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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 8:23 am 
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Hawleytastic!
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Top stuff, thanks for posting these. What's amazing is that the quality of most of these stands up today. One of my favourite blogs is www.shorpy.com where they post big scans of the old 5" x 4" and 10" x 8" plates so you can really see the detail in a lot of photographs. Sadly I don't see our digital images lasting as long for various reasons.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 11:38 am 
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Thanks.

I have to admit I totally love this stuff. There is something quite amazing working with an item that was there at the time of taking the photograph and working with the same glass plate the original photographer worked with in some cases well over 100 years ago. I haven't really spent anytime on these. I've just tweaked them slightly in photoshop. When I've spent sometimes a few hours working on a single image, you get to know every brick e.t.c. It's incredible after that paying the original scene a visit in this day and age. Sounds a bit sad, but you notice really silly things like a broken old gas lamps or some old shop fittings that have survived into this age and been painted over e.t.c.. It sort of tells a really amazing story.

These original glass plates hold an incredible amount of detail for the time, to say they are over 100 years old. The Shorpy blog you linked to a while ago Simon, has been a complete inspiration. I love looking at the US stuff in high res. I'm pretty jealous that the US has such decent weather, because the original glass plates come up so much better, showing alot more detail.

The shoe shop is a favorite of mine as well. In high res is was a real buzz looking through his shop window from around 1900.

Anyway, I'll take my anorak off.

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 1:50 pm 
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There is also a certain quality to film images that sets them apart. Digital photography has been around long enough now for us to get used to the 'look' of it which is totally different from film prints. Sadly it's getting more difficult to source BW film products although you can still get the materials for the moment.

I have just realised that this is a major thread hijack but looking at those pictures reminded me (apart from the obvious gap of 100 years or so) of the feel of those pictures. After about six years of shooting digitally I dusted off some film cameras last month to shoot film again and I have to admit I am hooked.

Here's a snap of my 7 year old. IMO there is just a gulf between the impression of a film based image and a multi-megapixel marvel

Image

I am seriously considering adding an old fashioned film based portrait shoot to my price list (I am a photographer by trade), as I think it could be really cool. You'd probably attract people who appreciated the organic feel of traditional BW photography, I don't know.

Sorry once again for the hijack :)

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 6:12 am 
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Film certainly has alot more classic feel to it. I love both myself.

I think your idea about using film as an option in your work, is a great idea. I have an old mate I haven't seen in a few years now. He's just opened a photography studio/gallery in Ripon and as far as I know only shooting using only film. He like me is very inspired by the early days of photography and that shows in his work. The main part though is his darkroom skills, which to be honest are second to none. The darkroom stage is just as important as the shooting stage if you are after a real classic look. I know he makes up his own chemicals and experiments. His photography captures a dreamy mood like Lewis Carrol's photography, that I feel only film can capture.

So yeah, I think it that idea can really take off!

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 3:27 am 
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Well, on with my bizarre fascination with High Green. Some really nice person took some shots on their camera phone. Showing some present day views.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 10:03 am 
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Hi Netheredge.

Thanks for posting these images, they're fascinating. I grew up in High Green during the 1960s, so, as a onetime local, I have a particular interest in them (the infant/junior school I attended was just behind the Pack Horse Inn). It's quite something to compare your photographs with my forty-something-year-old recollections and then again with the contemporary pictures posted on this thread.

The photos of the cobblers shop are a goldmine of detail and the butcher selling meat from his front window is just great. Are the horses with drays also from High Green? I can't place them: the roads are too level for anywhere I can recollect.

I was surprised to see that Moretomley Hall was demoloished in 1961. My family went to church in Moretomley and I don't recall that happening (but I would have been only three at the time!). The aforementioned family remember the demolishion being in the late 1950s, but, fifty years later, their recollection might not be 100% accurate!

Thanks, too, for the link to the flickr pages and the other pictures. Do you have any other detail on the photographs on there that are labelled: 1; 5F; T27a; T2; House1 and House2? Can you say which one/s is/are Moretomley Hall?

Really great to see these pictures. Thanks again for posting.


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 5:00 am 
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Hi gone_south,

The two photographs of the guy with the dray wagon are as far as I know indeed in High Green. One of them is certainly there, because I've seen a modern shot and it fits 100% with the buildings in both photographs.

As for Mortomley Hall, your guess is as good as mine on the demolition date. But I did get the date from a history book of the area. There is just one shot of Mortomley Hall on here or flickr. There are around another 4-5 glass negatives of the people outside the building, but I don't want to put everything on the net.

1 is my family back around the early 1900's over in Lancashire.

5F is one I've been very intrigued by for a while now. It was in the box from High Green area, but as of yet I can't identify it.

T27a again is in the box from High Green..there is another one with a pigeons racer/fancier or what ever you call it.

T2 I haven't a clue I'm afraid. There is a whole set of those. I'll find it one of these days. All I can go off, is all the others in that box are central Sheffield. Taken in (I think 1902) when the University was opened and the king and queen came to town.

House 1 is Mortomley Hall.

House 2 I've yet to still identify that one. So any help is very much appreciated.

Glad you enjoyed looking at the old photographs. I've really enjoyed attempting to research them. Though I've still got a fair way to go.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:15 pm 
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Hi Netheredge,

Thanks for the reply and the additional info. Before your reply, I wasn't sure which picture showed Mortomley Hall, so thanks for clarifying that. I'll have to find the matching current locations for the horse/dray photographs the next time I visit my family up there. It's a part of the world I'm still very attached to.

I hope you don't think I'm being impertinent by asking if there are any photographs in your collection from around Wortley/Howbrook/Bromley? This is purely personal curiosity.

Best regards.

ps. Apologies for the spelling mistakes in my last message!


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 2:06 am 
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All I can go off, is the very little knowledge from what I can pick up from each photograph. As for other close by areas like Wortley e.t.c., I would of thought, some of them are very much from the areas you listed. Alas..over a 100 years later...it's not easy. Photographs of high streets and old pubs are of course very easy and can now be researched over the internet.

What I can say, is as of yet. All of them have been taken around the High Green area. Though that might include a day trip within 10 miles up the road in the countryside.

From these boxes, each time I do manage to find something...it's High Green....yet again.

So I've got loads I can't really identify..but going from what said above..it would be very unlikely if they are not from High Green or some where like Wortley. Alas..as of yet I've yet to identify any more.

Here are two very good examples.

Image


Walk around version

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24986943@N ... 6/sizes/o/


Image


Walk around version

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24986943@N ... 3/sizes/o/


Any idea?!

edit. Just off the top of my head I've found the photograph some nice guy from the area sent me. I can't remember the full history, behind the two photographs with the guy with the dray waggon. Though as far as I'm aware this is the correct site for one of the photographs, though please remember there is around 100 years between the two...so things change!


Image

Image

Original size

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24986943@N ... 2/sizes/o/

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 1:18 pm 
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Hi Netheredge.

I can't immediately place the photographs of the greenhouse and the brick terrace. As you probably know, the ribbon development of the original village mainly consists of stone-built, or at least stone-fronted, houses, which makes brick-built dwellings slightly unusual for the time: the clothing and the use of wooden scaffolding for construction indicate a date that's pre-1920s for the terrace. As I recollect, the brick development to the southeast of Greengate Lane is post-war, as is much of the rest in High Green. Some brick building to the north-west of Greengate Lane is from between the wars. Long demolished is the terrace at Westwood Row: I don't know whether that was brick, but I suspect that moulded chimney pots may have been a detail too far. Houses at Piece End were of brick and may have been older than WW2. Perhaps it's a little further afield. Chapeltown, maybe?

I haven't lived in High Green for about thirty years now, and, while I do visit family a few times a year, I don't go down the Green much. I might do so the next time I'm up there, though! I'd like to help if and where I could.


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 2:38 pm 
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That's interesting about the brick houses. Yeah, I guess..some of them were taken out of High Green, but I would of thought they are still around the same area.

I mainly put those on to show how difficult it is to identify some of them!

Plus more than anything, I really love the images. For photographs taken over 100 years ago, there is an incredible amount of detail.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:00 am 
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I can imagine the difficulty with identification for some of them! And you're absolutely right about the images themselves: they are genuinely fascinating from historical, social, cultural, artistic, emotional and probably many other perspectives. Thanks, once again, for posting them.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 7:43 pm 
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One last comment, Netheredge:

I was in High Green for the half term holiday and came across a small book in Chapeltown's Asda: Chapeltown and High Green by Joan and Mel Jones (Nonsuch Publishing Limited, from their Pocket Images series). It contains (amongst other photographs) a picture of Westwood Row, which was a brick terrace by the look of it, but I don't think it's the terrrace in your photo. There were also photographs of my parents' house and my grandparents' old house in there, so I was well chuffed.

Best regards.


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:40 am 
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Hi gone_south,

Yeah, I got that book off ebay when I was trying to research the photographs..and still am!

It's a great book and at an excellent price as well.

I did try to contact something like the High Green historical society...but didn't get a reply. I also contacted the local reference library and they stated the High Green..whatever was 'winding down'.

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 Post subject: some things never change
PostPosted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:35 pm 
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I think someone in a grey suit from the government a couple of years ago saw that pic of the Pack Horse Inn in High Green and thought ..well if people can stand outside in the cold wet grey gloom having their photo taken they just might be persuaded to stand outside to have a fag as well...and so the New Licensing Laws regarding smoking in public places was born...thanks a lot old photos...what's next ?..obligation to take at least one 6d and halfpenny for all the family holiday per year in a Sheffield City Transport Sharrerbang ?... :wink:

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