Nocturnal vermiculated rustication

click photo to enlarge

Why does the law still use the term "messuage" instead of "house, land and out- buildings"? Why do doctors speak of "hypoplasia" in preference to " a below- normal number of cells"? Why does Parliament say "prorogation" instead of "the end of the Parliamentary session", and why do psychiatrists use the word "bruxism" instead of "grinding the teeth"? Those who use such language usually defend it as necessary to the precision with which they need to conduct themselves professionally. And there's clearly considerable advantage to be gained by using unambiguous terminology that is understood within a particular discipline - it makes for clarity and efficiency. However, some of the language used by professionals is not unambiguous and often it's unnecessarily complex. Some medical professionals feel that they spend as much time learning terminology as they do mastering procedures.

However, there is one further use that language of this sort fulfils: it erects a barrier behind which the professional can operate, and it excludes the layman. This is very useful for giving a job the sort of aura required to justify high levels of remuneration! One can't help but feel that this is the real reason that the law, for example, is so resistant to making itself easily understood to the man in the street, rather than the desire to retain technical precision.

Today's photograph shows stone blocks on the exterior of a Victorian bank in Boston, Lincolnshire. The architectural profession describes blocks laid with deep joints as "rusticated". When such stonework was first used in the Italian Renaissance it was seen as "rustic" or country-style, compared with the more urban, smoothly laid stone or "ashlar". "Vermiculated" comes from "vermis", the Latin for worm. The surface pattern of this particular style of rusticated blocks was felt to resemble a worm-eaten surface. My photograph is a digitally enhanced image taken at night under the surrounding tinted lights. So the phrase "nocturnal vermiculated reticulation", is a technically precise description of the shot, even though it sounds like gibberish!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Down among the hostas

click photos to enlarge

Grass, tree roots, flowers, insects, leaves, the kerb edge, paving stones, holes, pebbles, sticks. Like many children I spent much of my childhood in close proximity to these things. One of the regrets of growing up is that you leave them behind. You become taller and much farther away from them. Your view changes, from your immediate, low-level surroundings, outwards to school, to the next road, the next town, next week, and to the rest of the world of grown-ups.

One of the joys of the macro lens is that it can make you feel like a child again. It encourages the exploration of the minutiae that surrounds us, and often takes us down into the low-lying regions that we last looked at when we were small. For some photographers it becomes an obsession, with the camera trained on (particularly) every passing insect. For me, the shapes, patterns and colours that this kind of lens reveals make for exciting compositions without the need to leave my home and garden.

The part of Lincolnshire in which I now live had been without rain for the past four weeks. Plants were suffering. So, when the weather broke, and rain fell, bringing relief to farmers and gardeners alike, the photographer in me also felt relieved that I could now look for shots with glistening highlights. I spotted these wet hostas from my living room window, and rushed out to photograph them as soon as the rain stopped, bending down low and close to get a child's-eye view of the patterns made by the leaf veins and water drops. I fired off a dozen or so shots, and couldn't decide which of these two compositions I liked best.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/60 (1/100)
ISO: 200 (400)
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The subject often isn't important

click photo to enlarge

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the number of TV channels that we are able to view, and the quality of the programmes that are broadcast. I say "seems", because it probably isn't the case, it just feels like that! Unlimited air time has led to so much of it being filled with cheap, populist drivel that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the pieces of fruit in this doughy pudding. So, many people, including me, have pretty much given up trying.

This situation is, in some ways analogous with photography. The spread of digital cameras, combined with the rise of the internet, has led to an explosion in the number of photographs being taken, and the quantity available to be viewed. It sometimes seems that photography is becoming flooded with snaps, and that the more considered images of enthusiastic amateurs and dedicated professionals are being buried in this deluge. In fact, I think there are more good photographs being taken today than at any time since the invention of the camera; it's just that they're so much harder to find amongst the avalanche of images.

I get the feeling that as photography increases in popularity we are seeing a smaller proportion of shots that are thoughtfully produced, and more that are the result of a subject interest, hobby or technical fascination with photographic equipment. For example, bird photography has increased exponentially in recent years, cars feature much more heavily than formerly, macro shots of insects proliferate with the arrival of spring, and holiday shots burgeon across the warmer months. For many the interest in a photograph is inextricably linked to the subject that is depicted. That isn't a problem in itself, but it can limit photography to a supporting role in the pursuit of another pastime. So, this is a plea for people not to forget what painters discovered a few hundred years ago - in a good image the subject is often less important than the treatment it receives. Many of the still-life paintings that proliferated from the seventeenth century onwards are living proof that imagery, lighting, composition, colour, texture, contrast, etc are not only the tools of much art, but are often the end in itself, and the vases, flowers, fruit and skulls that are the nominal "subjects" are only convenient means to achieve this goal. If photography (and photographers) aspire to the status of art then this is a truth worth remembering.

I certainly don't claim today's photograph is art. However, it is a considered image in terms of composition, colour, light, contrast and materials. I processed the shot to achieve something of the feel of a pastel drawing. It was working on this still life featuring Viburnum opulus, apples and plums, that sparked the mangled thoughts set out above.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

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

Looking up

click photo to enlarge

Mankind's impact on the earth is much discussed these days, particularly with regard to global warming, diminishing resources, the extinction of life forms, and the despoiling of land and the sea. Such are the demands that we make of our finite planet, it is increasingly hard to find a place where the mark of man is not visible. The uninhabited desert is frequently littered with the debris of wars. Mount Everest is marked by the dumps of successive generations of climbers. The jungles of the tropics are scarred by new roads and burnt clearings. And now we read that the seas are becoming a soup of decaying plastic as well as a dump for sewage and other noxious materials.

So, where can we look to see a sight unchanged from that seen by our ancestors? Well there clearly are still some locations on land and sea but they usually have to be sought out. The most convenient place is actually above our heads! Especially at night. The stars have held a fascination for mankind ever since he first glanced skywards. They offer a unique sight that is available to all without the inconvenience of travel. Or they should. The problem is that light pollution from cities hides all but the brightest stars, the moon and planets, and today it's only in the countryside away from street lighting that we can see the heavens in all their beauty - the odd satellite or aircraft permitting! The International Dark-Sky Association and its affiliated organisations work to return our birthright to us. Interestingly the shape of the constellations has changed slightly since Stone Age man gazed upwards, but essentially, what he saw, we see.

When the builders of our medieval cathedrals came to decide how to finish their ceilings they often painted golden stars on a blue background to represent the night sky or heaven, the destination of believers. As vaulting became more intricate and the short decorative ribs called liernes were introduced, it seemed obvious to make it into a star pattern (called a stellar vault), and symbolise heaven with one beautiful, radiant star. That is what happened to the underside of the crossing tower of Peterborough Cathedral shown in the photograph above.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 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

Commemorating death

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Every now and again the appropriateness of how we remember a death surfaces in the press. Recently someone was asked to remove a small shrine from the roadside that she had erected to commemorate her son's death in a traffic accident. Fairly frequently the press reports aggrieved relatives challenging a church's rules on the design of memorials permitted in its churchyard, or a ban on diminutives or nicknames in tombstone inscriptions.

In the past the church seems to have had fewer restrictions of this sort - or perhaps people were more conformist in their choice of memorial. Certainly if you were rich and powerful you could have whatever took your fancy. I see many memorials, dating from the eleventh century to the present day, in my visits to England's churches. Most of them follow the conventions of their day. But, every now and then I come across one that significantly bends and sometimes shatters, the idea of what was considered appropriate. I came upon one such example yesterday in the church of St James, at Spilsby, Lincolnshire.

This edifice, which has a tomb chest out of shot below my image, commemorates the deaths of Richard Bertie (d. 1582) and Baroness Willoughby de Eresby (d. 1580). It is early English Renaissance in style and decidedly weird. The frieze with fruit and leaves is fairly conventional, though the tall diapered niches with their unhistorical columns are quite naive. However, the three tall, crudely carved figures in place of columns (telamones) are just plain odd, not to say ridiculous. They depict a monk and two wild men, one covered in leaves or feathers. These refer to the emblems on the Willoughby coat of arms. Below them are carved skulls, two of which have been damaged over the centuries by inquisitive fingers. Furthermore, the portrait busts of the deceased (rather better carved than the three larger figures it must be said) look completely out of place in their tall niches, like after thoughts or the result of a mis-hearing by the sculptor - "Oh you said one yard high: I thought you said one foot!" You can't help feeling they should be either bigger, or placed on pedestals to better fill their spaces. I suspect that if the sixteenth century church did have rules about the style of memorials this one would fall well outside them. However, strange though it is, I do find it fascinating. And it brought a smile to my face. Looking at the unsmiling visages of the Baroness and her husband I don't think they would have approved of my response!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

One approach to gardening

click photo to enlarge

One of the most attractive approaches to gardening can be characterised as "benign neglect": taking a garden that has been laid out in a traditional way and doing enough with it to ensure that it doesn't become an impenetrable thicket, but not so much that the hand of the gardener can be detected. So, trees grow large, shrubs spread, climbers climb, perennials intermingle, and the only annuals to be seen are the self-seeded descendants of those sown under the previous, more organised regime. In spring and summer such a garden is verdant and vigorous, a place where the fit survive in the race for light and life. But in autumn and winter there is often an air of damp, death, decay and dishevelment!

This approach to gardening is not for everyone. If you like order, sharp tidiness, variety, and clear seasonal succession, then "benign neglect" is not for you. But if you have a taste for soft edges, natural planting, shades of green, and sitting in your garden pondering rather than dashing round it grafting, then it's worth considering. Of course you will need to make the occasional foray into the undergrowth, but with a scythe or loppers rather than a hoe or fork. Some tools, such as the rake, will do nothing but gather rust in this kind of garden. Plants that become overgrown will need to be either rescued or left to their fate, however that turns out. So, this is not gardening for the soft-hearted either!

The other day I passed this Victorian house in Boston, Lincolnshire. I don't know whether its owners practise the kind of gardening I've described, but it had that sort of feel when I peered over the ornate gate. The windows were losing the battle against Virginia Creeper and wisteria, and the lawn was long with dandelion blooms and seed heads adding their May time colours. Trees and shrubs were making pools of shade under their arching branches, and weeds were encroaching on the gravel path. In short it was a wild, but attractive, vista. And nothing at all like my garden!!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fields and food

click photo to enlarge

It's surprising that food has taken so long to reach the political agenda in the UK. But, when the prime minister recently listed his priorities for the next couple of years food, or rather food prices, loomed large. Maybe I haven't been taking as much notice as I should, but I don't recall it figuring much in political debate during my adult life. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that politicians only think about food when the availability and price make the voters squeal, but I do wish it wasn't so.

I'd have loved to have seen food policy a political priority when the move to intensive agriculture was driving down the numbers and diversity of our flora and fauna. I'd have liked to see it being the subject of more intelligent debate when genetically modified crops were being contemplated. So, I'd like to see the discussion of food policy today extend beyond rising prices. I recognise that it's difficult to balance food production, fair farm incomes, biodiversity, landscape and tourism, but I really get the impression that, as a country, we just don't make much of an effort. And the worldwide rise in food prices won't make it any easier or more likely. So, if you're a skylark, lapwing, wild animal or plant, clinging on to the odd patch of ground that isn't ploughed, sprayed, harvested, cropped or otherwise intensively cultivated, the future looks bleaker because mankind's insatiable appetite for cheap food and fuel means - we need your homes!

Today's photograph shows some intensively farmed land on Lincolnshire's rolling hills. During the afternoon that I took this shot I saw some old stubble fields providing food for foraging birds and mammals. However most of the ground was given over to cereal crops, legumes, potatoes and oilseed rape. The odd bit of pasture with sheep and dairy cattle still remains, but most of it is in small pockets around villages supporting the hobbyists of "horsiculture". Can it be long before this is turned over to food production too?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Reflecting the world

click photo to enlarge

I don't know the first architect who used mirror glass in a curtain wall, but I imagine he felt pretty pleased with himself! The idea of a wall that appears almost intangible, that reflects its surroundings in a grid, that conveys a sense of lightness or even weightlessness, is very appealing. It makes possible buildings that change their appearance according to the time of day, state of the weather and the particular season. Yes, when the first building that made this possible went up the architectural profession must have clapped its collective hands in delight. I've seen buildings with mirrored walls that look elegant and ethereal, that cause you to stop and stare.

However, there is also a sense in which mirror-wall buildings are a major cop out. They are "easy". They let the architect dispense with the usual problem of how to treat the exterior of a structure. There's no agonising over windows and walls because in this type of building they are the same. The problem of whether to use steel, concrete, brick, tiles, or any of the dozens of other finishes is redundant - the answer is always reflective glass. Yes, the design of the glazing bars is an issue, but a small one. Maybe that's why tinted glass became the vogue - architects wanted bring more personal expression to this genre, and the use of colour reintroduces aesthetic judgement. And, as the buildings glazed in these ways have proliferated architects have sought to introduce yet more variety to prevent the same, now boring, look being repeated everywhere. Today's photograph is of one such variation. It shows the wall above the main entrance of some offices in Peterborough. The reflective glass wall angles in and out, and in so doing presents a less usual reflection of its surroundings. Downward facing angles reflect the pavement, and upward facing angles reflect the trees and sky. I noticed this as I passed, and took this photograph of the effect. I'm the person reflected in the upper band of glass!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21mm (42mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

The fan vault

click photo to enlarge

The builders of our medieval cathedrals and churches were men of great ingenuity. The structural problems that they had to overcome - spanning ever greater spaces, erecting ever taller buildings, bringing light into the centre of wide buildings - were challenges familiar to architects today. The difference is that now we use computers, man-made materials, electricity and high technology in designing and building: in the middle ages it was muscle power, wood, stone and chisels that did the work.

Go into any major church and look up. The chances are that somewhere in the building you'll see vaulting. Springing from the forest of columns will be arches of stone that spread across naves, chancels, aisles and transepts. Often they will form star-like patterns across the ceiling, and if you look carefully you'll see the spaces between these ribs filled with carefully crafted pieces of stone. From the humble barrels and groins of the eleventh and twelfth century, through the quadripartite, sexpartite, tiercerons, liernes and stellar vaults of subsequent centuries, the progress of English Gothic vaulting is a story of increasing complexity and beauty, the final flowering of which is the stunning fan vault of the late fifteenth century.

This type of vaulting is peculiar to English Gothic architecture, with no parallels on the continent of Europe. It seems to have developed in the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral around 1350. The best examples of the fully developed form are to be found in King's College, Cambridge, in Christ Church, Oxford, in Bath Abbey and in the retrochoir of Peterborough Cathedral (seen in today's photograph). Fan vaults differ from earlier vaulting in not comprising ribs and infilling, but rather halved concave cones with blind tracery carved on their surfaces. The organic forms and complexity of the decorative patterns make the experience of walking into a space roofed in this way incomparable!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Killing time

click photo to enlarge

The other day I was in the village of Billingborough, Lincolnshire on business. I had some time to kill so I walked around the outside of the medieval church and gazed up at its spire with its slender flying buttresses. As I'd done on a couple of previous occasions I stood before a selection of slate gravestones dating from the eighteenth century and marvelled at how sharp and clear the carving remained after two hundred and fifty years or more. And how light, elaborate and elegant the lettering, flourishes and decoration was compared with that of the Victorian period. I took a few photographs of the gravestones, the church and a nearby house - variations on images I'd recorded before. Then, with the muse of photography absent, and with some time still left before my appointment, I decided to get a cup of coffee and sit by the village pond whilst I drank it.

As I sat there, watching a moorhen feeding chicks that dashed over the surface of the water like little motor boats, I noticed cherry blossom falling from a tree that was overhanging the pond. The petals settled on the water, and sat there there with curves of surface tension all around them. A light breeze was blowing, slowly gathering them into little flotillas of pink that, joining up with others, grew into veritable armadas that the wind started to bank up against the shore, making them look like a floral invasion fleet. It was then I thought, "There's a photograph somewhere here!" So I moved around the edge of the pond composing images of the pink shapes against the reflected trees and sky. When I'd finished, feeling confident that I'd captured an image that I liked, I reflected that one of the great pleasures of photography is that on those days when you can't find images, the answer can be to stop looking and let the images find you!!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tiptoe through the ...

click photo to enlarge

Many years ago I accompanied about seventy five children on a day out in the countryside. They were nine years old and lived in a large city. At 9.30 a.m. our double-decker bus got underway and headed out through the suburbs. As it did so one of the teachers leaned across to me and said, "I wonder what time the first one will ask if they can eat their packed lunch?" I realised why she asked when a voice piped up with that request only thirty minutes later!

We were heading for an area near the mouth of a large estuary, and as we rumbled along I heard a cheer from the children upstairs on the bus. I assumed they were playing a game, but then I heard another, and soon after the children downstairs cheered too. I looked around to find out why, and it dawned on me that they were cheering at the sight of fields of oilseed rape. The children upstairs, being higher, spotted them first, and had cheered sooner. For most of them it was their first sight of these improbably bright yellow fields, and the joy of seeing them caused a cheer to ring through the bus as each one came into view for each deck of children. That trip was in June. This year the crop is flowering in early May: last year it was the middle of April. It's probably the development of early plant varieties that accounts for this, but maybe global warming is adding its touch too. There are those in Britain who dislike these yellow fields of spring, feeling that they add an alien character to our traditional green countryside. I don't mind them, probably because each time I see one the sheer yellowness of it impresses me the way it did those children, and it raises my spirits.

Who could resist walking the path across this field near Ropsley, Lincolnshire? It's like entering a fairytale land where everything is hyper-real. The farmer who owns it has, commendably, left the public right of way perfectly clear, helping not only the walkers who want to experience being surrounded by glowing yellow, but also himself, because they then keep to the path and don't trample a broad swath through his valuable crops.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 68mm macro (136mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Imperfect nature

click photo to enlarge

Yesterday The Guardian newspaper carried an article about some Spanish property developments. These gated communities, constructed around Jack Nicklaus designed golf courses, feature identikit white painted, tiled-roofed, balconied "villas" set among impossibly green manicured lawns, lollipop trees and blue lakes. The photographs that accompany the article look like computer-generated images, so "perfect" are these homes for British expats who fancy a life of sun and golf. Apparently there is some concern over whether they will all sell, due to a market slump. However, that aspect of the report didn't interest me. I was just morbidly fascinated by the pictures.

Why would anyone want to live in a such a soulless place, a haven for the rich set in an area of relative poverty, a community with no history that looks like Toy Town? But then I reflected, perfection, an unattainable goal, seems to be the aim of many people today. Advertisers and T.V. programmes urge us to aspire to the perfect house in the perfect location filled with perfect consumer durables, taking "dream" holidays in "idyllic" locations. Maybe these developments in Spain give you all that for one big dollop of cash, and you can rest content that you've attained your perfect dream. Or is it a nightmare?

Today I picked this Cornflower (Centaurea montana) from my garden. It was one of many blooms on the plant, all of them radiating their distinctive petals. There is a pleasing flawed perfection about these flower heads. They could have perfect symmetry, but the tips of the petals refuse to co-operate and twist in all directions. It's a quality I like about the plant. However, picking up my theme for the day I decided to present this flawed flower against a background that strived for perfection! I laboured long and hard with the shadows, the shading and the colours. I'm unsure whether or not I like the finished image - it's a bit Mothers' Day cardish. But, since it's quite different from my usual flower shots I'm posting it anyway!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off
Flash: FL36 bounced

Made to last

click photos to enlarge

One of the pleasures of looking at churches is that you can get an almost palpable sense of history and the continuity of life down the generations. The other day I visited a succession of churches including St Andrew at Pickworth in Lincolnshire. This is a beautiful, essentially fourteenth century building, but with two windows and a font from the twelfth century. Most people who are interested in ecclesiastical architecture know Pickworth for its wall paintings of the late 1300s. Above the chancel arch is a Doom that continues on to a nave wall. This was designed to show the congregation the fires of Hell, and it includes three figures being boiled alive in a cauldron. Other paintings illustrate St Christopher, the Ascension, The Quick and The Dead, and the Weighing of Souls. These were uncovered in the nineteenth century having been painted over in earlier centuries when such things were frowned upon.

Fascinating though the painting are, the thing that caught my eye was the door inside the south porch. It was made and placed in its doorway in the early 1300s, and has remained there ever since, opening and closing as successive generations of villagers have entered and left the church. It bears the marks of centuries of nails and tacks where priests and parish clerks have fixed notices to its thick oak planks. The "C" shaped hinges and the decorative iron lobes and tendrils are rusted, with parts missing, but they still hold it together as they did on the day it was first fixed in place. I find it remarkable, and quite humbling, to see an artefact such as this, the subject of care and sensitive restoration for the past 700 years, still in situ and still giving good service. As I studied this venerable object I became aware of carved graffiti on the inner walls of the porch on each side of the door. The oldest date I could find was evidently made by "WS" in 1614. There were many dates from the 1700s, and the latest appeared to be from the 1970s. Later, as I looked at the eighteenth century slate and stone gravestones in the churchyard I wondered if any of these departed, eulogised by those who erected their memorials, were those who had left evidence of their youthful indiscretions carved inside the porch!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

(Doorway)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm macro (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Curls and curves

click photo to enlarge

I was reading the other week about back pain. I'm a tall man, and like many tall people I experience back pain periodically. I used to think it was due to the increased leverage that is associated with height. However, the writer of the article blamed it on the western penchant for sitting on chairs. She maintained that people from cultures where sitting on the floor is the norm suffer less back pain. She also observed that most chairs seemed to have been conceived with little regard for the human anatomy! That reminded me of a quotation I used a while ago by the influential twentieth century German-American architect, Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) : "A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous."

Today I came upon a modern public bench in the centre of Heckington, Lincolnshire. Like many such benches in the UK it offered seating and a sculptural/artistic experience. And, in common with many other modern public benches, it was useless for sitting on! I imagine that it was commissioned by elected representatives or local government officers, and was designed by someone who saw the "public sculpture" part of the brief as more important than the "comfort for the public's backsides" section. So, it was interesting to look at, a good subject for a passing photographer, and a hopeless bench to rest on for all except those of a masochistic tendency. I've often wondered why, after centuries of refining the design and achieving the goal on many occasions, it's still possible to buy a teapot that doesn't pour properly. The same thought applies to benches. I've sat on many very comfortable designs, so why are we still creating examples that are uncomfortable? I suppose the answer is that where any artefact is designed to fulfil two purposes simultaneously, one becomes subservient to the other, and consequently the design often fails. Still, I mustn't complain - it offered me an interesting shot with curves and curls that the day's sun multiplied very nicely! The effect of the shadows reminded me of the ripples from multiple pebbles thrown into a pond.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm macro (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Leaves of spring

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In 1664, John Evelyn (1620-1706), the English gardener and writer, published "Silva, or A Discourse of Forest Trees". In this ground-breaking book, written to encourage the planting of trees to meet the ship-building needs of Britain's growing navy, he described the species found in the British Isles. He noted those that were native to the islands, and those that were introduced. One of the trees discussed by Evelyn is the sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus. There were relatively few of these trees at that time, and he correctly described them as an introduced variety. No one can be sure who first brought the sycamore to Britain. Perhaps it was the Romans, or maybe it was later travellers bringing seeds or saplings from its native home in south and central Europe. Whoever it was, they are responsible for a tree that is now widespread, one of the commonest trees in many parts of the country.

Acers, confusingly also known as maples, are widely used as a source of wood for flooring, furniture and joinery. Its white, clean wood is almost odour-free making it useful for jobs associated with food. The sap from the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) is tapped and made into a highly prized syrup. In Britain, though foresters see the sycamore as useful, it is also invasive and subject to control in some areas. However, gardeners love the acer and many varieties are cultivated for their distinctive and attractive leaf colours seen in spring and autumn. In my garden two acers are currently spreading their leaves: one a copper colour, the other a bright lime green, though today's photograph shows an orange variety that I came upon early one evening in a nearby cemetery! The blue sky proved to be the ideal complementary colour for the attractive foliage, and the shadows cast by higher leaves on those lower down added a further layer of interest.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm macro (76mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

English, not Latin!

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You say Digtalis, I say Foxglove, let's call the whole thing off! To paraphrase the song just a little! I don't know about you, but I much prefer English names to Latin names for plants. How much more evocative and interesting is the English name, Snapdragon, compared with the Latin Antirrhinum? Or Bluebell rather than Hyacinthoides non-scripta? Surely a Rosa canina by its English name, Dog Rose, smells as sweet?

I won't deny that there's a botanical case to be made for adopting Latin names under the Linnaean system to be specific, to prevent confusion, and to give each plant a name recognisable in all countries. However, there seems to be no good reason for the layman to be encouraged to use the scientific name rather than a country-specific common name as some writers and organisations propose. To do so is to deny the colour and history associated with the plant, and impoverishes our lives in a small way.

Today's photograph is of a Geranium (English name Cranesbill) or is it a Pelargonium? There has been some debate over the Latin name for this plant, with the latter winning out in most parts of the world and in recent years. However, for older folk Geranium clings on. This particular plant, described as Geranium "Vancouver Centennial" on its label, came into my house recently. I recognised it as a zonal Geranium, and was impressed by its strongly figured leaves. So I nipped a few to put together this jagged image. Unfortunately it reminds me of a bit of street graffiti!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 0.3
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Myths, mirrors and ponds

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When, as a child, I first heard the Greek myth about Narcissus and Echo, I found it interesting but highly improbable! Was I really expected to believe that this thirsty young man was so vain that he wouldn't drink from the pond he knelt over for fear of spoiling his own reflection, and so died for want of water? Yeah right! As we might say today.

The other thought that it prompted was, "Who invented the first mirror?" If dark pools of water were the place where man first saw a reflected image of himself, who took this concept a step further and made a portable, solid mirror? Today, by the wonder that is Wikipedia we can read that polished obsidian (a naturally occurring volcanic glass) was used for this purpose in Anatolia (modern Turkey) in 6000 BC. Further, that the Mesopotamians had polished copper mirrors in 4000 BC. And that metal-coated glass mirrors are thought to have been invented in Sidon (modern Lebanon) in the first century AD. Thereafter developments in coating glass improved over the centuries until today's mirrors with coatings of aluminium or silver came into general use.

But, the ready availability of cheap, high quality mirrors hasn't banished the fascination we have with reflections in water. I think many people have garden ponds, not only for the animals, plants and the different surface they add to a plot, but for the reflections and quality of light that they bring. Ponds change character with the weather, season and time of day, just like the rest of the garden, and their reflections change too.

Today's photograph is of the pond in my garden. It shows the water lily leaves that have started to grow strongly and break through the surface of the water. It also shows the wind-disturbed reflection of a dark and broken sky shortly before a heavy shower disturbed the surface of the water. I thought it had a nice semi-abstract quality, and it was with the shapes, colours and tones in mind that I took the shot, not as a representation of lilies. I've taken shots of reflections here before, usually featuring a willow tree, but today the sky and the lilies seemed to offer something better.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On