The first day of spring

click photo to enlarge
Spring arrived in Lincolnshire on Saturday 13th March. The temperature rose to a high of about 12 degrees Celsius, the sun shone, the wind was light, and the countryside glowed with rich colours. True, there's precious little visible by way of leaves on trees, or vigorously growing grass, but the aconites, snowdrops, and crocuses are in full bloom, and the odd daffodil has made an appearance.

After several hours of cutting and re-laying turf I decided that I'd spend the second half of the afternoon looking for a photograph or two, so I went to South Kyme. I've posted a couple of images that I've taken at this location before - the Tower, and the remains of the priory that was adapted as the parish church after the Reformation, and is now known as St Mary & All Saints. Today's photograph from this village on the River Slea is a landscape that features the priory-cum-church. It has been written (by someone from the United States) that England's churches seem to fit so well into the landscape. It's an observation that I agree with, and if I had no interest at all in church architecture, they'd still feature in my landscape photographs. Perhaps the modest size of many of the buildings goes with the modest scale of the terrain, particularly in lowland England. But it's also true that the use of local stone and the planting that enhances most church graveyards also plays its part in making the church nestle into its location.

For my photograph I walked over a small bridge to the other side of the River Slea and included the water to add interest to the foreground. I don't take too many photographs with the sun directly behind me, but on this spring day the slightly yellow tinge of its low light, and the way it was floodlighting the scene, bringing out the richness of the colours that had been masked by cold for so many months, I thought I'd make an exception for this shot.

photograph & text (c) T.Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On