The appeal of Regency buildings

click photo to enlarge

I like Georgian buildings. In Lincolnshire they are relatively common and their good sense, fine proportions, and the way they fit comfortably into a streetscape or the countryside is always a pleasure to behold. I'm more choosy about Victorian buildings. The innovation for innovation's sake is sometimes fun but other times wearisome. The heaviness of a lot of the buildings and details can jar. As can the machine-like details of stonework, terracotta etc. However, when a Victorian architect is on song the muscular vigour of a building can be very winning.

In English architectural history there is a short period between the Georgian and Victorian ages, the Regency, that is longer than the period from 1811-1820 when the Prince Regent ruled in place of his unfit father, George III. In terms of building style it is usually thought of as spanning the years from about 1800 until around 1830. The characteristics of the fashionable buildings of those years owes more to Georgian architecture than the Victorian that followed but clearly differs and is very easily spotted once your eye has learnt what to look for.

"Elegant" is the word that, for me, best describes Regency buildings, especially town houses. They have a spare, stripped, light look where fine details contrast with smooth, blank (often light coloured) areas. Doors and windows that are round-topped are common, and often these are set into a larger, recessed round-topped blank arch. Shutters were fashionable and still remain on many buildings. Balconies with delicate iron-work railings can often be seen at first-floor windows. The Georgian tradition of the size of window indicating the importance of the rooms behind continues, and the top of the buildings are usually "closed" with smaller windows. Flat columnar pilasters frequently divide or frame building facades, though the simplified "capitals" that surmount them would be as foreign to a Georgian architect as they would be to one from ancient Greece or Rome. Tall, shallow, bow-fronted bays are a fairly sure sign of a Regency building, as are strongly projecting eaves on long brackets. There is a great emphasis on the main facade at the expense of the back of the building, though that is a feature of most Georgian and Victorian town houses too.

Many of these characteristics can be seen in Rutland Terrace in Stamford, Lincolnshire (above and yesterday's post), and those that don't can be found in the buildings of this period elsewhere in the town. My criticisms in the previous post of the builders' changes across the whole facade during the years in which they built the terrace notwithstanding, I do like much that is on offer here. There are certainly many worse solutions to relatively high density urban living.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 120mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Speculators and Rutland Terrace

click photo to enlarge

In theory there's nothing wrong with the idea of speculatively built private housing. The notion that someone puts up the money, has houses built, then advertises and sells them to members at the public for a profit has much to commend it, and most new housing does follow this model. However, in practice - and I speak only of the UK here - it can leave much to be desired.

The danger, as I see it, is that the pursuit of profit leads the speculator to produce housing that is sub-standard in materials and design, and aesthetically banal or just downright bad. It's not difficult to find examples that display one or more, and sometimes all, of these features. In fact, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) last year called much new UK housing "shameful shoebox homes" because they are simply too small for people to live in comfortably, and lack the space to hold both people and the furnishings and possessions that are common today. That's not to say that all housing is bad, there is plenty that is well-built, commodious and looks good. However, too much is none of these things. When you look back at the history of housing you find that speculative building often resulted in this mix of good and bad, with bad being far too common. New, low-cost, privately built housing was so bad in the early years of the twentieth century that in 1919 parliament passed the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act, a provision of which required local authorities to build housing. This they did, usually to a higher standard than the private sector, showing what could and should be achieved with limited funds.

I was reflecting on this when I was photographing Rutland Terrace in Stamford, Lincolnshire, recently. This row of twenty houses was speculatively built for a relatively wealthy clientele between 1829 and 1831, during the period that architectural historians refer to as the Regency. (In architecture the period extends to the onset of Queen Victoria's reign). What struck me was that the builder(s) started at the east and created a white stucco facade with a balcony at each first floor window, then built a middle section faced in Ancaster stone with a tall, covered balcony, and finally completed the western end also in stone, but with balconies that spanned the first floor windows of each property. In other words within architectural constraints - type and size of doors and windows, overall size etc - they deliberately introduced difference in the long facade. Was it whim or the following of fashion that caused this change? Whatever the reason it makes for a rather odd appearance, and is a departure from the usual co-ordinated, overall design of such terraces. In fact, it reminded me of the way builders today often construct the same house design across a site but differentiate one from the other by the colour of bricks or the shade of roof tile that they use.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Seeing what I see

click photos to enlarge

Due to my power supply failure I've been publishing blog posts from my second computer for several days now. When I've been looking at earlier posts produced on my main computer I've become very aware of the slight but significant difference in the way many images appear. My main computer is calibrated with an electronic device made for the purpose. The computer I'm currently using isn't. I could calibrate it, I suppose, but then I'd have to go through the process of adjusting my screen again when I receive and install my new power supply. And, to be blunt, calibration is a real pain, something that I do reasonably regularly anyway, and the prospect of doing it again unnecessarily doesn't appeal to me.

The upshot is, some of my earlier posts have "blown" areas in them when viewed on this machine, and I suppose those prepared on this machine will appear to be a touch dark when I get back to viewing them on my main computer. Does that matter? Well, yes and no. It matters to me in that I want to prepare photographs to the best of my ability and in the way that suits me. However, I have always been aware that other people viewing them on their computers may or may not have their screen calibrated and consequently may or may not see what I see regardless of whether or not I calibrate my computer. Even those with a calibrated machine may not see them quite as I see them, such are the dark arts of of this process.

All of which is my way of saying that if you detect a deterioration in the quality of my photographs that may account for it. On the other hand they may look better for you and you could be wondering what on earth I'm talking about! And with that remark I'll be quiet and say that today's trio of shots of St Helen, Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, show the exterior and interior of a church, the architecture of which, I hold in high regard. I've posted a couple of images of this church before (this roof and this tower vaulting), and if you'd like to know more about the building have a look at those earlier posts.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Low key teapot

click photos to enlarge

My high key photograph of hydrangea petals made me think that I should complement it with a low key photograph that consists mainly of dark tones. And, since we bought a new stainless steel teapot recently that still retains the perfect lustre of its newness, it occurred to me that would make a suitable subject. So I took it to a spot that was lit by a single window, set it up on a piece of black vinyl that I curved up the wall behind to create a shadowless background, and took a few shots. As you can see, I dialled EV -1.33 into the camera to make the dark parts of the reflected steel merge with the black background and I made the subject of the photograph the light reflections as much as the elegant shape itself.

The difficulty in photographing shiny surfaces is that the photographer and/or the camera tend to be seen in the reflections. The first shot largely overcomes that problem by having the camera above the subject, though my legs and two tripod legs can still be seen. However, you wouldn't have known that was what they were if I hadn't told you, would you?! The other photographs have several colours in the reflection that give clues to what the room contains. But the conversion to black and white masks those distractions quite well. One method of avoiding reflections of this sort is to have a large flat sheet of card, paper, plastic or some such material that you stand behind, with a hole in for the camera lens. That way the reflection is pretty much a uniform surface.

Incidentally, when we bought the teapot our main concern was that we should buy one that pours well. You'd think that after millennia of making containers designed to pour properly this was a problem that mankind had cracked. But no, as we found out with a previous teapot, what is learnt can be unlearnt and it is perfectly possible to buy a teapot that pours badly. Fortunately, this one pours perfectly.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 2 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Wilson Street, Newark

click photo to enlarge

Today's photographs show the quite "industrial" looking Wilson Street in Newark, Nottinghamshire. It is not the sort of street that you usually find alongside the graveyard of a large medieval church, and its presence there is all the more remarkable when you consider that there was once a matching terrace on the other side of the road where I took my shots. This oddity is explained by the fact that the houses were built (in 1766) by the vicar of the church, Bernard Wilson.

My curiosity about this Georgian cleric was piqued when I read Pevsner's summary about the terrace in "The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire". He describes him as "an extremely wealthy pluralist of questionable character." A little digging uncovered the following. Wilson acquired his position and fortune by befriending wealthy men. His job he got through his contemporary at Westminster School, Thomas Pelham, who later became the Duke of Newcastle. His wealth came to him from the member of parliament for Newark, Sir George Markham. It seems that Markham promised Wilson a vast sum of money in his will if the young vicar married the MP's niece. Wilson inherited the money but didn't marry the niece. Further upsets and law suits followed Wilson as he tried to use his wealth to advance his own interests and those of the people he favoured. All this gave him a dubious reputation in some sections the town and society beyond, not a word of which is alluded to in his memorial in Newark church. This includes the following: "a man of sense, politeness and learning, without pride, reserve or pedantry. Possessed of an affluent fortune, his hand was ever open to relieve the necessitous. His extensive charities when living, and ample benefactions at his decease, have raised him a living monument in the hearts of the poor." Wilson did, in fact, use some of his money well, and for the alleviation of poverty. However, unsurprisingly, given human nature, those are not the foremost acts that posterity allies to his name.

The street itself is brick built with hipped pantile roofs. Raised bands separate the three floors. Pavilion-like projections close each end of the terrace and the centre projects by a similar (small) amount. This has a modest, central, arched doorway with a blocked fanlight. The houses were restored and converted around 1980. In some respects, though on a grander scale and earlier in date, they remind me of Nelson Street in King's Lynn. They have that same stripped-down, utilitarian feel. I like them for their unfussy spareness, though I'm not sure I'd like to live in them.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hydrangeas and high key

click photo to enlarge

My wife spotted one of the detached, dead flower heads of our giant hydrangea as we walked through the pergola the other day and, as she pointed it out to me, I made a mental note to examine it as a potential photographic subject. By the time I got round to retrieving it for that purpose the wind had blown it, tumbleweed-style, across the garden and it had suffered quite a bit of damage. Nonetheless I took it indoors and and placed it on a white background under a bright light, hoping to base an image around the cluster of lace-like petals. But, as is often the case, what I saw in my mind's eye didn't appear quite the way I imagined it when I came to look through the viewfinder. The multiplicity of groups of four petals was simply too much: a simpler composition was required.

I tried a shot of part of the flower head with the edge offering a ragged outline against a plain black or white background. However, whilst better it still didn't satisfy me. So I took to pulling off a few individual petal groups and examining them. The attraction, it seemed to me, lay in the delicate veins of each individual petal and the way they were grouped  in fours like the blades of a propeller. So I built this simple composition with three stems and set them on a white background with the light source behind and to the side to accentuate the key features.

My natural inclination is to aim for a "perfect" exposure or to under-expose. I have something of an aversion to over-exposure for reasons that I find hard to articulate. And yet, when I see a good "high key" shot with the main subject appearing out of a blazing white background I often like it. I have it in mind to try more of this kind of shot myself, and have done so very occasionally, as I did with this shell. Consequently I thought I'd try it again here. I haven't gone quite as far as with the shell - all the details are still showing - but it is much lighter and brighter than it would have been had I followed both my inclination and the light meter.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 0.3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Frosted leaves

click photo to enlarge

At the time of writing this blog entry winter has been pretty average in terms of weather. The temperatures haven't dropped too low but we've had a few frosts, there has been no snow and rain has been scarce but probably sufficient. There have been January gales causing damage to trees and buildings but, as far as this part of the UK goes, on the whole I'm glad to say that the extremes of the last two winters have been absent. I say, "on the whole" because, of course, weather extremes are food and drink for the photographer. The transformations wrought on familiar locations by hoar frost, snow or fog inspires us to take "different" photographs of familiar subjects.

The closest I've come to that recently was a wander around the garden on a few frosty mornings in search of a shot or two. I came back with very little of consequence but was moderately pleased with the two photographs I'm showing today. The first one with the Choisya appealed for the way the frost had given a white border to each leaf. This particular clump was projecting forward out of the main bush and consequently was better lit than the darker background. I emphasised this effect by a little digital "burning", that is to say darkening the areas behind the leaves a little more.

The Cotoneaster franchettii is an evergreen shrub that loses a small proportion of its leaves each winter. I photographed this particular hedge on a bright autumn day when it was loaded with red berries, but I prefer this photograph taken in January dullness for the way the colours glow against the backdrop. I also made this effect more pronounced, applying a dark vignette to the image.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/20 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Oriel window, Newark Castle

click photo to enlarge

"Oriel" is a word whose derivation is difficult to determine. My edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites a 1239 usage by Matthew Paris, "oriolum", a Latin version of, it is speculated, the medieval English and Old French "oriol", "euriel" or "oeuriel". Here it is felt to mean a porch, entrance or antechamber. There is some thought that it might derive from aureolum, through the French, and mean golden or gilded, and by extension "gilded chamber". But what agreement there is settles on a meaning that includes a portico, corridor, gallery or balcony.

My first encounter with the word is in connection with a particular type of window, specifically one that projects as a bay from an upper storey without the usual downward extension to the ground of a traditional bay window. The OED's first recorded use of this definition of the word dates from the late 1700s and is in Horace Walpole's, "The Castle of Otranto", an early Gothic novel. However, an earlier definition, of the 1400s and later, for the word "oriel" (though spelt "oryel", "oryall" etc) rather than "oriel window" is summarised thus: "A large recess with a window, of polygonal plan, projecting from the outer face of the wall of a building, usually, in an upper story, and either supported from the ground or on corbels. Formerly sometimes forming a small private apartment attached to a hall, or the like." (My emphasis.)

So, what's all this ruminating about word derivation got to do with today's photograph? Well, I was wondering just what the builders and users of this fine oriel window on the exterior wall of Newark castle called it? Will we ever know? And does anyone (apart from me) care? What we are fairly certain is that it was inserted by Bishop Thomas of Rotherham in the 1470s to light a new upper floor in a hall. The early morning sun illuminating the pseudo-vaulting of the ceiling caught my eye and I asked my ever-present photographic model - my wife - if she'd pose in the window to add some human interest and an asymmetrical note to the old weathered stone and more recent railings.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 73mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Newark, a slighted castle

click photo to enlarge

In England the act of deliberately making a castle unusable for its original defensive purpose was called "slighting". It was an act carried out by a victorious army or a monarch who felt threatened by, or was disgruntled with, the powerful owner and occupier. Such "slighted" castles are very common, and this one at Newark in Nottinghamshire is a good example of the type.

The building stands on a cliff commanding the crossing point of the River Trent. The earliest parts were erected by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, around 1133. The very obviously Norman gatehouse, much of which remains, was his work. Subsequent centuries saw extension and rebuilding of the castle. Much of the curtain wall overlooking the river and two of the three turrets are likely to be the work of a later fourteenth century bishop, Henry de Burghersh. Interestingly, unlike most English castles of the period, Newark never had a keep.

The town of Newark was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil War (1642-51) and the castle was subject to siege by Parliamentary forces on three occasions during the conflict. Only after the capture of King Charles 1 in 1646 did it surrender. The "slighting" began immediately. Buildings were taken down and stonework was removed from towers and the walls. The passage of time carried on the work of demolition until the town authorities and national heritage organisations brought it to a halt. The result is the romantic ruin that we see today. The interior now features a small park and a museum. Our recent visit to Newark coincided with cold, calm, clear weather and I took advantage of the still surface of the river to secure this photograph of the castle with its clear reflection.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm
F No: f7.1 Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Living with vapour trails

click photo to enlarge

One recent cold and frosty morning, as I went out into the garden to feed the birds, I chanced to look up and saw a curving vapour trail that was being made by an aircraft heading away from me. It was an odd route for a four-engined jet to be on, and as I studied the sky I noticed the remnants of a couple more such trails slowly de-materialising. Looking closer to the horizon I could see more curved trails whose positions suggested they were part of the same trails nearer to me: clearly one or more aircraft was flying in large circles over Lincolnshire and the nearby sea.

Some of the bigger RAF bases are in the county so unusual vapour trails are a common sight. However, it was immediately clear to me that there was only one four-engined military aircraft that would deliberately fly in circles, at great height. I took a pair of binoculars outside to get a better look and my suspicion was confirmed: a Boeing Sentry AEW1 (AWACS) with its large radome slowly revolving above it was flying in a circle that must have been twenty, thirty or perhaps more miles in diameter. It was clearly participating in some kind of exercise, monitoring and controlling other aircraft and perhaps shipping or land forces below. Either that or we were being invaded!

In one of my first blog posts (actually the eighth, in December 2005) I sounded off about vapour trails, calling them, as far as a photographer is concerned, aerial graffiti, and suggesting that "only rarely do they add something to the image." My view of them hasn't changed since then. I find them an unwanted intrusion much more often than they are an element that I want to include in a composition. But, I have made a few images where vapour trails are, I think, key to their success. This landscape and this semi-abstract of a fairground ride are a couple that come to mind.

However, vapour trails, I discovered recently, aren't always so obviously intrusive. In saying that I'm not referring to those that are so dishevelled that they look like clouds. A few days ago, after I'd taken a speculative shot of the moon through some nearby ash trees and a veil of thin cloud, I noticed near the bottom of the brighter part of the photograph, a wavy vapour trail. As I studied it I reflected that you aren't even free of the wretched things when you're photographing at night!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  -1.00 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blots on the landscape

click photo to enlarge

Mankind is responsible for many blots on the landscape. Limestone and other quarries take some beating. They are often found in areas of scenic interest and beauty and invariably produce the ugliest of scars that are not usually healed even decades after they've shut down. Then there are the so-called retail parks. Anywhere less park-like it's hard to imagine. Yes, they usually have a sprinkling of lollipop trees and a few shrubberies that are mechanically savaged yearly, usually at the wrong time, but they are basically a collection of ugly steel and glass sheds surrounded by acres of tarmac. I once opined that, had Breughel and Bosch been living today, they would have set their visions of hell in somewhere like Manchester's Trafford Centre.

Then there are the oil refineries. Mostly located on estuaries to enable the convenient supply of the raw material, and often incorporating other industries and processes based on oil, they are usually particularly bleak places. The forest of towers and pylons, some belching steam or smoke, are visible for miles. They are even, or perhaps especially, a night-time blot on the landscape. Because they are twenty four hour operations, when darkness falls thousands of lights appear and a sulphurous glow that reflects off low clouds marks their location.

And, yet, and yet. Even the darkest, most dismal of these blots, when seen in the right light, by someone in the right mood, can offer a fearsome grandeur. And, in much the same way that Philip James de Loutherburg found a subject for his paintbrush in the mighty furnaces of Coalbrookdale at the start of the industrial revolution, the photographer too can find something today in these places that offers a spectacle worth capturing on film. On my recent visit to Hull, when I was casting around for a subject, it was the distant refinery and power station at Killingholme that offered a detail to place between the darkening sky and the cold River Humber.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 218mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.00 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The sun and The Deep

click photo to enlarge

Each winter I try to take a few photographs that include the sun. I don't mean sunrise and sunset shots, though these are easier to acquire at that time of year - you don't have to be out and about early or late! No, I'm thinking more of when the sun is fully above the horizon though low in the sky: early afternoon is a good time.

What appeals to me about such images is the drama conferred by the big glowing white ball, the contrast that results from the deep shadows thrown by objects in the foreground, the flare that the lens often produces, and the sheer unpredictability of the outcome. On a recent day visit to the city of Hull I had little time for photography. However, I did manage to spend a short time around the point where the River Hull meets the River Humber. When I lived in the city I often cycled and photographed in this area so it's always a pleasure to return. On my visit I took a few shots that include the sun on the old High Street and then again from the new footbridge over the River Hull, upstream from the big, futuristic looking aquarium called "The Deep". Regular readers of this blog may remember images taken last year in this location (see this sequence). I was prompted to take today's photograph as much by the glistening mud revealed by low tide as anything else, but I was careful to use the sun as a visual counterweight to the building in my composition. The overall effect is a touch other-worldly but not, I think, unappealing.

For other winter images including the bright sun see this one with a gate and snow, this one also with snow, or perhaps this one with vapour trails.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Great guitar, useless PSU

click photo to enlarge

A couple of days ago I got a new guitar. It's Washburn's version of the Gibson ES-335, a hollow body electric guitar whose design dates back to 1958. Why didn't I get a Gibson? Well, first of all I'm a cheapskate and wouldn't pay the approximately £2000 asking price. Secondly, it's widely held that other manufacturers' "look-and-sound-alikes" give you 90% of the functionality of the original: what you mainly lose is the cachet of the Gibson name. And thirdly, I'm not a good enough guitarist to warrant the real thing!

However, for a short while on the day it arrived I wondered if I'd made the right choice. When I plugged it in and played it I was very impressed by the sounds that it produced and the ease of the action. The workmanship looked very good. The problem was, my study acquired an odd odour. When I asked my wife what she thought it was she suggested a "burning electrical smell". The current in an electric guitar is minimal but I guessed it was the smell that some new electrical items give off when first used. Either that or something inside the body was in the process of failing. Anyway, we had to go out for an hour or so. When we returned I switched on my computer and powered up the guitar and the smell immediately re-appeared. Then my computer screen went black and it shut down. A quick examination showed that the power supply unit (PSU) had failed and that it was the source of the smell I'd erroneously linked to the new guitar. It was a relatively new replacement too, only installed 5 months ago, so I packaged it up and sent it back to the supplier for replacement under warranty. I'm unhappy about the PSU, but the guitar is great!

Consequently I'm using my second machine for all computer related tasks, including blogging. It's an old PC that came to me because it was superfluous to my oldest son's needs. I've installed the basics for photo-processing, but not the full suite that I usually use, and the monitor is uncalibrated. So, for a short while I'll be posting shots that require only minimal post-processing until my main machine is up and running again, photographs such as today's showing my new guitar. It was taken with the macro lens and is presented pretty much as it came out of the camera.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 0.6 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Turning the plough

click photo to enlarge

Before I moved from north west England to Lincolnshire I knew more about medieval ploughing than I did about ploughing today. I still do, but a few years in this most agricultural of counties has widened my understanding of modern methods. I was reflecting on this as, late on a January afternoon with shafts of sunlight piercing the cloud that was moving in from the west, we watched a tractor with its plough turning over the ground in a field on the edge of the village of Bicker.

A thousand years ago the single plough was pulled by oxen, five hundred years ago the horse was more commonly used, but during that long period little else changed in the way the land was prepared. A village commonly had three large, open fields each divided into selions of approximately half an acre (220 yards by 11 yards). These were parcelled together in groups (furlongs) that were often at right angles to each other with the irregular spaces at the edges of the fields (butts and gores) also ploughed. Over time each straight selion became banked higher in the centre and to have a characteristic curve at each end making it into an elongated "S" shape. This came about because the plough always turned the soil to the right and and because the ploughman turned the same way at the end of the selion to get ready to plough back down the strip. Where these medieval fields have been turned to pasture and escaped subsequent mechanical deep ploughing you can still see undulating lines, all with the characteristic curve at each end, especially when the sun is low and casting shadows across the land.

The modern plough that a tractor such as the one above pulls always has more than a single blade; here there are 6. The blades themselves are always made of steel where the earlier plough blades were wooden. In addition, the plough is turned over at the end of each run overcoming the problem of banking and "S" shaped curves. I took my photograph as the ploughman was undertaking this manoeuvre and about to reverse into his starting position. Noticing the camera he gave me a wave before he set off.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Roads, gates and winter views

click photo to enlarge

Newcomers to the Lincolnshire Fens often comment on the word "drove" that frequently forms part of the name of a road. Thus, a road leading north out of a settlement may be called "North Drove". I've written elsewhere about the derivation of this word and how it tells us something of the Fens' past. In fact, names of all kinds are often of much longer standing than is generally appreciated and can tell the inquisitive researcher much about the people who lived in an area long ago.

Today's photograph shows, in the foreground, a road that goes by the name of Low Gate. It runs from Quadring Eaudike to the village of Gosberton. In the vicinity are other roads with the word "gate" as part of their name: Sarah Gate, Bow Gate, North Gate, Water Gate, etc. The word gate in this context doesn't usually have the meaning that we would expect today. Rather, it comes from the Old Norse word, "gata" meaning "a way, a path or a road", and was brought to the area by Scandinavian settlers who arrived in the ninth century. Its definition was later expanded to include "a right of passage". Some field names also include the word. When I lived in the Yorkshire Dales, an area that was settled by Norwegian Vikings from Ireland, I knew a street called Kirkgate. This is a combination of Old Norse"kirkja" (a church) and "gata" (a street). In other words the incoming Viking settlers' equivalent of what is now the most common road name in England - Church Street.

I took my photograph from this particular point where vehicular traffic had gouged out depressions to left and right of the road because it gave me some foreground interest. The fact that water had collected here and nowhere else by road sides probably reflects the accurate naming of this road: here the land is likely to be lower than the surrounding area. In the flat expanse of the Fens the early farmers would have been very attuned to the slight depressions and prominences ("holmes") in the landscape. The former would have standing water in winter whilst the latter would be dry and suitable not only for livestock grazing in the colder months but also for siting permanent dwellings.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Jewels and photographic effects

click photo to enlarge

Circumstances have kept us fairly close to home in recent days. Yesterday, after struggling for half a day with an old laptop, trying to install Mint Linux on it - the machine was the problem not the software - I gave up and my thoughts turned to macro photography. I needed a pursuit that wasn't quite as frustrating as trying to make old hardware work with a new operating system.

I don't consider myself to be a macro photographer and yet every now and then I like to do a bit. It's the different view of the world that the macro lens gives that interests me. With that in mind I set about photographing a pine cone that I have on the bookshelves in my study. I took it upstairs into a bedroom where the light was good and set up some black and white vinyl sheets as a curved backdrop. This needed weighting down so I used my wife's jewellery box. I took my shots and decided that, on the whole, they were extremely average. So, I looked in the box to see if there was anything that I could use for a shot. I took out a few silver and black necklaces and arranged them in an "eye" shape and tried different brooches as the "pupil". Today's photograph with  a floral, enamel brooch in the centre was the best of the bunch. As I processed the shot on my computer I thought I'd try a few "effects " on it. I don't see myself as an effects person any more than I do a macro photographer: you'll find very few examples in the blog other than a bit of split toning. But, when I tried these radial rays I quite liked what they did to the image and thought they matched the subject quite well. It's a different kind of photograph from my usual fare, an approach that you won't see from me very often.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 2.5 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

New uses for old warehouses

click photo to enlarge

The two buildings in today's photograph can be found near the railway station in Sleaford, Lincolnshire. They are, from left to right, a furniture store and a block of flats. However, the former was the old Clover Warehouse while the latter was (and still is) known as Sharpes Warehouse.

Sharpes International Seeds are a company specialising in "the development and supply of cereals, peas, beans, oil seeds (particularly linseed), grasses and root and forage crops." It is a company that can can trace its history back to 1560. Presumably the large Victorian warehouse that now houses 31 flats was part of that business, as was the old Clover Warehouse. I imagine that the location next to the railway was to aid distribution.

Both buildings appear to be examples of sensitive conversion to new uses. The basic shape of each building has been maintained, with even the covered loading bays still evident. I bent down low with my wide zoom lens at 17mm for my photograph and used the edge of the pavement and the double yellow "no parking" stripes as leading lines to take the viewer's eye from the foreground to the buildings. Black and white seemed the best option for this fairly graphic composition.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Farmhouse and church

click photo to enlarge

The most common type of building to find next to an English church is, not surprisingly, the vicarage. A place of residence for the parish priest usually came with the job in the eighteenth, nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries. In fact it often still does. Another building that frequently sits next to the church is a manor house or other property owned by a principal local landowner. The "living" of a church, that is to say the right to appoint the vicar, for many centuries often resided with such a person, and the twin powers of the church and mammon's local representative were often neighbours. These buildings can still be seen around churches and are present at this one at Aslackby. However, in a rural county such as Lincolnshire a third type of building may be seen alongside the vicarage and the manor house - a farmhouse.

I've photographed such a pairing before at Billingborough. At Aslackby the farmhouse is newer than that example, late eighteenth century, extended in the mid-nineteenth. The improvement of farming techniques and the consolidation of holdings into larger units in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made some farmers relatively wealthy and this is often reflected in new, rebuilt or extended farmhouses. Here the building is L-shaped with gable stacks and has a fashionable mansard roof, a type popular in this part of the county, particularly in nearby Folkingham.The main elevation mimics, on a smaller scale, the country houses of the wealthy landowners. It is strictly symmetrical, of orange brick, with stone quoins, keystones, platband and gable copings. The semi-circular headed lattice-work porch may be original or could be a later addition. That disfiguring drainpipe surely must have been placed there more recently. The metal Xs at the top of the gable wall are the ends of tie-rods designed to control wall bowing or some other potentially troublesome movement that became evident at some point after construction.

I took my photograph on the same day as the previous two blog post images, a day whose photographic potential was curtailed by the clouds and rain that can be seen moving in on the left of this picture. Here I liked how the impending gloom splits the shot into two very distinct parts, one dark and troubled looking, the other bright and quite cheery.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Aslackby church

click photo to enlarge

In a piece about Ropsley church that I posted in 2009 I reflected on the thoughts that go through my mind when I visit a church for the first time. The other day, before the rains descended in what seemed like a permanent way, I photographed the exterior of Aslackby* church. And, though it wasn't my first visit to this building - I've been several times - the first thought that entered my mind was the same as on my first sight of it: what is that arch outline on the tower?

My first thought is that the church tower was originally a crossing tower rather than the west tower that it is now; that the present nave was once the chancel and that the arch was the drip moulding marking the place where a transept had been. I've seen such things before. Or, was there an intention to build in that way, but a change of mind resulted in the current, more traditional layout, and the drip moulding was left on the tower face, a reminder of what was to be, but never materialised. Reading Pevsner on the subject I found that he too ponders along similar lines. Whatever the reason, it adds a little mystery to this small, fairly unexceptional church that dates mainly from the fourteenth century with a few bits from earlier and rather more from later.

I've photographed Aslackby church before, but the light and sky on this January afternoon were very good, so I composed a shot from across the road, near the ford that was filling with the afternoon's plentiful rain. I'd never noticed the old-style, black and white road sign before - perhaps it has been recently been painted - so I used it in my composition as a visual counterweight to the church tower.

* for the local pronunciation of the village name Aslackby, which departs significantly from what it looks like it should be, see this post

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Co-operating with the inevitable

click photo to enlarge

"If at first you don't succeed - give up!"
anonymous modified proverbial saying

Perseverance, they say, is one of the main qualities that produces success. Intelligence, education (not the same as intelligence), aptitude, money, connections and other desirable attributes are all important, but if you haven't got perseverance then there's a good chance you won't achieve your goals. Moreover, if you do have perseverance but are lacking one or more of those other qualities then you may well succeed anyway. I think that's something that many people learn in life. And just as many don't. They are the people who follow the counsel quoted above.

Perseverance can be summed up in a home-spun sort of way in the proverbial saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again." That's sound advice, and following it can take people a long way. However, there comes a time when perseverance is pointless because you can clearly see that no good consequences will come from it. In these instances the modification of the saying proposed by W.C. Fields has a lot to recommend it: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it."

A variation on this kind of advice that I've always liked says that sometimes it's wise to "co-operate with the inevitable." In other words, don't persevere where success is clearly unattainable: if the alternative is in some way satisfactory, just go with it. It was this kind of thinking that produced today's photograph. I'd gone out on an afternoon that the weather forecasters promised would be "changeable". I expected squally showers alternating with periods of sun with dramatic clouds. Well, I got about thirty minutes of that. Then, as I sat in the car park in the centre of the village of Folkingham a squall turned into a spell of prolonged heavy rain. After about forty minutes I said to myself, "It's time, Tony, to co-operate with the inevitable." So I did, took this photograph of the rain through my windscreen, then drove home. And, yes, as I turned into the road leading to my house, the sun made an appearance.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 360
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Unusual winter blooms

click photo to enlarge

The flowers in today's photograph are both common and unusual. How so? Well, they are Peruvian Lilies (Alstromeria) that are often found blooming in English gardens between June and November. When the firsts frosts arrive they usually fall over along with many other summer and autumn blooming plants that develop from rhizomes. However, these flowers were picked in mid-December, such has been the winter in my part of eastern England. What early frosts we have had have not been very hard, and consequently it is unusual to have these flowers from the garden on display in the house in early January.

We noticed another odd occurrence yesterday. Some of the white flowers known as spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) are coming into flower before our snowdrops (Galanthus); usually it happens the other way round. I'm told by the Meteorological Office that the weather so far this winter is "normal" and anyone thinking it is particularly mild has had their perceptions warped by the last two winters that were much colder than usual. Maybe, but that doesn't account for phenomena such as these that haven't, to my knowledge, happened in other "normal" winters.

I thought I'd record these late bloomers with the camera, and so I placed them in some filtered sunlight that was coming through a window and put a sheet of black vinyl behind them. The macro lens did the rest.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 100 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

The resurgence of black and white

click photo to enlarge

It's surely true that the avalanche of colour photography that has swept over us for several decades has made us more receptive to the charms of black and white. A new, French film - "The Artist" - is currently getting rave reviews. Not only is it silent, it's also shot in black and white. Would most people have given it the time of day thirty, forty, fifty years ago? Today it's not unusual to see advertising in newspapers, magazines and on TV, often for higher priced goods and services, that features black and white. Is colour's slip from almost total dominance a case of familiarity breeding contempt? Probably not. I think it's more that the distance between the era of predominantly black and white photography (and film) is now sufficiently great that we can once more appreciate its qualities.

What are those qualities? What makes photographing in black and white (or converting a colour image) a positive step rather than a regression into times past? It has been said that the act of the photographer translating colour into black and white in the mind's eye, of itself, makes the older medium one that is more creative. But there's much more to it than that. Structure, tone and texture are stronger in black and white: colour weakens these qualities. Black and white photography has been described as paraphrasing and formalising to a much greater extent than colour, and that undoubted truth is, for me, at the heart of what makes it attractive. Then there's the fact that black and white often dispenses with the decorative allurement and prettiness that colour frequently confers.

Today's photograph illustrates that last point. The rose that I photographed was pink. In its original form the image is mainly about that deep, showy colour. There's nothing wrong with that; such photographs have their place. But, when converted to black and white, the in-your-face nature of the shot changes dramatically. It becomes more subtle, the accent shifts to the understated shades of grey, to the structure of the bloom. The photograph is now much more of a suggestion than a statement. That kind of transformation is only one of the possible directions in which an image travels when converted to black and white. Sometimes it becomes much more dramatic, other shots acquire a graphic quality, etc. And yes, I think these are qualities that a wider audience is once more coming to appreciate.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1.3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off