The Art of Seeing: Visions of Manchester The seventeen works presented below originate from black-and-white photographs I captured across Greater Manchester many years ago. Through digital brushes and filters, these images have been reimagined and transformed, shifting from documentary records into expressive artworks. Each piece reflects both the architectural memory of place and the creative act of refashioning, where the familiar urban landscape is rendered anew in color,

The Irwell - a river poem Rock-solid ground loosens,    shifts to liquid,    slips fast away beneath my feet.      The water dreams of boats, of willow banks,    not a foul stream of refuse    but a seam alive with freshwater shrimp,    roach, and brown trout.      A mallard halts —    strums his feathers,    beats the air into rhythm,    poised to rise above this stretch,    this blue-lined artery    we call the River Irwell.

The moon appeared to float on a skein of black water and a wind sang a high pitch B, 246.94 Hertz. And something else – a distant police...

To live this hour beneath a cold Pennines sun requires the dead hills to flow behind us. To see the mighty crow and not look back means...

The North Is Rain strikes terraces stacked in brown brick   And wind blows through the underpass.     Two fat-breasted pigeons   Fly...

Over Lytham St Annes, Liverpool and Leeds, Manchester too, there's a full moon in white light suspended and all tonight’s stars ...

Lancaster bleached by rain – a wet wind blows through a line of washing. Fog frost, petrol odour, urban towertops vanish in the aerial grey

A mallard stops, strums His feathers, beats his wings, Ready to fly over this stretch Of blue-lined water

Image: 'A grey day on the Mersey' by Radarsmum67 (Wikimedia) Where the river of tranquillity meets the lake of fire, There...

Fog swirls, curls around vans, cars, slips ghostlike through bare branches.

the air is raspberry sweet it swarms with wings