Life's riches

click photo to enlarge

The other day I saw a pair of lapwings displaying above a field. I suppose they were nesting there, and as they performed their characteristic aerial acrobatics, all the while making their distinctive call, they looked like they were celebrating simply being alive. When I lived in Lancashire lapwings nested in the field behind my house, and across the nearby pastures and uplands. Such are the particular nesting requirements of lapwings, that where I live now, in Lincolnshire, I have to travel to the coastal salt-marsh and uncultivated land to see them. Or so I thought until, when cycling near home, I spotted this solitary pair over a ploughed area. I hope they are successful in their endeavours.

I've been interested in birds since I was ten or eleven years of age. It was my teachers at primary school who sparked my deep love of natural history. Each Friday we would walk into the countryside and be shown the trees, flowers, birds and any other wildlife that was at hand. We learned the names and something of the biology of these living things. That teaching stayed with me, and like the best teaching, spurred me to find out more for myself. It is no exaggeration to say that it enriched my life enormously. When I first became involved in education I was surprised at how little children knew of the wildlife around them, and I was thankful for the knowledge that my teachers had given to me all those years before. On one occasion I asked a group of ten year old children to write down for me all the flowers they knew by name. The only three wild flowers most could name were (perhaps unsurprisingly) the dandelion, daisy and buttercup. They knew more cultivated flowers, naming the daffodil first, followed by the poppy, the rose, and the tulip. Various other well known flowers made an appearance. I thought then, and I think now, that people who can't name, and don't know anything about the plants and animals around them miss so much. The simple act of going for a walk is much less interesting than it could be!

Today's photograph shows one of those more widely known flowers - the tulip. This one, that I photographed on a rainy afternoon, was past its best, its colours darkening prior to the petals falling off.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The broach spire

click photo to enlarge

When one considers the tools and technology available to the builders of medieval churches one can only be astonished at the wonderful structures that they managed to erect. Human muscle, wooden scaffolding, hemp ropes, steel tools and the secrets of the masonic crafts are responsible for buildings that amazed our forbears as they arose in the churchyard, and have the power to impress us still.

Gothic architecture developed over the centuries as masons and builders developed new ways of spanning ever larger spaces with ever smaller amounts of stone and wood. Windows increased in size and became filled with stone tracery as the dark churches of the twelfth century gradually evolved into the light, airy spaces of the fifteenth century. Ever larger buttresses were placed between windows allowing walls to be thinner, and the lateral forces of roofs to be supported, enabling naves to be wider to accommodate growing congregations. The ingenuity of those involved with such developments was remarkable, and as one builder introduced a new idea, so others took it up and introduced it into the building they were constructing.

This church at Frampton, Lincolnshire, is one of the first to use the thirteenth century technical innovation known as the broach spire. The broaches are the triangular shapes clasping the spire above the top corners of the tower. Their purpose is to enable the tapered octagon of the spire to fit onto the square top of the tower. It's a wonderfully elegant solution to the problem, produces very attractive spires, and enjoyed popularity for a hundred or so years. Here at Frampton (and also at Sleaford and North Rauceby, also in Lincolnshire) can be seen some of the first examples.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Both sides of the hill

click photos to enlarge

I was driving through the rolling hills around Folkingham in Lincolnshire when the manicured, intensively farmed fields prompted me to look for some landscape images. There were rich colours and strong lines, and I wondered if I could make something of them. After a bit of searching I came upon a yellow oilseed rape field on a hillside. Some parts were yellow with flowers, but elsewhere the green leaves still predominated, and on the steeper slope, where the rape didn't grow as well, lines of brown soil showed through. These colours attracted me, especially against the blue and white of the sky. But what made me take the shot was a row of trees along the horizon that hadn't yet come into leaf. So I clicked away, then meandered on, not heading anywhere in particular, and turning up any road that took my fancy.

Soon I came to a flat area of pale stubble with a hedge, and beyond a field of green wheat with lines where a tractor had been spraying. With the sky above this presented three bands of colour. But once again it was a row of trees on the skyline that made me consider the shot. When I framed it a hare came bounding into the viewfinder. I pressed the shutter, and as I did so I felt a touch of sympathy tinged with admiration for this gentle animal. Here it was, an insignificant creature in a big landscape that is heavily controlled by man, finding food where it can, subject to regular disturbance by people and machinery, hunted with guns and dogs in winter, and yet still managing to eke out a life as its forebears had done for millennia.

When I got home and was processing the shots it dawned on me that the trees on the horizon were the same in each image: I'd captured them from opposite directions. I had been so engrossed in looking for photographs that I hadn't noticed I'd driven round to the other side of the hill! So, here they are, two shots of Eastern England's arable farmland, wonderfully productive of food, but not so good at growing wildlife.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 1st image: 84mm (168mm/35mm equiv.), 2nd image: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1st image: 1/1250, 2nd image: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 1st image: -0.3 EV, 2nd image: 0EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The House of Correction

click photo to enlarge

The village of Folkingham in Lincolnshire is known for its wide street flanked with broad grass verges and a wonderful collection of Georgian and later houses; for The Greyhound coaching inn (currently being converted into flats); for a church with one of the best towers in this part of the world; also a shop that sells chocolates of its own manufacture, and for the "House of Correction"!

That name conjures up all sorts of dark and fanciful images. One can imagine it being the title of a novel by Edgar Allen Poe, or some writer of more salacious tomes. Or perhaps a 1960s Hammer horror film starring Peter Cushing. But in fact it's just a rather grand early nineteenth century name for a local jail! The site where it can be found began life as an eleventh century Norman motte and bailey castle constructed of earth and timber. In 1312, Henry, Baron de Beaumont converted it into a moated stone structure with crenellations. However, by 1611 much of this had gone, and a jail had been built there. In 1808 this was replaced by a new building, and in 1825 a grand and forbidding entrance in the classical style was added. It housed the turnkey and the governor's horses and carriage. It also proclaimed its purpose to the world by having the words "House of Correction A.D. 1825" carved in bold Roman letters across its facade. During the years up to its closure in 1878 a treadmill, a whipping post, stocks and a hand crank were some of the instruments used on the inmates. When the gates closed for the last time the inner buildings were converted into ten dwellings which survived until demolition in 1955. Only the entrance of 1825 remained, and this is now owned by The Landmark Trust, an organisation that preserves redundant but significant buildings by converting them and renting them for short periods. The House of Correction now provides holiday accommodation for up to four people - something of a departure from its intended use!

I took liberties with the processing of my photograph of the building, and tried, by applying a sepia and blue split-toning effect, to turn it into an image of the place of pain and menace that it must once have been. Dante's gates of Hell had the words "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" inscribed upon them. That was the effect I was after!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Cley next the Sea

click photo to enlarge

I read the other day that wheat accounts for a mere 13% of the price of a loaf of bread in the UK. Since the average loaf is currently £1.10, and bakers are agitating for super- markets to add a further 10p, perhaps increasing numbers of households will see the wisdom in baking their own "staff of life". The rise in the price of food across the world has already seen packets of vegetable seeds flying off the shelves in volumes not seen for many years as more British families turn to their garden rather than the store as the source of their greens. And, though one has to be concerned about the affordability of basic foodstuffs, the benefits to health, wealth, well-being and the environment that flow from making and growing more of our own food are to be welcomed.

Fifty years ago much more food was produced in the family kitchen and from the family garden or allotment. Back then it happened principally for reasons of economy, but taste, nutrient value, relaxation and exercise were also factors. Many families, including my own, have always baked bread and grown vegetables, but until recently, despite the proselytising of TV chefs and gardeners, it was a slowly dying practice. So, if it makes a comeback - for whatever reason - I say "Hooray!"

The image of this much photographed windmill at Cley next the Sea, Norfolk, prompted these thoughts. Its turning sails and grinding stones produced flour from the time of its construction in 1819 until its closure as a mill in 1921. I imagine most of its produce was sold in the immediate locality, and turned into bread and other delicacies in fireside ovens, ranges and cookers. Since the time the sails were stilled it has been a home and a bed and breakfast. Old photographs show the building reflected in the harbour with boats alongside. However, like the village of Cley (pronounced "Cly") the mill is no longer "next the Sea", due to land drainage and the silting up of the harbour. Today a walk of almost a mile is necessary to find the beach!

I took this shot of the marsh, mill and nearby cottages as the sun illuminated them against a dark and threatening sky.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm (110mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sunshine of Your Love

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When it comes to Eric Clapton I'm one of those who feel that he peaked in the four albums he made with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in the band, Cream. In my view very little of his earlier work with John Mayall or the Yardbirds, or his subsequent solo and guest work, approaches the sublime qualities found in songs like "White Room", "Strange Brew", "Sitting on Top of the World", or "Badge". Maybe I'm influenced by the total sound of that band, that comprised the very individual driving bass of Bruce, the virtuoso drumming of Baker, and Pete Brown's lyrics, as well as that stinging guitar of Eric Clapton. There are those who feel that there still isn't a better rock and blues guitarist, and I certainly admire the man's technical virtuosity. But for me, there is no longer the excitement, sound, and sheer "rightness" in his playing. Maybe it needs songs of the calibre of "Sunshine of Your Love" to make that happen again, and they don't come along very often.

That particular song came into my mind yesterday as I was out in the garden. Last year, I moved to a new house. I'd only been here a few weeks when I started to notice a male blackbird that sang a phrase identical to the first five notes of "Sunshine of Your Love". Really! I know it sounds unlikely but it's true! It was in the wrong key, but there was no mistaking it. When I pointed it out to my wife she recognised it immediately. Now I don't know if this bird was a Cream fan, or whether it had been listening at the window as someone played "Disraeli Gears", but it continued with the same riff for several weeks as we sat in the sun, pruned the shrubs or picked the fruit. Then I heard it no more. Maybe, I thought, a cat that's a fan of Jimmy Page's Led Zeppelin period got it. But probably the breeding season ended and the need or desire to sing passed. Well, the other day, as I was taking photographs of tulips in the garden I thought I heard it again. In fact I'm sure I did. Now, every time I go out into the garden I listen, hoping that the avian version of "It's getting near dawn..." will spiral down to me from the top of the cherry tree!

Today's photograph is one of the shots I took when I heard that "blast from the past". I placed my camera low down and took a shot upwards, towards the sun. I knew I'd get the tulips and the trees, and I wanted the sun as well, but it was a shot in hope rather than expectation. However, the composition, colour and sunburst came out better than I expected, so I post the result here today.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Architecture and nature

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I have a particular fondness for architectural drawings, and my shelves hold a number of books showing wonderful examples. The original purpose of these drawings (and I'm not talking about technical plans and blueprints here) was to help the architect to visualise his building, and to show it to the client before it was built. All this can be done through computers today, but the art that they produce rarely has the qualities of pen, pencil, crayon or paint on paper.

When you look at architectural drawings from across the centuries you realise that the architectural skills of architects like Wren, Boulee, Adam, Street, Mackintosh, Voysey were complemented by stunning draughtsmanship. In the twentieth century the range of architectural drawings widened. The visionary Italian architect, Antonio Sant'Elia (1888-1916) drew his modernistic fantasies in stabbing black ink and pencil, showing acute angles and strong symmetry. Tony Garnier (1869-1948) represented his blocky suburban houses in pen and soft pencil set among stylized trees and relaxed people. Soft pencil was also used by Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950) for the wonderfully detailed aerial perspective of a school he designed in Michigan. And Rudolph Schindler's (1887-1953) Californian beach house, drawn in coloured crayon, sets its blocky shapes among outlined trees and planting. In fact, as you move through the twentieth century, looking at architects like Venturi, Lloyd-Wright and many others, you find the sharp shapes of modernism softened and broken in their drawings by the irregular outlines of trees and shrubs. It's as though they recognised that people don't want to live in an angular, urban environment without the softness of plants also being present. Either that, or they knew they couldn't sell their architectural visions if they were presented in the raw! Or perhaps they simply liked the art that comes from presenting hard geometric lines against soft, wilful nature.

I was reflecting on this as I prepared the photograph above. The irregular stems and flowers of these dried plants look like the pen-drawn trees of some architects' drawings. They have a slightly Art Nouveau-cum-Japanese quality that the conversion to high contrast black and white only serves to strengthen. There's maybe a bit Charles Rennie Mackintosh about them. Whatever it is, I liked their linear quaility, and placed them in front of paper against a window to achieve this effect.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Minsters and monstrous packaging

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As I sat at my desk and processed this photograph of Southwell Minster, Nottingham- shire, I was surrounded by a pile of debris that made me despair. It was there because the other day I ordered a 4GB compact flash card online, and expected to receive just that. How naive I am!

The card came in the small, useful, protective, plastic case that will be familiar to anyone who uses these devices. That's what I expected. However, I also received:
- a small padded, zipped, nylon case with a keyring, packaged in a cellophane bag;
- a mini-CD with data recovery software (inside its own sleeve);
- a 24-page User Guide, in multiple languages with warranty details;
- three further pieces of card and paper that advertised the manufacturer's range of memory cards, urged me to buy Capture One Pro image processing software, and told me how to responsibly dispose of the card;
- a strong, sealed, moulded clear plastic package holding most of the above;
- a colourful box (with hidden security tag) holding everything.

Why the manufacturer thinks I need two containers for one card I really don't know. The sole effect of the recovery software was to make me wonder about the reliability of the product and the value of its lifetime guarantee! As for the card enclosures, whilst the warranty information is doubtless a legal requirement, the rest of it was of no use whatsoever: and a User Guide for a memory card is laughably pointless. The plastic package was of the sort penetrable only by a small nuclear device (or a very strong pair of scissors), and yes, once again I got scratched by the sharp edges as I fought my way into it. As I looked at the glossy box that contained all of the above I idly wondered how many memory cards it would hold. So I measured it. The answer is about 95! If they were in the small, useful cases it would still hold 32! Am I alone in thinking that the packaging a product has should have a teeny bit of correlation to the size of the object it holds? I imagine the producer of this device has an environmental policy that it proudly trumpets to shareholders and any member of the public that asks about such a thing. But it's not worth the paper it's written on if it sells its products in such an environmentally unsustainable way.

I gave another glance at the pile of rubbish on my desk as I processed my photograph and noticed on the box, under the name and logo, the company's slogan - "Store your world in ours". I reflected that therein lies the problem. There aren't multiple worlds, there's only one, and it's a world that we all share. The danger in being driven solely by your own view of the world, whether as a company or as an individual, is that you follow your own selfish interest, lose any sense of the absurd, forget the duty we owe to each other and the planet, and neglect the steps that are necessary to sustain us. Oh, and supply compact flash cards in a ludicrous amount of packaging!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Blurred reality

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The critic John Berger writes that the invention of the camera "showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experience of the visual". In his view the invention and use of perspective in painting "proposed to the spectator that he was the unique centre of the world", but the camera demonstrated that there was no centre, and that "what you saw was relative to your position in time and space". He goes on to note that the invention of the camera changed the way men saw, and " the visible no longer presented itself to man in order to be seen", rather it being "in continual flux, became fugitive." Much late nineteenth century and twentieth century art is built on this idea.

I was reflecting on this during the processing of the photograph above. The outing on which it was taken included a visit to a gallery where I saw paintings of such depressing banality that you wondered whether the artist was familiar with any of the notable practitioners of the past two centuries. If he had been he surely couldn't have displayed his own work. My image shows the reflection of a railway bridge that crosses the River Witham near the Grand Sluice in Boston, Lincolnshire. The bold shapes and the clouded sky attracted my eye, and I decided to shoot it with a slow shutter speed to blur the water. The resulting image reminded me a little of the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Franz Kline that feature strong, dynamic and spontaneous shapes against lighter backgrounds. Whatever the association it's a strong contrast to the style (and inspiration) of my preceding two blog images!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 31mm (62mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f9.0
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Tulipomania

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"Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid servants, even chimney sweeps and old clothes women dabbled in tulips."
from "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay (1814-1889), Scottish poet, journalist and song-writer

The present turmoil in the financial markets demonstrates that mass delusion is a recurring feature of mankind. Today's fantasy infects not just financiers, bankers and politicians, but the general public, and hinges on the belief that we can lend and spend money that we don't possess without any adverse consequences ensuing. In his book of 1841, noted above, Charles Mackay wrote about a number of delusions of his day and earlier, including The Mississippi Scheme, The South Sea Bubble and Tulipomania. Looking at today's money markets and reading through Mackay's work one is reminded of the cynical saying about the value of history: "the one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history"!

Tulipomania centred around the growing of tulips in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands). This began following the introduction of the bulbs into the country from Turkey in 1593. Such was the interest in the bulbs that they became a coveted luxury item and status symbol. Exotic colours were bred and named after famous Dutch admirals. The price of bulbs rocketed. In 1635 40 bulbs sold for 100,000 florins: this at a time when a ton of butter cost only 100 florins. Individuals could make so much money through tulips that speculation began, with people selling contracts for bulbs not planted. Eventually the bubble burst and many were ruined. Tulipomania is widely thought to have precipitated the economic depression that affected the Low Countries in subsequent years. All this sounds very familiar in the light of the 1990s "dotcom" crash and the current falling house prices precipitated by reckless lending and borrowing.

Today's image is of some rather humble tulips that cost very little to buy and nurture. I intercepted them as they journeyed between my garden and the living room, and set the Wedgwood Queen's Ware vase up in front of a black background for a still life photograph. The trick in making tulips stand up (rather than flop as they are inclined to do) is to push a pin through each flower stalk. But I wanted them to arch a little, so these are pre-pin-prick tulips!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16.0
Shutter Speed: 1.6
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

A man-made view

click photo to enlarge

The distinction between "natural" and "man-made" is interesting because it implies that which is made by man is not natural. And yet many of the problems that mankind creates, it can be argued, come about because people see themselves as different from, and better than, nature. If mankind saw itself as part of the natural world, beholden to what it gives us, and responsible to it as well, then perhaps we might fit into our world a little better, rather than moulding it and destroying it to fit around us. Mankind's depredations often result in diminished biodiversity, though animals and plants are surprisingly good at adapting to the new landscapes that we create.

In fact, it's surprising how many who live in Europe have forgotten (or maybe never knew) just how little of our landscape is now "natural" in the sense of being unchanged by man. Take, for example, the English Lake District, a National Park revered by poets and everyman for its natural beauty. It's a fact that with the exception of a few of the highest summits and screes it looks very different from how it would look without the effects of sheep grazing, forestry, shooting, and tourism. The romantic, bare fells would soon disappear under scrub without farming and land management to keep them clear. Take too, the area of wetlands known as the Norfolk Broads. These lowland peat bogs, reed beds, lakes and rivers, now the playground of boat owners and bird watchers, and home to a remarkable variety of plant and animal life, look like a natural feature of East Anglia. And so they were thought to be until the 1960s. Then the botanist, Joyce Lambert, showed that they result from peat excavation, an activity that began with the Romans and continued and grew through the medieval period, until at one point Norwich Cathedral was extracting 320,000 tons a year!

The photograph above is a spring evening view of part of the northernmost area of water in the Broads, Horsey Mere. The water levels used to be controlled by the five-storey windpump built in 1912 (shown), but today electrical pumps do the job. This is another photograph where I seem to have been influenced by my interest in painting. The processing I've given the shot gives something of a seventeenth century Dutch painting look to the image, making it a man-made view in another sense too!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.0
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Through the lychgate

click photo to enlarge

The entrance to many English churchyards is through a roofed gateway, sometimes containing seats, called a lychgate. The word "lych" comes from the Anglo-Saxon, and is similar to the German "leiche" meaning "corpse". These charming structures are often of great antiquity - the oldest in England dates from the 1300s. It was at this covered gate that the priest would meet the party carrying the corpse at the start of a funeral. The body (and in later times the coffin) would be rested here as the service began, and then was placed on a wheeled bier for transport into the church.

Lychgates vary in construction: some are simple wooden structures with thatched or wood shingle roofs, others combine wood, slate (or tiles) and timber, and in upland areas examples can be found made entirely of the local stone. Today the funeral service usually begins at the church building, and the lychgate now serves simply as an entrance to the churchyard. However, enterprising parishes often fit a light on the structure to illuminate the way to the church porch in the evening and darker months, and a notice board is often fitted under cover advertising the events of church and village. In some villages the lychgate serves as the war memorial, and elsewhere they can be found with a donor's name inscribed.

The example in the photograph provides the entry to the churchyard of the medieval All Saints, Thornham, in Norfolk. Like many lychgates it provides an excellent frame for a photograph of the church itself. Here I've used high contrast black and white to emphasise the arches in the woodwork.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f9.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Potatoes and salt

click photo to enlarge

The coastline of The Wash on England's east coast has moved over the centuries. And, as the sea level rose and fell, so the salt-makers who worked the salt-marshes around this great bay moved to ply their trade.

The earliest remains suggest that Iron Age man gathered sea salt from this region, and that subsequent Roman invaders carried on the extraction of this valuable commodity. Remains in the areas around Ingoldmells, Helpringham and Billingborough show that clay troughs and fire were used to extract the salt. The later Saxon and medieval "salterns" followed the retreating sea, and are closer to the present-day coast. Bicker Haven was lined with these sites. Here the salt was extracted from the mud of the salt-marsh since it had a higher saline content than the sea water. This involved moving and washing great quantities of mud which were then piled up in "spoil heaps" before the resulting brine was boiled. By the 1600s this activity and the exports it generated had stopped, superseded by sun-evaporated salt. As the sea retreated further, the salt-marshes of Bicker Haven and the surrounding Fens were drained and turned into productive farmland. However, the mounds left by the salt-makers remain today, shallow bumps in this dead flat landscape, clearly visible by their contour lines on today's 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey map.

Today's photograph isn't part of a Japanese karesansui garden, but shows a field of newly-planted potatoes near Bicker, the mounds of each row undulating over the ancient man-made hills of the medieval salt-industry. I was attracted by the intersecting patterns that the mechanical planter had made.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Not so common sense

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"Common sense is the collection of predjudices acquired by the age eighteen".
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born theoretical physicist

Many would think Albert Einstein's view of what constitutes common sense somewhat jaundiced, but it clearly contains an element of truth. Perhaps the dictionary definition of "sound judgement not based on specialised knowledge" would receive more support. Common sense is a great quality, but it can often lead us astray, and is frequently enlisted by those wanting to cut through what they see as the obfuscation of deeper analysis.

In the debate over the environment, and in particular the production of greenhouse gases, common sense is used to support the growing of biofuels. It seems obvious that renewable sources must replace depleting oil, and will have less environmental impact. And yet, recent analysis by scientists from a range of disciplines suggest that the proposed cultivation of crops for fuel is often worse for the environment than fossil fuels. Similarly, the purchase by consumers of locally-sourced food is widely felt to be better for the environment, reducing the cost and pollution associated with transport. It just seems like common sense. Yet the production of green beans in Kenya, which are then flown to the UK, is found to be less environmentally damaging in all but the main months of the UK outdoor harvest. Apparently Kenyan beans are grown more organically, without the machinery and range of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that are used here. And, whereas the UK (and nearby mainland European growers) use heat to get early and late crops, in Kenya this isn't necessary. Research turns common-sense on its head.

I was thinking about these issues when I photographed this steam engine, 5224, a C.B. Collett design of 1924 on loan from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, here at the preserved North Norfolk Railway line at Sheringham. I reflected on whether improvements to the coal-burning steam engine would ever make this type of propulsion compete economically and environmentally with diesel and electricity. Common sense tells me that it is unlikely, but then common sense sometimes proves to be nonsense!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The sailing barge

click photo to enlarge

"A sailing vessel is alive in a way that no ship with mechanical power ever be."
Aubrey de Selincourt (1894-1962), English writer, classical scholar and translator

The sight of a sailing ship, with its elegantly curved hull, tall masts and intricate rigging, never fails to stir the painter or the photographer. Its location on a lake or river, in a harbour or on the sea, only adds to the allure. The strong light, big sky, reflections, ripples and waves provide a setting that encourages display of the artist's skills. I've never quantified the imbalance between depictions of sailing ships and powered vessels, but surely it must be at least three to one in favour of the former?

And, thinking about it, the sailors who spend their spare time messing about in boats must favour wind over diesel as their motive power by that ratio or more. So it must be the appeal of sailing along driven by a breeze that prompted the construction of the sailing barge, "Juno", shown here moored at Blakeney, on the north Norfolk coast. At first glance it looks like a lovingly restored, orginal, shallow-draughted boat of the sort that used to ply the east coast, calling in at small havens and tidal creeks, during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. But no, this vessel with its steel hull and modern conveniences was built in 2000, and earns its keep through hire to tourists. However, none of that detracts from its elegant lines and the distinction that it brings to the channel of this coastal village, today a haunt of small-boat sailors and bird-watchers.

This is my attempt at composing a shot in the manner of a marine painter. I took advantage of the soft sky from which spots of rain were still falling, and in the processing I tried to emphasise the painterly qualities by bringing out the detail of the clouds, and muting the colours slightly.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Pebbles paused

click photo to enlarge

"Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in."
from "Dover Beach", Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), English poet, writer and school inspector

Not Dover Beach, but Walcott beach, Norfolk. The shape of these pebbles shows that they have made many a "grating roar". However, their noise is now silenced, for the moment, jammed as they are in the gaps between the planks of a groyne. Yet, the next storm may well free them to continue their life of attrition, and their descent into sand.

When I was taking this photograph a couple of children were collecting pebbles in their small buckets. They scanned the beach carefully, selecting only those that appealed by colour, or banding, or distinctive shape. A man, presumably their father, was accompanying them, also intently selecting the pebbles that caught his eye. Perhaps they would be studied then returned to the beach. More likely they travelled home at the end of the afternoon and found a drier resting place decorating a garden, a backyard or a plant pot. Children are instinctively drawn to pebbles, finding the smooth shape and multi-colours attractive. Like flowers, sticks, insects and leaves a child sees them as abundant, attractive and hence, collectable. Interestingly, and almost uniquely, the childhood fascination with pebbles continues into adulthood, perhaps being driven by a primeval attraction based on a long-forgotten utility as well as their intrinsic beauty.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off