This website started as a fun thing, a photographic project, a couple of weeks after I bought my first digital camera. Having a digital camera has made it easier to do what I wish I'd been able to do in the 1980s - record the changes happening in this familiar place, record the losses of particular details, whole buildings perhaps, though these pages also include images and thoughts on the places that don't change much, the enduring and beautiful things.
Mainly it's about 'a sense of place'.
Of course, York is a historic city, beautiful in parts, with many famously photogenic buildings. In other ways it's just like many other places. It has graffiti and grubby bits and forgotten corners, and graveyards with poignant memorials, and faded (or repainted) ads on brick walls.
When I started this website I found nothing much on the web reflecting the city I knew, only tourist-orientated websites. As a resident, I could see the place was changing fast, that riverside areas I had once found atmospheric had been cleared and redeveloped, that it was all being smartened up. I wasn't always pleased about this, and went in search of its lesser-known, grubbier corners. My interest in the city's ordinary buildings - particularly the derelict ones labelled 'eyesores' - continues.
Past citizens are also remembered, particularly those whose memorials may have been forgotten, or those whose contributions to the life of the city have perhaps been under-appreciated.
The familiar can be 'defamiliarised' when you're equipped with a camera. Taking photos often means seeing old things in a new way. And the liberation that came with being able to take so many photos without having to pay for film processing inspired me to wander for miles up city streets and down riverside paths, taking photos of anything and everything. I've taken a lot of dull photos, as a result, but also captured details since obliterated, buildings since demolished.
Sometimes I aimed for places I knew were about to change. Residents of the city have of course been doing this since the early days of photography - as the photographic collection at www.imagineyork.co.uk shows. Recently I've included some photos of York taken in the 1960s and 1970s, donated to the News & Views section.
I'd not heard the term 'psychogeography' when I started this website, and only discovered it recently. Some of the most popular pages on this site seem certainly psychogeographic - as far as I'm able to understand the rather complex and varying interpretations of the term - particularly the page about walking through Acomb, and my visit to the old carriageworks site.
Basically, it's a personal response to a landscape. Often approached in an unconventional way. Perhaps drunk. I've always undertaken these local adventures completely sober, but may try a Sauvignon-Blanc-fuelled walk at some stage.
... was born in Acomb, grew up in Acomb, left home at sixteen, left school not long after. Lived in bedsits, returned to education to do A' levels at York Sixth Form College, applied for Oxford, got into Oxford, got a degree, came back to York and have been here since. Have worked in publishing, and for local charities, and have designed and now maintain several websites.
Now, with writing on here and in print, I'm trying to add something useful to the web, writing about what I know, in return for all the information and inspiration I've found offered so generously by others. (Which doesn't mean I don't want a credit, please note, those who use material from this site and forget to mention www.yorkstories.co.uk.)
One of the nicest things about having this website is getting emails from people who've found it interesting.
If you've enjoyed visiting these pages, it would be nice to hear from you.
Lisa, York
25 January 2012 (the 8th 'birthday' of www.yorkstories.co.uk)