Rethinking the Image

Image source: https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/collections/pm0125 (Accessed: 20 September 2025). © Strangely Familiar

Peter Mitchell, Howden Place, Leeds (1976).

In a recent article, I introduced Peter Mitchell, a documentary photographer who captured the changing urban landscape of Leeds throughout the 1970s and 1980s^[1], with the focus of the article being his photograph of Sheffield General Cemetery. In that photograph, Mitchell uses a neutral perspective to highlight notable architectural elements, and in this photograph of Howden Place from two years earlier, a similar perspective is used to draw attention to the street’s steep topography.

The subject matter of this photograph – a row of terraced houses in a transitory state of semi-demolition – is typical of Mitchell’s most recognisable work^[1][2]. On close inspection, the central house appears to still be occupied, and the building’s crumbling extremities suggest that the remaining structure was part of a much larger row of houses before demolition work began.

Demolition appears to have taken place at both ends of the terrace, converging on the occupied house at its centre. There is a sense that the levelling of the occupied house is inevitable, if not imminent – a feeling which reflects the theme of change that is often present in Mitchell’s work^[1][2]. Here, he demonstrates the temporal possibilities of photography; its ability to refer to events that have already taken place as well as those that are likely to take place in the future.

Most of the buildings in the vicinity have been reduced to rubble, revealing a sparse landscape with a strikingly steep profile. With its usual context removed, particular architectural features of the terrace that would have been demanded by the street’s topography, such as its stepped roof, appear particularly noticeable.

Viewing the image as a whole, we see the dark asphalt and the pile of red bricks in the foreground of the image, the green foliage that has begun to sprout from the wasteland, the ochre tones of the pile of rubble that flanks the terrace, the terrace itself, and the gentle sky above. These elements form a series of parallel diagonal lines, displaying a compositional balance which is not unlike that of Patrick Heron’s ‘stripe paintings’^[3], or one of Mark Rothko’s mature works^[4].

In this photograph, therefore, as in Mitchell’s photograph of Sheffield General Cemetery, a grim and forbidding subject takes on a sense of beauty through careful framing and composition.

[1] Strangely Familiar (no date) About Peter Mitchell. Available at: https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/pages/about-peter-mitchell (Accessed: 20 September 2025).

[2] Strangely Familiar (no date) Explore. Available at: https://strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/pages/explore (Accessed: 20 September 2025).

[3] See: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/heron-horizontal-stripe-painting-november-1957-january-1958-t01541 (Accessed: 20 September 2025).

[4] See: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rothko-untitled-t04148 (Accessed: 20 September 2025).