Take Another Little Walk With Me …

…down by the river – the old trading centre of the city.

Read more about the images in this gallery HERE …

About This Gallery of Images

The title, 'Take [another] Little Walk With Me', is ‘borrowed’ from a song by Scott McClatchy.

My photography – both the initial capture and the way I process the images – has helped highlight the different ways I engage with the city and its environs.

Around the University, for example, it's underpinned by the memories of my student years in the 70s and again in the 80s (see the gallery HERE …); on the Headrow I recognise the solid ambition of the Victorian worthies and connect with the sturdy shapes and silhouettes of the civic buildings; out in the suburbs, I respond to the Forest of Leeds and the wellbeing it engenders.

And then down by the river – the subject of this gallery – it’s something different again.

Here I’m engaging with the foundations of industrial Leeds and its trading links to east and west – with the Aire and Calder Navigation (opened in 1700) facilitating export to the continent via Hull, and the Leeds-Liverpool Canal (opened fully in 1816) for trade with America.

Walking amongst the renovated warehouses, the narrow streets, the docks and waterways, I can feel the uneven roadways through my shoes – the flagstones and cobbles – and watching my footing helps me make connections across the centuries with every careful step I tread. Then, in turn, my photographs reflect these connections, taken instinctively from a low(ish) point of view and focussing on these historic pathways.

So join me as I roll back time, and take another little walk with me.

(Note: Strictly they’re not 'cobbles', they’re 'setts' – as Wikipedia explains, a sett is distinct from a cobblestone in that it is quarried or worked to a regular shape, whereas a cobblestone is generally a small, naturally-rounded rock!)

Take care

Paddy