click photo to enlargeI've said it before and I'll say it again - I seem to have an obsession with making photographs out of uncomfortable, jazzed up public seating!
The other day I was in Kirton with a few minutes to kill (Kirton in Holland that is, not Kirton in Lindsey), so I wandered around the centre of the large village with my LX3 looking for photographs. I took a couple of shots of the statue of William Dennis, "The Potato King", and several of the exterior of the medieval church. I was pleased to see that a few trees have been cut down around the church. Normally I lament the passing of big trees, but there are plenty left in this locality, and the removal of a few specimens has opened up the view of the church to great advantage, not only for the passing photographer but also for the look of the centre of the settlement. I took a couple of shots around the war memorial too, and noted that the recently installed gates with two figures looked very "heroic Soviet-era" in style. However, none of what I captured was particularly great, so I wandered a bit more.
I'd already passed the brightly painted seats-cum-sculpture that were installed in Kirton a few years ago amid some controversy, but thought I'd look at them again. I don't know about you, but I find that sometimes photographs don't appear to me until I've pondered a potential subject on a few separate occasions. And so it proved on this day. The metal seats are pierced with decorative, leaf-like shapes, with those on the seat section having mesh behind the holes, whilst those on the back of the seat are open. All of the apertures were making highlights in the strong shadows that were being thrown on the block paving, so I thought I'd try a semi-abstract shot that included part of the seat and part of its shadow, aiming to capitalise on the light shapes against the darkness. This is the shot that most pleased me. The seat is bright green, but I found that the image had greater force when converted to black and white.
photograph & text (c) T. Boughen
Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
