The golden daffodil

click photo to enlarge

It's not hard to work out the reason why the daffodil is so popular. When you've gone through the three cold, wet and dreary winter months of December, January and February, along it comes with its big, bold, bouncing blooms, their very yellowness shouting "Spring is coming!"

Up and down the country, in gardens and parks, roadsides and woods, the drifts of yellow bring a smile to people's faces, and focus their minds on the longer, warmer days around the corner. However, these virtues have led, in some places, to a mania for planting daffodils that has caused me, occasionally, to shout "Enough!" In the next few weeks the A6 road between Garstang and Lancaster will be lined by the blooms, each year ever denser as they multiply. And what is charming and welcoming in groups and clusters becomes a little too much when the roadside ranks of yellow stretch for miles. The other virtue of the daffodil - the ease with which it can be grown - has caused it to displace the many alternative bulbs and flowers that also herald spring.

So, today's sharply lit, contrasty photograph of one of the early daffodil blooms from my garden, is accompanied not by an attempt to do down this popular plant, but to make a plea for it to give way for a few more Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa luciliae), cyclamen, Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis), Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) and Fritillary. Perhaps then we can cause a poet to be inspired to verse, as Wordsworth was with daffodils, by banks of Striped Squill (Puschkinia scilloides)!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 6.0
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Bent metal

click photo to enlarge

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, and the exigencies of war speed up innovation in a way that peace time seems unable to match.

In 1916 Major Peter Norman Nissen, a Canadian member of the British Army's 29th Company, Royal Engineers, designed a prefabricated hut made of 54 sheets of corrugated steel. These pieces of metal, of a size suitable for transport on a standard army lorry, were fixed into threes, joined together and bent into slightly more than a semi-circle, then joined to more arches to make a tunnel-like shape. With the aid of pieces of timber and floorboards they made a multi-purpose building that was easily transported and which could be erected by 6 unskilled men in four hours. So successful was this design that more than 100,000 were produced during the First World War. Yet more were built in the Second World War when the hut was revived. The U.S. Navy adapted the basic design for their Quonset hut. Examples of the Nissen hut, recycled into civilian life, still stand today serving as garages, stores, barns, etc.

The virtue of corrugating metal is that it imparts greater strength and rigidity to the material. Architects and engineers have built on, and elaborated, Nissen's basic idea over the decades, producing their own, usually more complex, versions. I came upon this new, metal-coated building in today's photograph, on an industrial estate in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Its curves and corrugations immediately caused Nissen's name to pop into my head. Slightly flashier than its progenitor, the standardized units, curved corners, and corrugated walls and roof show its lineage very clearly. Not only do Major Nissen's orginals "soldier on", but their offspring march in their footsteps!

In truth, the overall form of this building was quite boring. However, the reflective metal with its repeated straight and curved forms seemed to offer something, so I took this detail with a long lens. Incidentally, isn't it interesting how the shapes in this image give the impression that the photograph is not rectangular!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fleur de lys

click photo to enlarge

Ornament is fascinating. In the past it mattered more than today, and people decoded it, knowing how it originated. The anthemion ( from the Greek for "flower") and palmette (a palm-like leaf design) are very common in Greek and Roman architecture, being found on antefixae, the Ionic Order, and cornices. Yet, it is thought that the palmette originated in Egypt, drawn from the papyrus flower, or perhaps the lotus or lily, and was associated with the idea of the Tree of Life. Anthemion, often called "honeysuckle" from its similarity to the shape of that flower, is frequently paired (or alternated) with palmette, and is associated with another foliate ornament, acanthus, which itself may derive from cabbage leaves!

Now you may think this very abstruse, esoteric even, yet I guarantee that you can go into any major town or city and see multiple examples of palmette and anthemion (as well as acanthus). That is because they are examples of ornamental designs that have stayed with us down the ages. In much the same way that the fleur-de-lys has. This form is usually associated with the French monarchy (or the Boy Scouts!), and it too derives from a plant: in this case the iris flower (in the past called a lily). There are those who think the fleur-de-lys (or lis if you prefer) originated in Mesopotamian decorative design. But the French date it to the fifth century Frankish King Clovis, and track it through Charlemagne and the many Louis, until it was supplanted by the Revolution's tricolour. Others say its tri-form represented the Trinity, and that it came to be associated with Mary due to the association of the lily with the virtue of purity. Whatever the truth, it has remained popular for centuries if not millennia. Look around where you live, and you'll certainly see it still used in both two and three-dimensional form. My example is from the Victorian railings around a grave in a Lincolnshire churchyard, and was photographed on a very frosty morning.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking and seeing

click photo to enlarge

"What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?"
from "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. author, poet and philosopher

When a driver pulls out from a side road onto a main road, and a car slams into the side of his vehicle, it's usually because he looked but didn't see. His eyes gazed in the direction of the oncoming car, but his brain didn't process the visual information in a way that caused him to pause, let it pass, then move out.

Seeing is important in the visual arts for similar reasons - it involves either comprehension or thought, about that which we look upon. I say either because it is often difficult to articulate why we see something as beautiful, interesting, provocative, banal, etc. And, whilst it is useful to make the attempt to express in words our response to a painting, photograph or sculpture, it isn't essential, or even completely possible: part of our appreciation of art will always be visceral. The critic, John Berger, talks of the "always-present gap between words and seeing." If we see the artwork, think about it and have feelings about it, then that can be enough, if we approach it with an open mind and make the effort to engage with it.

When I took the photograph above I did it intuitively, drawing on my education, experience and interest developed over many years. I could see the tree's blurred shadow laid across the boarded wall and louvres, and how it flicked upright after crossing the flat, paved ground. I could see that a composition of tones, textures and lines that pleased my eye and mind could be assembled by including these elements in differing proportions. So, knowing that I'd have to crop slightly to get what I wanted, I pressed the shutter. By briefly describing the process involved in taking this shot I don't mean to imply that it is a piece of art, or that it has any great merit: only that it satisfies me, and that (I think) I took a step beyond simply looking in securing it. An image like this belongs to a photographic genre that doesn't appeal to everyone. Such shots are sometimes rejected as being "about nothing". It's certainly possible to articulate why one doesn't like this sort of thing, but only if you go beyond looking and are sure you see it.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Pan

click photo to enlarge

Statuary has a long tradition in English gardening, but it reached its high-point in the eighteenth century. The Renaissance had begun to impinge on this island's artistic sensibilities from the sixteenth century, and took a stronger hold in the seventeenth. But it wasn't until the Georgian period that it ruled supreme. Then Classical architecture, art and mythology were the reference points for everyone who wanted to create a country house with landscaped grounds.

Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire has 98 acres of gardens and grounds that feature sculpture at every turn. The landscaping was designed in the twentieth century on eighteenth century principles (though the house dates from the twelfth century with additions from many later centuries). The skilfully placed statues include a lead group by Cheere, a marble Apollo of 1765, mid-eighteenth century busts of Roman emperors, urns by Scheemakers and Delvaux, and much more. They also include the statue of Pan shown above. This Greek god of shepherds, flocks, mountains, hunting and rustic music is generally known for two things - his sexuality and his pipes. At Anglesey this piece is one of a pair that face each other across a narrow path through a yew hedge. The yew has been deliberately and skilfully grown around the statues making them look like they are emerging from the foliage. They seemed to me to be less well-used than they might be in this tight location, so I took this shot of one of the pair to show him off to better effect against his green background.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Self-portrait clutching mirror

click photo to enlarge

I don't take many shots with people as the main subject (family snaps excluded). My photographic interests lie elsewhere. Where people do occur in my images they are generally for scale, as a small focal point, or simply because they are unavoidable! However, every now and again I do a self-portrait. These are usually tangential images - you're not going to get a full-on mug-shot from me!

Today's image is a bit of fun, and shows me clutching a mirror. Actually I'm not so much clutching as reaching around (it's on a stand) as I peep over the top, Kilroy-like. The image was framed using the Live-View feature of the camera. The rest of the confusion of reflections I leave you to work out for yourself.

photograph & image (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Late Christmas or Early Easter?

click photo to enlarge

I'm thoroughly confused about this cactus. Which isn't surprising because this is a pretty mixed up cactus! Let's try and unravel the confusion by starting with what I know. This plant is a direct descendant of one that came into my house thirty three years ago. Over that time its grandparents, parents and this specimen have annually produced these pleasing pink flowers.

Now I've always called it a Christmas Cactus. And, sometimes these flowers have coincided with Christmas. But occasionally they've appeared before the season of jollity. However, more often it's been after that period, and now and then they've delayed their showing until Easter. Which has made me wonder. Is it a late Christmas cactus or an early Easter cactus? This year I've tried to find the truth. I think it's a Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera bridgesii), not to be confused with the fairly similar Easter cactus (Hatiora gaertneri) - though I'm not alone, apparently, in mis-identifying one for the other. However, in my researches I came across a description of these plants that does away with any confusion whatsoever. You simply call them all Holiday cactuses! No more sympathetic looks when you get it wrong, because you're always right! The trouble is I just can't bring myself to use the name. It reminds me too much of those cards (U.S. inspired I believe) that wish people Happy Holiday instead of including the season or particular celebration in their greeting. It's illogical I know. But then so is a Christmas cactus in full bloom on Valentine's Day!

This is my third recent attempt at a plant still life. Here I've tried to increase the deep shadow, and once again I used natural light.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 8.0
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Dedications and weather

click photo to enlarge

All Church of England churches have a dedication, usually to a saint, but often to the Virgin Mary, the Trinity, the Holy Rood (Cross), or one of a few other religious symbols. This dedication is usually included in the full name of the building. So, the faintly seen structure in this photograph is The Parish Church of St Swithun, Bicker, Lincolnshire.

Usually the dedication that the church carries today is the one that it originally received a thousand years or more ago. But sometimes it is changed. Bicker's church has always, as far as I know, carried the name of St Swithun, although sometimes it has been, and still is, written as St Swithin. Who was this person? Well, he was a Bishop of Winchester, who died in the year 862, and whose life is relatively well recorded. He appears in"The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and several other ancient texts. Like most saints his fame increased after his death, and miracles began to be attributed to him. Swithun's best known miracle is the restoration of a basket of eggs that some workmen had deliberately broken! However, in England, his feast day - 15th July - is much better known than that of many other saints. This is mainly due to the saying that surrounds rain falling (or not) on that particular day: "St Swithun's day if it does rain, For forty days it will remain, St Swithun's Day if it is fair, For forty days 'twill rain no mair (more)." So, English folk who know this saying pay special attention to the weather when 15th July comes around, and hope that precipitation does not bring forty days of wetness right in the middle of summer!

Rain wasn't the prevailing condition when I photographed St Swithun's. An overnight frost had coincided with fog, and the early morning sun forcing its way through gave an opportunity for a contre jour shot. A horizontal crop seemed to make best use of the photographic elements available.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

The Stump

click photo to enlarge

In 1851 the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations opened in Hyde Park, London. It was housed in a large building called, unsurprisingly, the Great Exhibition Hall. The building's name didn't last very long because it was Joseph Paxton's revolutionary structure in cast iron and glass, and people immediately christened it "The Crystal Palace" - the name by which it subsequently became known.

This tradition of bestowing affectionate (or derogatory) names on buildings is one of fairly long standing, and it continues today. Norman Foster's curvaceously tapered office block at 30 St Mary Axe, London, built for an insurance company, is rarely referred to by either its address or its name, the Swiss Re Tower. "The Gherkin" is the name given to its distinctive shape by Londoners, and the soubriquet has well and truly stuck. A building doesn't even have to be built to acquire a nickname! Renzo Piano's proposed 66-storey London Bridge Tower is already widely known as "The Glass Shard" in recognition of its likeness to an upright tapering splinter.

When the people of Lincolnshire, in the 1400s, saw the tower of the church of St Botolph start to reach for the sky they must have been impressed by the sight. But as stage was built on successive stage, and no spire appeared they must have begun to wonder how high it would go. And, when it was topped by an open-work octagonal lantern they must have been lost for words. They were familiar with the towers and spires of nearby churches, but this was different from any of them. And it was so big! Perhaps it was the view of the 272 feet tall tower when seen from a few miles distant, across the flat Fenland landscape, that caused a local wit to liken it to a tree stump. However the name arose it stuck, and "The Stump" it has been ever since.

My photograph shows the classic view of this wonderful church tower, from the Town Bridge. I took it for the particularly good reflections on the tidal River Witham, seen to good effect in the morning light of a winter day.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Property and greed

click photo to enlarge

Just when you think TV can't get any worse it does! Three genres of programme currently fill an inordinate amount of UK air time. The so-called "reality" programmes full of mindless "contestants" doing mindless "tasks" are the epitome of dross that each season achieve the seeming impossibility of greater inanity. Then there's the various takes on cookery, each chef with their own pathetic gimmick, undertaking ever more ridiculous stunts in the interest of self-promotion. Jamie Oliver surely can't be far off a knighthood the way he's going. However, I don't think that's good enough. I'd like the pope to consider him for canonisation. St Jamie of Aga has a nice ring to it!

However, by far the worse of the televisual time-wasters are the property programmes. Those who conceive such viewing have clearly taken Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" creed to heart, and won't be happy until they've completely removed any notion that a house is for living in, and replaced it with the belief that it's simply an investment. How the BBC, with its public service remit, can support the selfish capitalism that underpins such programmes beggars belief. A significant part of the problem with housing in the UK centres around its use as an investment vehicle, as well as the activities of the growing group of avaricious buy-to-letters, urged on by this type of programme, who push up prices and ruin neighbourhoods and individual properties, all for their own selfish interest. Some of these people convince themselves that by buying a house and breaking it up into flats (to fund the loan they used to buy it) they're providing a public service! Surely such delusion is indicative of serious mental illness, and certainly shouldn't be fed by television?

As I walked past this sixteenth century house next to the fourteenth century church at Billingborough, Lincolnshire, I idly wondered what possibilities these programmes might dream up for it. Maybe they'd try and make it "more authentic" with a bit of "distressed" wood here and a slab or two of Cotswold (because it's the "best") stone there. Perhaps, taken by the genuine mullions, they'd reproduce them in all the windows. That would surely raise its price. Or would they make it multiple-occupancy (for the "discerning" buyer only of course) with a few more entrances knocked through its limestone walls. What they wouldn't do is leave it to grow old gracefully in the way it has done, slowly adapting to the needs of succeeding generations, because in so doing there's no quick profit to be made!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Chinese lanterns

click photo to enlarge

Sometimes it's all about the colour! I learnt this many, many years ago when I first studied painting. At the time I had decided ideas about what I liked. From the twentieth century I favoured David Hockney, Franz Kline, Victor Pasmore, Graham Sutherland, Stanley Spencer (yes, I had a liking for English artists!), and from the past, J.M.W. Turner, Cotman, Goya, Chardin, Vermeer and Gaugin. I was equally unequivocal about what I didn't like - Rococo painting!

Its origins in the decorative arts gave it, to me, a frothy insubstantiality. All those satin ladies, fine gentlemen, luxuriant foliage, shiny silk and mythological characters seemed like so many staged scenes from lightweight plays. Then my eyes were opened by "The Swing" by Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806). On the face of it this painting represented everything I disliked about the work of that period: a flimsy young woman in her bouncing dress, showing her legs and petticoats to her foppish lover, as her dainty shoe flies off, set in a sylvan glade with stone cherubs looking on. No, not my cup of tea at all. But, I was bowled over by the colour. Pink set against turquoise (the delicacy of which is hard to reproduce across the internet!), with shades of each colour multiplied across the painting. It made me realise that the force of a painting can exist independently of its subject.

That can be true of a photograph too, though many amateurs are unaware of this important fact. When people say to me, can you recommend a book on digital photography my stock answer is "No, they're a waste of time: read a book about art or art appreciation instead, you'll learn much more." Today's photograph is all about the colour: orange set against blue/green, with a little deeper black. It shows "Chinese lanterns" (Physalis franchetii) in a vase. It's a still life, the second I've done this week (see "The beauty of flowers"), where the colour was more important than the subject.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 2.5
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Courtyard living

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Courtyard living got a bad name in the nineteenth century. Cheap housing was thrown up around narrow, badly lit courtyards. Their purpose was strictly utilitarian - to let in light and air, with little thought given to proper planning. These were torn down in the slum clearances of the twentieth century, often to be replaced by equally poor public housing in the form of open-plan estates or tower blocks. But courtyards hadn't always been so reviled.

In the eighteenth century individual dwellings were often grouped in this way. In the big cities and provincial towns the higher densities that this type of building allows was put to good use, with proper space between front doors, and attractive shared spaces where neighbours could meet and children could play, detached from the busy bustle of the nearby street. Furthermore, courtyard developments were built for all classes of buyer, not just the poor, so there was no stigma attached to the arrangement.

Spain Court in Boston, Lincolnshire (above), dates from the late eighteenth century. It was never high cost housing, but the two-storey terraces facing each other across the cobbles offer a modest, relatively quiet, private space, with no immediate passers-by, near the heart of the town. The development has been sensitively refurbished, with proper regard for the uniformity of the dwellings, and "chinoiserie" fretwork, a motif favoured in the eighteenth century, in the arch at the end of the vista. Is there a place for this kind of development today? Or is the desire to own your own bricks and mortar inextricably linked to owning the space around it too?

The choice with a photograph of a place like Spain Court is to either stand to one side and emphasise one elevation more than the other, or go for symmetry. And, in the interests of injecting a little more "unpopular" symmetry into photography, I did the latter!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

The beauty of flowers

click photo to enlarge

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.
Marc Chagall (1889-1985) Russian-born French painter

I've always admired this quotation - in fact I've used it before - because it not only shows the humility of a great artist like Chagall, but it also embodies two truths: one about flowers and another about art.

It's no accident that when a person's bodily needs have been met he turns outwards from himself and gazes upon the world. Mankind has an innate desire to make sense of creation, and to find the deeper truths that we feel lie hidden within. Religions provide the answers for some. For others it can be science, philosophy or art. And for many it's gardening! And I say that not entirely in jest. When Monet had done with painting landscapes, allegories and nudes, he found that his garden provided the inspiration for his greatest works. The beauty of nature - and flowers in particular - is difficult to surpass, though it's certainly a worthy objective for any artist to try to do so.

These cyclamen live on my kitchen window sill. They have provided interest and beauty for the past several months, and I shall be sorry to see the flowers disappear. Mindful of John Keats' words in the poem "Endymion", "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", I took them down, and arranged them against a dark backdrop to emphasise those lovely pink flowers. I took some shots using flash but this image taken with available light was the best of the bunch!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 1.0
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

The gravedigger's door

click photo to enlarge

"As one door closes, another opens", we say, and this was metaphorically and literally true for the parishioners of Swineshead in Lincolnshire. For a period of a hundred, or maybe even two hundred years, as the door of life closed on a person, so the door of this churchyard shed opened, and the gravedigger brought out his tools to prepare a burial place for the deceased.

Today the building is more likely to contain a lawnmower and a few other tools for maintaining the grounds of the ancient church. But it may still hold the gravedigger's tools for those parishioners whose final journey doesn't include cremation. Whatever its present purpose, it still stands, castellated above, repaired and extended with different bricks, and sealed with its old pointed door in its old pointed arch - the builder's idea of what is appropriate for a churchyard.

I'd gone to Swineshead to photograph the lovely church tower and spire with its corona base, and came away with a number of images that I'm pleased with. This is one that I didn't look for - it just, serendipitously, presented itself. Of all the shots I took on that bright, windy afternoon, this is my favourite for the combination of colours, shadows and texture.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Greenhouse emergency!

click photo to enlarge

I've been involved in a few unusual emergencies in my time. Many years ago, when I was working in a school, I received a message from the teacher in charge of its nursery that catered for children aged 2-4 years - "Please come across immediately - we have a serious problem and we need your help." I found someone to look after the children I was with, and dashed over with some trepidation about what I was going to find. My worries were unfounded - no broken limbs or crushed fingers. It turned out that a large, black, bulbous-eyed goldfish in the children's fish tank had been sucking up stones to eat the moss off them and had got one stuck in its mouth! It was swimming around looking very silly, but quite unconcerned, with its jaws forced open by its unintended mouthful. The children were following its every circuit of the tank, and several were close to tears, very worried that it would die - either quickly by drowning (!), or slowly, for lack of food. I knew I had to act decisively, and give a semblance of looking like I knew what I was doing! So taking out my trusty Swiss Army penknife, I unfolded the gimlet spike, reached into the water, chased and eventually grabbed the unfortunate fish, then, placing the spike between the back of its mouth and the stone - flicked. The stone plopped out, the fish was returned to the water, and I left with the cheers of the children ringing in my ears, the hero of the day! On another occasion I was called to extricate a six year old school pupil who had contrived to get a chair stuck around her waist. But that tale can wait for another occasion.

Yesterday the most recent unusual emergency arose. I'd spent the previous couple of days helping my friends to erect a greenhouse (glasshouse), and we'd left it standing on its concrete base at the end of the day. However, extremely strong winds arose during the night and continued through the morning, to the point where the heavy glass and aluminium structure was pushed horizontally, and started to move off its base. Then one corner started to come unbolted, and I made a mercy dash to help them prevent our work coming catastrophically apart. With the help of a passing animal transporter, then a tractor, strategically positioned to break the force of the wind, the situation was redeemed without a single pane of glass being broken. Much of the rest of the day was then spent fixing the structure to its concrete base.

Today's photograph shows a relieved owner (with reflected husband and yours truly) surveying the re-positioned and secured greenhouse at the end of work after night had fallen. I took a photograph of the scene inside because the bright work light gave some strikingly unusual reflections. The shot was hand held, utilising every contrivance to secure a sharp image, and, all things considered, it came out pretty well I think.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/5
ISO: 1600
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On