Longfield Road, 11 October 2025

A Vortograph of the conjunction of Longfield Road and Northfield Road with a suggestion of Bradley Street coming in just over there, look. Likely story. Or is it fuck. But this particular dwelling does seem to capture reflections in a most notable way, setting it apart from the dwelling places that are situated nearby. Is it to do with the size of the windows? Is it to do with its position on a corner? Can it be ascribed to other environmental factors? Is it an invention born of a casual observation elevated to the status of an insight provoking oft-overlooked appreciation of reality?

Hey, son! Your so-called ‘Vortograph’ simply does not cut it! You are not fooling us! Hank from the Netherlands, and Frank, son of Hank! Your crazy diagonals merely serve to prosper the cause of confusion. Your concatenation of TOPY-like signs represents nought save an unsatisfactory subdued psychedelic nightmare.

Fuck you, Hank, and Frank, son of Hank! This image is an essay on the conjunction of interior and exterior in pictorial form. What is without, and what is within? That distant diagonal shelf is within. The window beyond it forms a barrier (pure liminal, fam). The sign reading ‘Open – 7 days’ is located in the outside realm – it adorns the exterior of a building that is some kind of garage – repair shop – second-hand car retailer, it used to be a hairdresser’s, and it was a combined general store and off-licence before that. And the double yellow lines are taken from without to within and transformed into dynamic triple yellow lines in parts, not that any trace of the colour yellow can be seen in the black and white image presented here.

Crookes Ash, 11 October 2025

I’ve been taking photographs of this tree for around 30 years. I remember printing images of the tree onto acetates and projecting them using an overhead projector. The images were striking, beautiful and impressive. They didn’t relate to the subjects of my presentations but I decided to use them to separate the various sections of the material I was presenting. I first encountered the tree more than 30 years ago, but I didn’t take any photographs in the earlier years of my acquaintance, because I didn’t have a camera, I couldn’t really have afforded one, even if I had wanted one, because I was poor, and needed to save my money to spend on essentials, like alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. I say that I encountered the tree more than 30 years ago, but I have no definite memory of doing so. I base this assessment on the fact that I had definitely travelled in the region of the tree before photographing it, and that the tree makes such a statement in the landscape that I must have been aware of it. I recognise that this is to conflate something that seems likely with something that definitely happened.

My relationship with the tree has developed over the decades, and I now routinely refer to it as ‘The Crookes Ash Tree, the local Yggdrasil.’ This suggests that I have a knowledge of Norse mythology or cosmogony, and so I do, although like my knowledge of most things, it doesn’t run particularly deep. It also suggests, indeed asserts, that I know the tree is an ash tree, and so I do, but I only know this because I asked Phil Hutchinson, the Boston Fen Hopper, what manner of tree it was, and took what he said on trust.

The Crookes Ash, the local Yggdrasil, is linked to the nearby Mound ov Krekja, described as the burial place of the founder of the settlement of Crookes, the name of which is derived from a combination of basic TOPY-talk (‘ov’) with the Crookes-resembling name of an important minor character from the Icelandic saga ‘Bard the Snowfell God.’

Heavygate Road, 6 October 2025

The wall is an undifferentiated ground. It represents nothingness. The circle is imposed upon it. It is miraculous. It is a bold but gentle intrusion. It represents unity, endless unity, unity without beginning and end or conception. It is the sun, the sun inverted, to add greater weight to the idea of the sun. And it has a space at its centre, the inner perimeter echoing or mirroring the outer perimeter, and from this space growth springs, scruffy and uncertain, but resilient just the same.

South Road, 6 October 2025

It could be described as quite an interesting conjunction of images. The group it advertises is required. It is dynamic. It presents a threat to those it opposes. Who does the group stand against? It stands against the fascists. All right-thinking people will stand with them, meaning those who oppose the fascists. I stand with them. I am antifascist. And the predominant colours are telling and significant. Red, yellow and green. Like traffic lights at a stretch. Ites, gold and green. Not that you could call that yellow gold. And the green is a bit dark for the green of your typical ites gold and green. But something along those lines, anyway. We can rest content in that assertion. And the conjunction of texts is likewise significant, most assuredly significant in the association between ‘required’ and ‘THIS IS A WALKLEY ANTIFASCISTS AREA.’

That assertion about it being an antifascist area is an arbitrary proclamation of ownership. That representation of an antifascist group is an ideological meme. People of different ages and different apparent ethnicities stand together to oppose fascism, which is right and proper and as it should be. But where are the old people? And why is everyone smiling (even the lad in the mask is smiling)? And why does everyone look so respectable? The message is that unity generates joy, and the cause of joy generating unity is a cause that everyone can buy into, it is not the preserve of outsiders, it is for the many, representing the all, not the few.

St. Thomas Crookes, 6 October 2025

I think I’m just to the right of the forecourt of St. Thomas Crookes. There is insufficient information contained in the image for me to be sure of this. Details of buildings are reflected in the puddle of water but there is nothing to signify what the buildings are. I am working from memory, and as I’ve mentioned previously, my mind is like a sieve, as the saying goes, and my memory is not to be trusted, before going on to negate both of these propositions by asserting that my recall of what is important is perfectly reliable, although I do not say how it is possible to differentiate between what is important and what is not.

Of the details of the buildings reflected in the puddle, you could say they could be anywhere, although obviously they could not be anywhere, they could only be where they are, for if they were not where they were, they could not be photographed.

It’s possible, perhaps probable, that what attracted me was the puddle, rather than what we see reflected in the puddle, and that my attraction to the small body of water was informed by my pre-existing knowledge that something would be reflected, and that positioning myself in relation to the reflection would yield something that I could pretend might be interesting, even if its interest did not extend far beyond what might be judged to possess no interest at all. And what’s so interesting about what’s interesting anyway?

Heavygate Road, 25 September 2025

I often proclaim that I despise the Surrealists, well, not often, because I know very few people I might make proclamations to, most of the people I do know aren’t really interested in what I have to say, and the rare individuals who might be interested in what I have to say aren’t really interested in the things that I find interesting, or pretend to find interesting in order to fill time and distract me from my fear of death, or my fear of what I imagine what death might be. That’s all true, but it does not prevent me from declaiming or proclaiming to myself, either aloud, vocally, or inwardly, silently, and this is the arena in which I proclaim that I despise the Surrealists. But when I examine my distaste for the Surrealists, I find that it centres around the abominable and objectionable figure of Andre Breton, the cowardly bully, winner of the Surrealist Sprint to America prompted by the German invasion of France in the Second World War, and that there are several artists commonly held to be Surrealists whose work I admire or enjoy, such as Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst, and Rene Magritte. In the case of Magritte, as in the case of all of the Surrealist artists whose work I admire or enjoy, I do not admire or enjoy all of his paintings, but the work of Magritte that I do admire and enjoy includes the three Surrealist paintings I favour above all others, including ‘The Empire of Light’, more correctly the 1954 version of ‘The Empire of Light’. I mention this because the tone of this photograph reminds me of ‘The Empire of Light’, even though the photograph was taken on a bright sunny day, and ‘The Empire of Light’ depicts a night-time scene. The photograph subdues the brightness of the day, whereas ‘The Empire of Light’ amplifies the brightness of night.

Endcliffe Park, 12 September 2025

The general principle is to go out without predetermined aim and photograph whatever calls to you, for whatever reason, in the moment. Occasionally, aimless wandering of this kind can result in the formulation of an intention to photograph a series of images which are linked in the receiving eye or mind. This picture is an example of the phenomenon of being primed to be called by a given location, although the conscious, predetermined aim to be called is not present. In this case, whenever I am passing this particular tree, I will be called to take a photograph of it, even though I have not previously remembered that I am likely to encounter it on my journey out this way. It’s possible that I will remember it now that I have thought about it and translated my thought into words. But I don’t think so. Time will tell. We’ll have to wait and see.

I wonder if there is any significance in these locations that call to me to be photographed whenever I encounter them, assuming my attention is not elsewhere, in which case I would probably forget to do so. Is the call primarily aesthetic, psychological, folkloric, or attributable to some other speculative explanatory theme or factor?

Middlewood Road, 5 September 2025

It’s rare enough for me to travel to Hillsborough, let alone to reach this part of Hillsborough, assuming it’s still considered to be Hillsborough, which I think it is, as Hillsborough Park is on the other side of the road. But parts of what some people would consider to be Hillsborough are in what some people would consider to be Owlerton, including Hillsborough football ground, which comprises one of the main stopping points on my great circuitous journey today. I note in passing that other parts of what some people would consider to be Hillsborough are in what some people would consider to be Malin Bridge, but that’s another story, about as interesting as this one.

I think I saw this object on the opposite side of the road as I was travelling along Middlewood Road beside the park, feeling slightly anxious about not missing the turn-off for the football ground, more properly the Hillsborough Memorial, which is situated next to the stadium. I was compelled to cross the busy road because the spectacle was so striking, and it is the principle of the strength of the spectacle calling that usually guides my selection of photographic subjects.

Although the subject of this photograph is striking and unusual, and although these factors are amplified by the fact that the toy shop it stands outside is set in a row of terraced houses, which somehow make it even more pronouncedly visible, it is a flash-in-the-pan type of spectacle, signifying little beyond its immediate singularity. I suppose you could reflect that toy shops are far less common now than they used to be, or wonder why there is an abiding fascination with Lego, if it is an abiding fascination rather than a restoration of interest. Both of these considerations could be viewed as relevant, but both of them would be false, because the reality of the experience is that the object calls, is photographed, and is gone from further consideration.

I crossed the road, took the photograph, crossed the road again, and resumed my journey.

I say I crossed the road, took the photograph, crossed the road again, and resumed my journey, but I took this photograph of the previous subject’s companion before proceeding on that course.

Neepsend Lane, 5 September 2025

I mentioned my recent realisation that Nursery Street seems to have more in common with Neepsend than it does with Kelham Island, although Kelham Island occupies the central ground in these three joined locations. Parts of Neepsend are more rundown, to the point of dereliction, than Nursery Street, and it is one of these parts that we see here. Before going on to wax lyrical about the building we see in the photograph and whatever occurs to me as a result of doing that, I observe that in the sequence of images I collected of the Neepsend–Kelham Island–Nursery Street conjunction, there were no pictures of Kelham Island. I attribute this to the blandness of the Kelham Island redevelopment area, which means that it lacks the picturesque qualities of its undeveloped next-door neighbours.

The building stands at the bottom of Neepsend Lane, if we consider the junction with Penistone Road to be the top. It emerges like a totem of dereliction as one walks alongside the generally hidden river on the ghost-haunted path that leads from the outskirts of Hillsborough into town. The fire escape seems to be in better condition than the building it serves, although the brickwork remains in largely good condition and it looks like it would not take too much effort to create a site worthy of occupation. If it was somewhere else, it could be turned into an arts centre. If it was 100 yards to the right, it might follow the Kelham Island template and be remodelled as a ground-floor restaurant with studio apartments above it, marketed as luxury city-living opportunities. But being where it is, it’s destined to remain crumbling into oblivion until it’s deemed to present a threat to the public, whereupon it will be demolished. I don’t suppose there’s any chance that Neepsend will be redeveloped until all the buildings have gone, empty space being deemed to possess greater value than industrial heritage.

The objectively meaningless UMPA! sign at the very top of the building strikes me as a macho proclamation of possession, although what is possessed is nothing substantial or concrete, but rather a place in a subculture. I had not previously conceived of this idea of tag-based graffiti as macho possession, which I find surprising now that I have thought of it, although what is possessed is a fleeting form of insignificant unreality.

Nursery Street, 5 September 2025

I’m on a little road off Nursery Street. It’s not a very pleasant place. It has a threatening and unnerving air about it, even though it’s the middle of the day, or whatever part of the day it was when I took the photograph. I would not choose to stand where I stood to take the picture at night time. Having said this, there probably isn’t much in the way of threat. There aren’t many dwellings nearby. There isn’t really much on Nursery Street that would encourage people to walk down it. There’s the Harlequin pub by the bridge. There’s Aizlewood’s Mill, which serves as a conference centre during office hours (I don’t suppose office hours are what they were five or six years ago). There’s a large church, which I’ve never seen anyone going into or coming out of. And there’s wasteland, and a few small industrial units, offering desultory opportunities to low-level entrepreneurs, who come and go without staying for long. It’s one of those places common in post-industrial cities, which would have been far busier when industry was thriving. Industry hasn’t been thriving in this part of Sheffield for several decades now, and it hasn’t been tarted up as part of the Kelham Island development plan, or whatever it’s called, because it lies just outside the redevelopment perimeter. It occurs to me that Nursery Street is similar to Neepsend, which lies on the other side of Kelham Island. I hadn’t thought of that before. Urban development is arbitrary and piecemeal. That’s no surprise. Maybe there will be a Nursery Street and Wicker Development Plan one day, although I doubt it will come any time soon.

The River Don flows on the other side of Nursery Street from the building that is pictured here. Just behind the river, there is an unbroken series of steel and glass buildings. I think most of them are offices, but some of them provide accommodation. The path by the river is a bit less rundown than it used to be but it’s not very well kept; perhaps the developers of those glass and steel buildings are presenting the riverside as a wildlife haven, in order to minimise their financial outlay on upkeep.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make before digressing to describe the immediate environment is that some places that are not objectively dangerous, on the grounds of being free of people, who are the only creatures you’re likely to encounter on a daily basis that might do you harm, can nevertheless feel dangerous. This is because we are encouraged to live in a state of fear, or perpetual watchfulness, that renders us easier to control.