click photo to enlarge
I sub-title this blog, "Photographs and reflections from Lincolnshire, England", so it's perhaps about time that I featured a photograph from the county where I live. The trouble is, I haven't got too many photographs that were taken locally in the past month. Here's one, however, that I took it on a shopping trip to Stamford. The River Welland runs through the town and this section often has a small boat or two moored under the trees. It's enough to give a point of interest around which to build a composition. I posted a shot a while ago of the same area of river, though with a wider perspective.As I walked over the bridge I noticed a few mallards and mute swans in front of the pair of rowing boats. After something of a wait as the birds swam here and there, never quite getting into a compositionally "right" location relative to the boats, this solitary bird obliged me by positioning itself in the area of dark water on the right of the frame and I pressed the shutter.
In one of my early posts on this blog I reflected on photographing swans, and in particular the slightly apologetic note with which enthusiast photographers often accompany such an image. There is the feeling that swans are "corny" subjects, photographed to death. I've always been of the view that if we excluded subjects that have been heavily photographed there'd be precious little left to photograph, and that the approach you adopt is more imprtant than the subject itself. Evidence for my belief in that assertion can be found in the number of photographs of swans on this blog and my different treatments of the subject! See here, here, here, here and not least, here.
photograph and text (c) T. Boughen
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
