Do it again

click photos to enlarge
The title of this blog post, inspired by one of the best Beach Boys songs, is about one of the pleasures of photography - revisiting the same subject and producing an image that is, in one or more ways, different from previous shots. There are many variations that the photographer can play on the same theme, but different time of day, season, weather, light, position, focal length and processing are the main variables. Manipulating these can provide stimulation for the mind and eye, and provide a useful and productive alternative to scouring the land for a different subject for each shot.

The mainly fourteenth and fifteenth century church of St Margaret at Quadring, Lincolnshire, has given me a number of images over the past several months, including the shot presented here that I took last October as the trees began to show the colours of autumn. With that photograph in mind, yesterday and today I braved the biting north wind and took more shots of the church, looking to capture the sharp spring light and the now bare trees. As I moved round the building framing shots from all points of the compass I came back to my favourite position for church photography - the view from the south east. What makes this aspect so satisfying is firstly the way the afternoon light models the structure, and secondly how it allows the inclusion of the principal elements of the building, which lead the eye to the usual (in England at least) west tower.

As I snapped away I decided to take a shot similar to that of last autumn, and tried to position myself - from memory - in the same location. I didn't do too badly, and again got the line of gravestones over to the right to give some balance to the shot. When I came to process the image I decided not to show the bluer light of spring that infused the view, but to convert it to a contrasty black and white. So, the variables here are season and processing, with a slightly different position and focal length. Which do you prefer? As for me, "God Only Knows"!

photographs & text (c) T. Boughen

Black & white image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Colour image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off