Survival or revival

click photo to enlarge

Anyone with an interest in the history of English church architecture, visiting St James at Deeping St James in Lincolnshire for the first time, will immediately think, "What's been going on here?" It's not the basic shape of the church that you see when you walk through the churchyard gate that provokes the question: that's very conventional with the west tower, nave and aisle, chancel and south porch. What's puzzling is, firstly, the elevation of the aisle with its short buttresses topped by pilasters with no pinnacles above, the size of those windows, and the suspicious "Gothic" of the tower.

Stepping inside reveals that it was once a major church, in fact a Benedictine Priory founded by Thorney Abbey in 1139. The seven bay, Late Norman south arcade (see small photograph), with its thirteenth century triforium looks like it belongs in a much larger church. Did it ever link up with a structure of the same magnitude elsewhere in the building, or was it the start of a grandiose idea that was then slimmed down? And what about that tower. Stylistically it is Georgian Gothic, a stripped down version of the older style made palatable for a new age. It was built after the old tower collapsed in 1717, the victim of bad foundations due to repeated flooding over the centuries. There is some question over when precisely the new tower was erected, but 1732 is scratched on the exterior west wall, and this is the likely date rather than 1819 which is more carefully carved beneath the parapet.

As with much of the building in the Gothic style that the seventeenth and eighteenth century added to medieval churches we are prompted to ask whether it is a survival or a revival. That is to say, did the builders simply continue to build in the style that was for centuries the only one applied to churches, or did they deliberately forsake the classical idiom of much public building of the period and modishly seek to revive a "forgotten" style. Historians of art and architecture make much of the revival of Gothic in the eighteenth century by the likes of Horace Walpole, William Kent, Robert Adam, James Wyatt and the rest. However, it never entirely went away. Provincial churches sometimes used it in the seventeenth century, as did some colleges at Oxford and Cambridge when they were being extended. It may be that the people at Deeping St James wanted a tower that both reminded them of the one that fell down, but also showed that they were "up to date".

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Doves, pigeons and breeding seasons

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One of the things I remember from my younger days, a time when I pursued bird-watching with a deeper interest than I do now, is the length of the breeding season of doves and pigeons. To my knowledge it exceeded that of any of the other species of British birds. The rock dove, woodpigeon and others of the Family Columbidae, often begin nesting in February and sometimes don't complete the process until November, having had several broods in the intervening months. That may, in part, account for the very large numbers of woodpigeon that the country now supports.

The collared dove is also a member of this family of birds. When I lived in the Yorkshire Dales I never saw a single example. However, my move to eastern England in 1971 immediately remedied that, and I soon became familiar with their insistent and monotonous call from March through to October. Given that this relative newcomer to our shores (it arrived in numbers only in the middle of the last century) has quickly achieved the status of one of the least liked birds, it cannot be good news for many that it is a prolific breeder.

I don't know a great deal about the habits of feral pigeons, but the fact that they are, in the main, descended from the wild rock dove, suggests that they too will have a long breeding season. Consequently, when I saw this white dove and a second parti-coloured bird in the porch at Sutterton church recently, I assumed that they were reconnoitring it for a nest site rather than seeking any kind of shelter. The bird in the photograph allowed us to get quite close, and never left its perch. Only when I came to process my photograph did it occur to me that it was trying to give some symmetry to the carvings on the column capital by reflecting the stone bird on the left!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Buried column capitals

click photo to enlarge

What did the medieval builder do when the local population and congregation increased beyond the size that a small nave and chancel church could accommodate? Simple, he added an aisle. This was usually on the north side of the building because fewer burials were made there than on the sunny south side. How do you go about adding an aisle to a stone building? Well, you support the existing roof then punch holes in the external wall. You make these holes into an arcade of arches supported on columns so that the upper part of the old wall is secure. Then you build a new external wall with windows beyond the arcade, top it with a lean-to roof and finish off the interior. In a few short years you've added an aisle and increased the church's accommodation.

But what if the need arises to reduce the size of the church because the population declines due to, for example, the Black Death, rural depopulation, or the high cost of maintaining the old structure? Well, then you get rid of an aisle. You fill the arcade arches with stonework, thicken what now becomes the exterior wall, remove the lean-to roof and knock down the old external wall of the aisle. You can re-use the windows by placing them in the walling that fills the arcades (see small photograph).

Of course, you have to make these walls thick otherwise the old column capitals may still be visible. And even if they're not, a Victorian antiquarian may well reveal them and turn them into a feature demonstrating the longevity and building history of the church. Oh, and you might find that a future parishioner makes use of the crudely carved thirteenth century capital as a charming place to position a small vase of flowers to beautify that part of the nave. An example of this is the subject of today's photograph taken in St Andrew at Donington-on-Bain, Lincolnshire.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Moribund buildings

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During my many years working in education I was involved with a few building extensions. The process of design generally involved educational managers of one kind or another (including me) discussing the brief with the architect. Subsequently proposals would be presented for discussion and amendment, and after these had been batted back and forth a few times, the final form of the building would be agreed. In the fullness of time the extension would be built, but during construction further changes would be agreed or imposed, often for cost reasons. This was a fairly reasonable and rational way of extending an existing educational building. The aim was to provide something that would effectively and efficiently meet the current needs of the users, and, very importantly, be sufficiently flexible to accommodate future requirements.

However, much building in the past, and still sometimes today, didn't and doesn't involve consultations of this sort. Buildings as disparate as schools, town halls, railway stations, factories, houses, churches and art galleries were built based solely on the advice of an architect, the orders of the provider of the funds, or the whim of an influential individual. Such an approach sometimes resulted in a wonderful building that received the approbation of contemporaries and future generations because individual vision or genius was given free rein, and the sometimes stultifying hand of "design by committee" was avoided. But, more often I think, it resulted buildings that met the specific needs of a specific time, that didn't lend themselves to adaptation to meet future needs. Such buildings are commonplace, often neglected, frequently in terminal decline as they are passed from one temporary use to another.

This derelict farm building at Haceby, Lincolnshire, prompted these thoughts. What was its original purpose? It's small but not cheaply built, with stone walls and a good tile roof. It was obviously wanted and valued by whoever commissioned it, perhaps a hundred or more years ago. But today, despite being in a small wood next to a road, it is of no use, except as a slightly melancholic subject for this passing photographer. Saplings, ivy and moss are colonising it. The doors seem to be long gone. It is a dying building, but one that could perhaps be resuscitated. Whether it will or not depends on it finding a contemporary purpose that the builders probably never foresaw.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 30mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Louth steeple

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"That Louth parish church is one of the most majestic of English parish churches need hardly be said. It is what it is thanks to its steeple, which has good claims to be considered the most perfect of Perp (Perpendicular period) steeples." Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) German-born British historian of art and architecture

The spired steeples of Lincolnshire's medieval churches individually and collectively surpass those of the churches of any other English county. From the austere beauty of the early broach spires of Sleaford and Frampton, to the fifteenth century magnificence of Grantham and Louth, with a host of others between, they are without parallel. Only a very few, such as Newark in Nottinghamshire, come close to matching the splendours on display in Lincolnshire.

When one considers this subject from the perspective of architectural history, and one looks at proportion, innovation in design and decoration, and the relationship between the rest of the church and the spired steeple then, despite Pevsner's praise of Louth, I think it's quite a close call between that church and Grantham. However, a spired steeple is more than a piece of architecture. It is also a major vertical accent in a town, and the way in which it contributes to views and vistas from near and far needs to be considered too. An example of a spired steeple that makes much less impact on its surroundings than might be imagined is that of Norwich Cathedral. When one considers Louth and Grantham, both in towns with hills, both without any real competition as far as tall buildings go, then it is Louth that clearly makes the greater impact.

Today's photographs were taken on the same, very changeable day. The darker shot is a view from Bridge Street, the sunlit one shows the church seen from Westgate, a fine street of distinguished, mainly Georgian, buildings. Both try to show something of the way this tower and spire are often framed by the surrounding buildings. This is something that happens very little at Grantham. Nor does Grantham's fine church advertise its presence from miles away over rolling hills as does that at Louth. Perhaps that's the next photograph of this building that I'll try to take.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 48mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cottages orné

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I suppose the opposite of a blot on the landscape is an ornament on the landscape: something that is designed to beautify a location. The well-to-do have sought such things down the centuries in various forms including tree planting, artificial lakes, eye-catcher follies and monuments, and country houses in what they consider to be the best of taste.

But what is a wealthy landowner or lord to do beyond these in order to elevate his surroundings above those of his neighbours? Well, he could build a complete village of decorative houses, or if that would stretch his purse too far, he could control the entry to his grounds by building a lodge or two in the style known as cottage orné. These buildings, ornamental, artful, rustic, often asymmetrical, arose in England out of the eighteenth century cult of the Picturesque and continued to be built well into the nineteenth century. Often they were gatekeeper's lodges, sometimes simply the cottages of farm or other labourers who worked on the estate. In some cases, however, they were built on a grander scale and were designed for "rustic" living by the wealthy. The early nineteenth century example in today's photograph was a lodge at the entry to the long gone home of the Beridge family, Algarkirk Park, in Lincolnshire. It is painted brick with a conical tile roof and a centrally placed chimney stack. A small wing extends out of the main circular structure. The windows are pointed, and nearby is the remains of the old limestone wall that formed part of the entrance to the country house grounds.

When I first saw this building, several years ago, I imagined it was either a cottage orné or a toll house for a turnpike road (these sometimes had fanciful designs too). I've photographed the building a few times but without much success. What appealed to me on this occasion was the wispy clouds overhead. I adjusted my position to let one of them introduce a note of asymmetry to my symmetrical composition.

N.B. Man masters machine "triumph of the day"
Having ignored diacritical marks (accents) in the blog thus far, today I was minded to put them in: hence the acute on the e of orné. I remember learning how to do this with the ALT key and numerical codes years ago, but I just never got round to putting it into practice here. The problem is, now that I've done it once, I'll have to do it always henceforth!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 48mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Shadows and semi-abstraction

click photo to enlarge

The Hungarian-born photographer, Andre Kertesz (1894-1985), created some of his most famous photographs inside the Cafe du Monde, Paris. They show forks, plates and the like, alongside deep shadows. The other body of his work that is frequently cited is based on distortions - swimmers under water, figures seen in curved mirrors. He did a lot of other photography of a more straightforward nature, but these, what we might call "semi-abstract" works, are generally the ones linked to his name. Kertesz did not enjoy the acclaim during his lifetime or after his death than many lesser photographers received. Cartier-Bresson, however, recognised his significance when he said, "everything we did had already been done by Kertesz."

It was Kertesz photography involving shadows that came to mind as I was processing today's photograph. Not because it achieves or even aspires to the standards that he set. Rather it was the way the shadow is an essential part to the composition. In fact, unlike Kertesz's way of working, the three-dimensions of this scene were immediately translated into two dimensions in my mind and at the moment I took the shot I was envisaging it as a flat pattern on my screen. I've taken quite a few photographs that work in this way, and have written elsewhere about how I like the complexity and, sometimes, trickery, that shadows bring to a photograph.

This birch tree was planted by a roadside footpath next to a couple of industrial buildings. I was fortunate to have some strong February sunlight over my shoulder illuminating the tree, bricks and green door, and actually creating the deep shadow, the final and essential element for my composition.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 58mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Something for nothing

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I get regular requests from companies asking if they can use one or more of my photographs. In the main they are looking for a no-cost alternative to commissioning a professional photographer or buying from a photographic archive such as Alamy. My reply to anyone in business wanting a photograph but not prepared to pay to for it is to refuse.

Such people seem to think that I will be flattered by their approach and their willingness to credit me in their literature. But I'm not. The fact is I don't need to use my photography to generate an income or to supplement one. Were I starting out in photography as a business I might feel differently, but I enjoy the luxury of being an enthusiastic amateur. However, I do feel an obligation to my fellow photographers who are in business, and I know that every photograph I give away makes it a little bit harder for someone, somewhere to earn a living with their camera.

Consequently, to prevent me having to waste my time replying to people who want something for nothing, I've prepared a new "Contact Me & Enquiries" page (top right) setting out the terms on which I will sanction the use of my photographs. I continue to make them freely available to private individuals and charities. However, companies looking for a no-cost image will, I hope, look elsewhere.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with today's photograph of the carving of a face on the porch of St Mary's church, Beverley, East Yorkshire. This character has a doppelganger on the other side of the doorway, the pair seeming to act as weird medieval welcomers to those who visit this stunning building. It took me a little while to work out that the face is not that of a fanciful creature but a person wearing an animal hat with ears, of much the same kind that parents today buy for their babies and children. Which reminds me that the only firm request I made of my son and daughter-in-law regarding the upbringing of their first child (my first grandchild) is that she wasn't made to wear such a hat because the ridiculousness that they endow on the defenceless infant constitutes child cruelty. Needless to say my wishes were ignored.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Crocuses and collecting

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Obsessive collecting seems to feature in many people's (especially men's) lives, firstly between the ages of seven and twelve, and later when they are in their forties. Psychologists see the amassing of groups of similar objects as a way of the individual both identifying him or herself and establishing a kind of control over their environment. The French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007), describes the urge to collect as the  the desire for "a mental realm over which I hold sway, a thing whose meaning is governed by myself alone."

All collectors have a liking for the individual things that they collect, be they thimbles, tractors, guitars, old tools, maps, Star Wars toys, or whatever. However, for the obsessive collector each particular object eventually becomes much less important than the idea of the complete set, and the totality of the collection becomes the focus. Of course, completing a collection  leads to a kind of ennui because the point of the exercise disappears. That's why it is unusual for a true collector to buy a complete collection of anything; to do so would deprive him of the the thrill of the chase.

What has this got to do with my photograph of a clump of purple crocuses? Well, unusually for a man, I acquired an interest in flowers, particularly wild flowers, as a young boy, and it has stayed with me throughout my life. My primary school teachers lit the fire of my interest, but Brooke Bond tea was the fuel that caused it to burn brightly. More specifically the card collections of wild flowers that they produced and included with their tea packets in the 1950s and early 1960s. There were three or four series and I collected them, swapped them and tried to complete a collection. I failed, but in the process learnt how to identify many of the native species, quite a few of which could be found in my area of the Yorkshire Dales. Moreover, the cards also fed my pre-adolescent urge to collect things. As a consequence, all these years later, I find myself taking an interest in the flowers we plant in the garden as well as the wild species that we see during our walks. And, as you can see if you come here often, I regularly take photographs of them.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sorting out the salixes

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Like many people I have a deep curiosity about the natural and man-made world around me. I like to know why things are as they are, what things are called, what differentiates them etc. My curiosity knows, almost, no bounds. However, there are some aspects of the natural world about which I have a long-term confusion.

For example, despite my early deep interest and lingering, life-time less deep interest in bird life, I still have some difficulty differentiating the less common waders. The fact that their plumage can be very similar and that it often differs according to the age of the bird or the season doesn't make the task easy. The same is true of the many varieties of willow tree that can be found growing in the Britain. In my garden I have a large white willow tree (Salix alba) of the weeping variety growing next to a stream. In fact, it's not quite as large as it was. Just over a year ago I had it pollarded because it was outgrowing its space. It's a very common and distinctive tree that has either an upright habit or a pendulous (weeping) habit. That's the Salix variety I have no trouble identifying. However, when it comes to the Goat Willow (or Sallow), the Eared Willow, the Grey Willow, the Creeping Willow, the Caspian Willow, the Common Osier, the Crack Willow and the Bay-Leaved Willow I confess to being lost. I know they exist, I know something of where they are found and the uses to which they can be put. But, I can't distinguish them one from the other. It's not just that many of them are quite similar (some are distinctive), it's that I haven't really committed to studying and learning the differences.

So, I've set myself the task of increasing my knowledge of this group of trees and working out how to identify them. I don't imagine I'll unravel them all, but if I could distinguish the commoner varieties I'd be very happy. It was photographing the trees above by the raised bank of the River Welland near Crowland in Lincolnshire that triggered my determination to do this. As far as these three go I can say what they're not, but not what they are. I think they are a variety of willow, but I may be wrong. So, I've been reading up on the subject, learning about each willow's winter, leafless silhouettes and the characteristics of their leaves and flowers. The warmer weather will find me out and about, testing my knowledge and photographing them. Roll on spring!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The west's debt to the east

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Today's blog title might look like I'm going to reflect on the role of the "tiger economies", China in particular, and their role in keeping the shaky western economies ticking over. In fact I've been thinking about some earlier indebtedness that is owed to that part of the world.

The debt that the Renaissance owes to ancient Greece and Rome is widely known. What fewer people are aware of is the extent to which this European movement drew upon technologies from India and China. These were transmitted in one of two ways. Either the invention and process were taken and copied (and often improved), or the idea was reported in the west and that was enough for it to be developed there. Gunpowder and paper are generally known to have come to Europe to the east. However, the range of borrowed technologies is much more extensive and includes the horse breast strap, silk, the stirrup, segmental arch bridge, canal lock gates, mariners' compass, printing and business techniques including book-keeping. The rapid growth and change that Europe undertook in the Renaissance would have been significantly slowed without these and many other contributions from the other side of the world.

The contribution of China and Japan to the arts is also not widely known. However, as trade expanded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the decorative arts of the east became available and admired in Europe and even prompted fashionable trends. The "chinoiserie" of these centuries influenced painting, English landscape gardening, porcelain design, architecture, and interior decoration. In the nineteenth century artists such as James Abbot McNeill Whistler, the American-born, British-based painter, were heavily influenced by Japanese and Chinese prints and fabrics. Whistler amassed a large collection of such things and artists as disparate as Degas, Van Gogh and Aubrey Beardsley  show the influence of the traditional ukiyo-e style and its major Japanese exponents such as Hiroshige and Hokusai.

It's hard to imagine that Western paintings lacking perspective and shadow, that featured flat areas of colour, had strongly asymmetrical compositions and made a strong feature of empty space, would have arisen in the way that they did without the influence of eastern art. And where painters lead photographers follow, even humble amateurs such as yours truly. My photograph of the grass stems and leaves poking up through the snow wouldn't have been one that I would have thought worthy of making without the august precedents described above.

Addendum:

The photograph I had thought to use today was this one showing a Valentine's Day display at a flower shop in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire. The fine Regency bow window links with my recent posts on that period's architecture, and the subject is topical. However, my newspaper, the radio, the internet, and for all I know the T.V., are awash with ever more tenuous pieces on Valentine's Day and the associated razzamatazz - much more it seemms than in previous years - and I felt the last thing needed was yet another. So, here's the photograph and not another word on the subject.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Frosted windows

click photo to enlarge

It's ironic that one of the ways in which shopkeepers and some householders seek to evoke Christmas cheer is to decorate their windows by spraying fake frost and snow on them. Those of us old enough to recall frost on the inside of windows don't wish to be reminded of the days when this was a regular occurrence.

In the the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, when central heating was a rarity, it was unusual for anywhere beyond the living room and kitchen to be heated. They usually had coal fires which radiated heat and warmed the front of those sitting around them, but left their backs and the rest of the room much cooler. Winter bedrooms were chilly places where blankets, eiderdowns (no duvets in those days) and hot water bottles fought valiantly, but usually in vain, to keep the cold at bay. A freezing night where the temperature dropped well below 32 Fahrenheit (no Centigrade of Celsius then either) would result in the single-glazed windows having a frost pattern in the morning as the cold surface of the glass attracted condensation which then froze.

I was reminded of those times when I walked around the village in the snow and frost with my camera the other day. Today's photograph presented itself on the window of a Victorian-period house that is currently empty. The temperature outside was about -13 Celsius. In the house it must have been a good few degrees below zero. These low temperatures had produced the sight familiar to my childhood eyes, and I couldn't help reciting the words of the poem that I learnt at that time.  It begins Watch out, watch out, Jack Frost is about, He's after your fingers and toes..." Perhaps you know it.

Incidentally, today's photograph is a colour shot (you can see a slight hint of brown at the bottom right) yet somehow it seems right that this icy subject should be devoid of any of the warmth that colour brings to an image.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO: 1600
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hoar frost and forecasters

click photo to enlarge

After the cold winter of 2009-2010 people expected that the winter of 2010-2011 would be milder. When those hopes were dashed and the January proved to be every bit as cold, the expectation then became that, after two successive harsh winters, the winter of 2011-2012 was almost bound to be better. And, for a while it looked as though it might be. However, late January and February have put paid to that theory, with last night being the coldest of the year, and Lincolnshire recording the lowest temperature (-16 Celsius) anywhere in the country.

In fact, there is no rational reason to suppose that a bad winter presages the next being milder, nor that a succession of cold winters increases the likelihood of the subsequent one being more equable. What we can expect, however, is that if the weather forecasters suggest that the minimum overnight temperature will be -5 Celsius, then we have no reason to suppose it will be anywhere near -16 Celsius. Last night the Meteorological Office got their predictions drastically wrong. For many that can be a major problem because they wouldn't necessarily have taken the precautions that they otherwise might. From my perspective as a photographer it was O.K. Why? Because we had a wonderful, unexpected hoar frost on top of the previous night's fall of snow!

We had a few of these frosts in the cold weather at the end of December 2010 and in early January 2011. I was thrilled to see another one this year and made a couple of morning forays with the camera to gather a few shots of the dramatic trees. Today's photograph was taken in the village cemetery. The white covering of the hoar frost combined with a shot against the light made a rather banal subject into something a little more interesting.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Churches past and present

click photo to enlarge

There's an old saying that "what we learn from history is that we don't learn from history." It's not hard to find examples in politics, public affairs, private lives, the design of man-made objects and much else that give weight to that somewhat cynical observation. But it's equally easy to point to examples that refute it.

I was thinking about this as I photographed the fine church of St Swithin at Bicker on a morning after snow had fallen during the night. I reflected that the few churches that are built today are much more modest than the buildings of a thousand, five hundred or even one hundred years ago. The Anglican church's desire to impress the populace and glorify God through a large, ornate structure made of expensive materials has moderated considerably in the light of the expense that parishes must expend to maintain old churches. Moreover, the buildings today need to be more flexible, and the traditional elements of nave, chancel, porch and tower don't meet the needs of a church that wishes to host a much wider range of events than just worship. So, yes, today's church buildings reflect the needs of our time and do not blindly follow the precedents of ages past. Of course, there are fewer modern churches - I can only think of half a dozen or so - that make such good photographic subjects as the one in today's image or indeed any of its ancient counterparts, so the church's gain is often the photographer's loss!

I've posted a few photographs of Bicker church before. It's one of the easier churchesto get a good shot of in my part of Lincolnshire. It's not too hemmed in by buildings or large or evergreen trees, at least on the south side which is the best for this kind of photography. However, it's an unusual church where there isn't something that intrudes that you wish wouldn't. From the south east it's the evergreen on the right of the image: from the south west it's the flagpole. The latter forces you to move your position slightly more west of south than you would choose because otherwise the slender upright gets mixed up with the tower and looks odd. However, on the day of this snow everything fell into place in terms of composition and so I got my shot.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wheelie bin bother

click photo to enlarge

As far as wheelie bins (the colloquial  name for Britain's refuse and recycling bins) go, there are three kinds of people to be found: those who do, those who don't and those who can't. I'm not talking about the inability of some people to properly sort their refuse for recycling; that's perhaps the subject for a different post. No, on this occasion we are back in the realms of blots on the landscape and visual blight and, more specifically, the willingness, unwillingness or lack of facility to hide these ugly bins from view when they are in daily use.

If your house is in a terrace with little or no front garden and no easy access to the back then it's hard to hide your bins away. Your property wasn't designed with such things in mind and they need to be accessible for emptying. Consequently they very often have to be in plain sight of passers-by: there's not much you can do about it. Many properties, however, have space out of sight where bins can be placed for daily use and where they are not an eyesore to the locals and passers-by. Most people with this facility make use of it. But some don't, and the wretched bins stick out like spots and scabs on the face of the village, town or city. It may be due to indolence, it could be a lack of aesthetic sensibilities, or perhaps there are reasons too deep for me to fathom. Some local authorities, including the one responsible for my refuse and recycling collections don't help matters by choosing colours that have no place in a street scene. In my case it's a garish blue, but I have seen purple elsewhere. Sober green or brown, and even dismal grey - all colours in widespread use - have a chance of blending with the background. Every screaming blue and mad purple wheelie bin shouts its presence. At times they are collectively cacophonous.

Today's photograph shows the frosty recycling logo on the top of one of my wheelie bins. It sits with its partners out of sight at the back of my house. It could never be seen from the road. However, when I moved in it was visible from much of the rear and side of the house so I built a section of fence behind which they are now hidden. Such are my feelings about these eyesores!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 160 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Aspect ratios and letterboxes

click photo to enlarge

When, in 1839, Rowland Hill was given a two-year contract to run his proposed postal system with its "penny post", standard delivery rates independent of distance, post boxes and the rest, he cannot have known just how it rapidly it would be taken up across Britain, but also by the rest of the world. Nor can he have appreciated the employment that he would give to carpenters, joiners and handymen, and the changes that these tradesmen would wreak upon the country's front doors. Because the fact is, letters delivered to private addresses need to be left there securely regardless of whether or not the householder is at home. So everyone, in the fullness of time, needed a letterbox, and this was (in Britain at least) usually a metal framed slot with a hinged flap in the front door.

This kind of letterbox remains the most common way of receiving letters. Moreover, the word has become a generalised description for many things that have that distinctive shape that is much wider than it is tall, including photographs. In moving film terms it is used to describe widescreen shown as a "slot" in a deeper screen such that there is a border at top and bottom. In still photography it generally means a format or crop wider than 16:9 (widescreen) and closer to a panorama format (though that is a fairly elastic term.)

I think of the format of today's cropped photograph as letterbox-shaped. In fact, its not quite wide enough to copy the shape of a door letterbox, though it is wider than 16:9. In print and on the web this kind of shape is widely used. It enables an editor or designer to place an illustration where the space for the more common 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratio photograph is limited, and it offers a graphic element that can form a segment of the overall page layout rather than be an insert into a portion of it. I value cropped, letterbox-shaped photographs because they are sometimes the best way of forming a composition out of a larger image. My original shot of Morley Lane in Bicker, Lincolnshire has too much empty white snow at the bottom right, too much of the upper branches of the trees above, and doesn't make enough of the two distant figures. The letterbox crop helps to alleviate those problems.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fost and frog...

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...is what sometimes comes out of the weather forecaster's mouth when delivering his or her predictions in front of the TV camera or radio microphone. This spoonerism of "frost and fog" is as much of a verbal trap for such people as "It is customary to kiss the bride" coming out as "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride" is for a clergyman. Though the latter has got to be apocryphal, hasn't it?

The cold weather that has affected much of Europe in the past week has been felt in Britain, though thankfully to a lesser extent. Night time temperatures have been well below normal for early February and these have been followed by first a light and then a heavy and widespread fall of snow. It doesn't take much of the white stuff to get me out and about with my camera. However, mist and fog accompanied the first morning and my photographs reflect this.

Today's shot shows a derelict barn surrounded by a few trees out in the ploughed fields. The fog has done its usual trick of isolating the foreground and mid-ground from the background. This shot on a clear day would have the houses, trees and church spire of a distant village breaking up the horizon and detracting from my subject. As it is, there is no horizon to speak of and only the hint of what long ago ceased to be a useful agricultural building.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 249mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Condensation patterns

click photo to enlarge

Every time I've had a cup of tea recently I've examined the inside of the teapot lid fifteen minutes or so later. Why? Well, shortly after we started using our new stainless steel teapot I noticed that the brewing tea caused condensation to form on the underside of the lid in radial patterns. Unfortunately, this pattern was often disrupted when I took the lid off and turned it upside down to view it. So I determined that I would look at it regularly until I found and saved a good enough condensation pattern for a photograph. It took just over a week but I finally got one as you can see above.

The underside of the lid has fine, concentric grooves as though it has been turned, milled or finished in some way. I assume that the radial pattern of condensation that forms is due to the nature of the surface of the metal. Whatever the reason, I liked it and thought it worthy of a macro shot. Perhaps I can consider it a further addition to my "kitchen sink" collection. For more in that vein, see here.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/5 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Energy policy and visual blight

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In recent times a disfiguring tide of supposedly environmentally beneficial technology has swept across the country, inflicting high-tech litter wherever it has flowed. The gaze of every passer-by notices the interlopers, and the eye-sores themselves will undoubtedly become semi-permanent fixtures across rural and urban landscapes. I refer, of course, to... roof-mounted solar panels!

Given that much UK housing is mediocre in both style and substance the affixing of these panels to roofs makes buildings look abysmal. They are always a negative visual contribution. The environmental blight that they are responsible for is, to my mind, worse than that caused by wind turbines. That they make some sort of green contribution to the generation of electricity is, no doubt, true. But what is also true is that it comes at a very high price. And what I find truly remarkable is that I have heard not a single voice raised against them. Perhaps that's, in part, because the people who have fitted them have been bought off with the profit to be made from the feed-in tariff and their eyes have been blinded by the glitter of the promised piles of money.

In my part of the world I see these glossy abominations fitted to roofs new and old, to slates, concrete tiles and pantiles, their sleek, black rectangles like alien sores, destroying any architectural integrity that a building may once have had. It seems strange to me that a proposed wind farm stirs up oppositions whenever and wherever it is mooted but these accretions are meekly accepted. Could it be that the small scale, virus-like spread of roof-mounted solar panels will mean that people will wake up to the environmental damage they cause only when it's far too late? I can't help feeling that a programme of retro-fitted house insulation of a magnitude greater than the current weak efforts would have achieved greater results at less monetary and environmental cost.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 238mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fishing nets

click photo to enlarge

We visited Lynn Museum in King's Lynn, Norfolk, the other day. It's a small museum based in a rather fine, converted, Victorian-period Union Baptist Chapel. Our time there was very enjoyable, not least because it had a good balance of exhibits and interpretation - too many museums go overboard explaining things these days. The fact that it has free entry from October to March helped too!

Among the exhibits was a collection of wooden "needles"used in the making of fishing nets. I don't recall seeing any actual nets of similar vintage, but that's not surprising. Nets (like the needles) were once made of bio-degradable materials such as cotton, and so most of them have disappeared. Today, of course, the great majority of nets are composed of man-made materials; nylon and the like. One consequence of this is that their bright, often day-glo, colours are a familiar sight on beaches or tangled up in marine structures the world over. They are a major component of the litter and refuse in and by the sea and have been identified as a hazard to wildlife. Some marine biologists feel that they make a significant contribution to the nano-particles of plastic etc. that have entered the food-chain and which are likely to have an adverse effect on human health.

But, as I mentioned in a recent post about blots on the landscape, humankind, including photographers, are capable of finding interest and even beauty in things that we often, in general terms, deprecate. And so it is with bright, modern, fishing nets. On the wall above the computer at which I am writing this blog post is a print of one of my photographs from 2007, a favourite of my output, that shows fragments of rope and netting wrapped around some slipway posts and chains at Cleveleys, Lancashire. It was the memory of this image that caused me to stop by a pile of discarded nets on the quayside at King's Lynn. They were in the shade with a shaft of sunlight throwing a glowing line across them. The light and dark with the kingfisher-like combination of colours was very appealing and so I took today's photograph of part of the untidy heap.

photograph and text(c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On