LIKE the children and young people featured in these photographs, I too am now 52 years older.
During work I have done as a cinema journalist, on a couple of occasions, I had to produce portraits to accompany interviews I was writing about someone’s life and career. On these occasions I produced a final image showing the sitter as they are today, shown against a picture of their very much younger selves.
It can be a slightly bold thing to do for the person being photographed. However with respect and good humour, between subject and photographer, it can make for an interesting portrait with added depth.
I would love the opportunity of attempting to do this with my early Bradford photos, as regards both the young people featured, and the locations. It is the classic ‘then and now’ illustration.
When I took these photographs I was just 20-years-old and as part of learning my craft I undertook some “pro bono” work for the charities Shelter and Crisis at Christmas. I was asked to photograph neighbourhoods in the East End of London, Birmingham and Bradford. I was asked to photograph neighbourhoods where the charities thought the housing stock needed improvement.
My still vivid recollections of Bradford 52 years ago was as a very different place to what it is now. To me it still had very strong resonances of it as a Victorian and Edwardian city. My pictures seem to reflect this, showing the cobbled streets, the old fashioned street lamps, the children that all seemed to play outside from dawn to dusk and the diverse immigrant communities that were establishing themselves.
There also seemed to be some swathes of housing that were derelict and due for demolition.
Back in London in the late 1960s and 1970s, I was witnessing the mass demolition of whole neighbourhoods of streets with old style terraced housing. Those traditional terraced city streets seemed to engender a sense of community. They were being replaced by housing estates populated by giant tower blocks, and the sense of community in the old neighbourhoods vanished.
I am delighted to see that Bradford today has retained so much of its traditional terraced streets and it is evident that housing stock has been upgraded considerably.
Some of the most obvious differences between a street photograph of then and now is the huge presence of cars, loft conversions, satellite dishes and new uses for the tiny building in the backyard. My photographs of that time, taken for charities, inevitably show Bradford in a rather negative way.
Pre-digital photography used analogue film that had to be processed in chemicals. You only had 36 photographs available per roll of film. Photographers were far more careful and precise when taking a photograph and that often shows in old images.
As I compare my old analogue photographs to digital ones - one thing that is constantly re-enforced is the longevity of photographs that are on film and paper.
Where will all our digital images on our computers, on our phones and on social media be in 52 years time?
My advice is print your most important memories on paper before you lose them!
I had no idea that some 30 years later I would start making regular annual visits to the city to attend cinema events at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.
Those regular visits continue and now I am thinking that it is time to revisit the original nature of my old photographs.
I am beginning to photograph Bradford again and now hope to show it as the modern, diverse, positive, developing, cultural city that it has become.
* Mark Trompeteler - and the Telegraph & Argus - would love to hear from anyone who was featured in his photos, or anyone who can identify them.
Mark hopes they might agree to have their portrait taken again by him, and share their memories of their lives in Bradford.
Are you any of the children or young people featured, or do you know any of them?
If so, we would love to hear from you. Please email mark@creativeimage.org.uk and emma.clayton@nqyne.co.uk
* You can see Mark’s evocative old Bradford pictures, and other images, on his website at www.creativeimage.org.uk/bradford.html
Mark is about to start posting regular photos from his archive on Instagram. Follow him at: @creativeimage.org.uk
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