Down at Oswald Road School on a July day, capturing another changing moment

Now the skill of recording events which will mark a moment in history can be just good luck.

For many photographers it will be that they were there with a camera just as the event unfurled.

A few minutes earlier or later and that event would have been lost.

Now in the case of Andy Robertson who took these pictures of Oswald Road School the images come from a keen knowledge of what is going on in Chorlton and a determination to record the changes as they happen.

And in doing that he is following a small group of local photographers who diligently took pictures across the township in the 1950s and 1960s.

These are now in the city’s image collection, and are a powerful record of what Chorlton was like.*

And I hope Andy will in the fullness of time pass his onto the local studies library.

In the case of the school he has recorded the building of the new extension and now the demolition of the old one.

Like all good pictures that capture a point in time, it is sometimes the one most people miss that says it all.

So here amongst the bulldozer, and broken bits of building is that pile of classroom furniture and other things which for me sums up just what as going on.

Now that for me is what a camera should be for.

Pictures; Oswald Road School, July 2014

*Manchester Local Image Collection, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass