 4,433)

Low Moor sculptures

Just beyond the fence at Low Moor railway station, in Bradford, are stored these bizarre sculptures, or possibly they are some kind of carnival float. I really have no idea what story these make together, though. A close-up was no more revealing, so let’s go with this long shot under stormy skies instead.

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Oct 12 2023
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Daily Post, Urban scene

More protesting

Wednesday 11th October 2023, 6.00pm (day 4,430)

Pro-Palestine protest, 11/10/23

The third protest in a month, if we count the poster statement. Not hard to work out the basic focus of this one. I was just passing, not expressing a particular opinion, but I do notice that in BBC reports of the atrocities presently unfolding in the Middle East, Israelis ‘are killed’ whereas Palestinians just ‘die’. As much as anything else that helps explain why some people are pissed off.

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Sep 19 2023
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

The factory district, late

Monday 18th September 2023, 10.05pm (day 4,407)

Low Moor factory, 19/9/23

I would say that there is no reason to come through the factory districts of Bradford late at night, but this is not the first time I’ve found one: see 21st December 2021 for instance, a shot taken in much the same place as this one. Both were the result of going to an evening game at Bradford Park Avenue FC but that’s another story. I must admit that I like walking through this part of town, whether at night or not; the convolutions of the factories and their pipes and lights and ducts, clouds of steam, lights on but very rarely any people — all these make for interesting photography.

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Sep 10 2023
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Daily Post, Transport

Warning sign

Sunday 10th September 2023, 11.50am (day 4,399)

Mountain, drive slowly, 9/9/23

This would be a marvellous sign to see at any point, but the fact that it sits on the outskirts of Bradford makes it more entertaining still, in my opinion. Not to mention the fine optical illusion evident here. Take a good look — it’s almost like one of those ‘impossible objects’ that work in two dimensions but not three.

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Jun 19 2023
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Daily Post, Urban scene

A Bradford welcome

Sunday 18th June 2023, 9.30am (day 4,315)

Welcome Home Sexy, 18/6/23

Apparently a while back someone graffitied ‘Welcome Home Sexy’ on the approaches to Bradford Interchange railway station, to cheer up their partner, spouse, mate, or whatever. This has now become A Thing. A stylised version of the original message is still there beside the tracks, but not content with that, we get it by the station entrance too, next to the heroically decrepit retail establishment. But hey, why not, at least it isn’t another “Buy Corporate!” advertisement.

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