Hornsea beach tracks

click photo to enlarge

It occurred to me the other day that during my life I've flip-flopped from one side of the country to the other. I was born in Westmorland (now Cumbria) and raised in the western Yorkshire Dales, moved to the city of Hull for a while, then went back to north-west England for many years, and latterly re-located to Lincolnshire. During all but my early life I was a keen photographer, never specialising in anything in particular, but rather dipping my toe into many of the recognised genres. I suppose that architecture, landscape and natural history have figured large in my output, and of course, down the years I've shot many thousands of family snaps.

In the past decade, as I've spent more time with my camera, I've deliberately selected a few specific subjects and begun building collections of images. Examples of this include spiral staircases, motion blur, and the subject of today's photograph, tracks in the landscape. Lincolnshire's man-made landscape is the place where I began to notice these man-made intrusions, and where the sinuous, sometimes semi-abstract quality, that they impart first impacted on me.

Wheatfields and barley fields offer good opportunities for this kind of photography. The former sometimes provide intriguing examples that appear to have no beginning. But pasture can have good tracks too, and land freshly prepared for a salad crop offered one of the craziest examples I've come across. I've also photographed these tracks on sandy beaches where they temporarily hold a record of cleaning vehicles or the launching of boats. Today's photograph is an example of the latter that I took on a recent visit to Hornsea in East Yorkshire. This seaside resort on a long, sandy coastline, has a small fishing fleet that specialises in brown crabs and lobsters. The boats are launched and brought in by tractor, and this recovery offered an opportunity to add another shot to my "tracks" collection.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Go your own way

click photo to enlarge
After I'd given a title to today's photograph of tractor tracks wandering drunkenly across a perfectly prepared and planted field on the Lincolnshire Fens I began a Wikipedia peregrination. The words I chose - Go Your Own Way - seemed apposite, but I also knew them to be the title of a song by Fleetwood Mac.

A quick search of Wikipedia using the title revealed that it was a song about the break up of the relationship between the band's two U.S. members. A quick look at Songfacts confirmed that and added a few other details. From there I went to the Wikipedia page about the album on which the song is featured, Rumours. Here I noticed that this particular Fleetwood Mac album is the 10th best-selling album of all time, so I went to the page that showed the full list of the best-selling albums of all time. It was then that I started to get a little depressed and somewhat concerned. Now there's no good reason why I should worry about the type of music that is bought in the largest numbers: I'm happy with the music I like, and I should be happy that others have found the music that they enjoy. But when that music is by the likes of AC/DC, Meatloaf, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, the Bee Gees, Abba, Mariah Carey, Cher, Bon Jovi, The Spice Girls, Tina Turner..., I could go on, then I'm not only depressed but concerned. I'm depressed if people who bought this stuff have listened to the best that recorded music has to offer, rejected it, and then made these choices. I'm concerned if they haven't heard any of the finest music made by mankind, but feel they've acquired it through these albums. I won't list the music that I think surpasses most of what's listed on this Wikipedia page, but I will say that it includes classics of the rock and pop canon, but also features blues, jazz, folk and classical, and it isn't confined to the output of the last fifty years.

What's obvious when you look at this list is that it reflects the artists who were most popular at the time when recordings on vinyl and CD were at their sales peak. That said, it wouldn't change dramatically, I think, if downloads were added to the mix. Increasing population and increasing sales to a predominantly younger audience who buy, in the main, recent recordings of recently written music is responsible for this ranking. But it doesn't have to be so. As my oldest son once said, "Recorded music has been around for a century yet most people buy it on the assumption that the most recent music is the best. Why on earth should it be?" I think, as far as music goes I'll continue to ignore the top selling albums and "go my own way!"

Incidentally, I don't know how or why these wiggly tracks appeared on this blemish-free patch of agricultural land, but in the early evening light they stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, and invited a photograph that gives me cause to wonder at the event(s) that might have led to them.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/160 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wheat, wires and Large Whites

click photo to enlarge
Over the summer I've gradually got the impression that this year is a good one for butterflies. So, I did a bit of online research and ended up at the website of Butterfly Conservation. Here I read this by their Surveys Manager, Richard Fox: "The picture for native British butterflies remains mixed. Numbers appear to be up on the previous two summers, which were extremely wet and dire for butterflies. This summer has been better so far, in spite of the recent showers. If the wet summers had continued some endangered species such as the Heath Fritillary were vulnerable to extinction. The good news is the Heath Fritillary appears to have rallied and is having a good year. But numbers overall are still well down on a decade ago." So it seems that 2009 is a better year relatively speaking.

As I write my lavender is besieged by Large Whites, Painted Ladies, Peacocks, Common Walls and Small Tortoiseshells. The Painted Ladies have been particularly noticeable this year, but I was amazed to read that this migratory species may be represented by 1 billion specimens in the UK at the moment! The other species that have been much more numerous are the Small and Large Whites. Our cabbages have been receiving their eggs (soon to be caterpillars) despite us offering the compensating attractions of buddleia and lavender.

On a visit to Sempringham church (click link then scroll down for links) the other day I noticed an opportunity to add to my collection of images of tractor tracks (click link then scroll down for links). The additional interest offered by these particular tracks, in a field of very ripe wheat, was the telegraph pole and wires that stretched across the sky. As I stood, considering my shot, listening to the crackle of the ripe seed heads, I noticed Large White butterflies crossing the field. I quickly composed this shot that includes one of them on the right, hoping that it was sufficiently near to be recognisable for what it was.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

John Barleycorn

click photo to enlarge

"There were three men came out of the west their fortunes for to try,
And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die,
They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, threw clods upon his head,
And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead."
Old English folk song (Verse One)

The first version of this folk song that I ever heard was by the English rock group, Traffic. I'd been interested in folk song in the raw and in its use by classical music for a few years, but this particular melody didn't cross my path until the release of their album "John Barleycorn Must Die". In the era of folk rock by bands like Fairport Convention and Pentangle it didn't strike me as odd that they chose a traditional song to set amongst their jazz and soul inflected music, but, with the benefit of hindsight I can see it was a bit odd.

The song exists in a number of versions, the oldest being in George Bannatyne's Scottish manuscript of 1568, which collected verse of various kinds. There are many seventeenth century broadside ballad versions, and Robert Burns published a re-worked interpretation in 1782. Common to all renditions of the song is the personification of barley as "John Barleycorn" or "Sir John", and a succession of "attacks" upon him that represent the cultivation and harvesting of the crop, and its eventual destiny in beer and whisky. There have been attempts to link John Barleycorn's death and resurrection in the song with Christian ideas but I've always thought that to be a metaphor too far. However, it is a wonderfully wrought story with a strong melody. Its survival to the present day is testament to the power and beauty invested in it by its unknown authors.

Ever since I became familiar with John Barleycorn I can't see the hairy ears of barley without the line, "And little Sir John's grown a long, long beard, and so become a man", popping into my head. It did so again when I stopped to photograph this field on the Lincolnshire Wolds near Hameringham. The lone tree, the tractor tracks and the soft clouds against the blue May sky suggested another minimalist landscape composition of the sort I tried at the end of April, so I isolated them with a longish focal length for this image.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 46mm (92mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Lines in the landscape revisited

click photo to enlarge
It crossed my mind recently that it's been a while since I added a photograph to my "lines in the landscape" collection. I started this series of images a few years ago on the back of a growing fascination with the tracks that agricultural vehicles leave behind them when they work the Lincolnshire land. One of the minimalist shots I blogged used that particular post title. Each year I've added one or two more shots involving barley, wheat and wires, wobbly lines, Nottinghamshire lines, water-filled lines and many other variations on the theme. Moreover, when I was looking through some of my older photographs I discovered that my interest in these lines pre-dates my move to the very agricultural county where I now live.

It was with all this in mind, as well as the fact that I haven't taken such a shot this year, that I kept an eye out for lines as I drove between Louth and Horncastle the other day. Driving over the undulating road that traverses the Lincolnshire Wolds I went round a sweeping corner and was presented with the fine specimens in today's photograph. The thin soil overlaying the chalk beneath made a pale hillside against which the parallel tracks left by the tractor stood out as bold, dark, slightly serpentine lines. The random details of the blue sky and fragmentary clouds made a good foil for the ordered land below, so I drew over to the side of the road and took a few shots. What I didn't notice with my naked eye, or through the viewfinder at the time, were the slender rods, each with a thin, coloured ribbon that mark the centre of the spaces between the lines. Look carefully and you'll see them with their shadows. I don't know their precise purpose but I intend to find it out.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Lines in the landscape

click photo to enlarge

This year I've made quite a few images of tractor lines in cereal fields. I've posted a couple of examples here and here, but I've taken many more. I'm not absolutely sure why this interest has arisen. I think it's something to do with the temporary superimposition of the marks of man on the perfect surface of the field. The fact that the lines are parallel, and that each pair of tracks is, except for those near the field boundaries, the same distance from the next pair, gives them an interesting regularity.

Another reason for my fascination is to do with how you can see the world through a camera. The narrower field of view of a longer focal length lens allows the photographer to isolate part of what is seen. This presents a number of opportunities. It can be a device to concentrate the viewer's attention on to something. It also allows, by the exclusion of surrounding distractions, the composition of a simplified image. And it enables you to create odd looking images from familiar scenes and objects. The lines in the landscape in today's image combines the last two of these.

Thinking further about the photograph, I probably wouldn't have taken the shot if the lines didn't appear to start in the middle of the field, and if they hadn't begun with that small wiggle! So here's a "thank you" to the tractor driver on the rolling hills of Lincolnshire whose slightly wandering attention produced these slightly wandering lines!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 43mm (86mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cameras tell lies

click photo to enlarge
Doesn't this Fenland scene look calm, idyllic and bountiful? I think so. The luxuriant wheat is flawless, even the tractor's oval of tracks so orderly that it barely mars the perfection of the growing crop. A solitary wind turbine, a piece of modern technology both reviled and admired, stands pristine over the fields, slowly turning and making its small (2MW) contribution to the nation's energy needs. Above, the unblemished sky adds to the feeling of everything in its place and all being well under heaven. What a lie!

I took today's photograph from the steps of another wind turbine, its electrical hum and the steady swish of its blades slicing the air, loud in my ears. Another eleven turbines and an electrical sub-station, all off to the right and behind me added to the controlled clamour, while behind and to the left lines of electrical pylons marched across similar fields like rows of giants holding hands. The evening scene and the appearance of the countryside in this particular location  was eminently open to manipulation and, with my selective viewpoint, I exploited the opportunity.

In fact, that's what photographers do all the time: they choose a small part of their field of view and try to ensure that it contains only those things that help to tell the story enclosed in their image. And the truth is, as often as not, that photographic image - that people assume is entirely representational - ends up being as much fiction as fact!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15.5mm (42mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On