Kempley's unique wall paintings

click photo to enlarge

The village of Kempley in Gloucestershire is fortunate to have two wonderful churches. One dates from 1902-3 and is in a fine "modern Gothic" style, the work of the Arts and Crafts architect, Albert Randall-Wells (1877-1942), perhaps the subject of a future blog post. The other, redundant since 1976, is a Norman building of around 1130 that has some of the best early wall paintings to be found in Britain.

Schemes like the one in the chancel, shown above, are not unusual in the churches of Mediterranean countries. However, in Britain, for such work  to remain, it had to withstand not only the ravages of a damp climate but also the condemnatory hand of the religious iconoclast. The Reformation denounced such painting as "popish", idolatrous and unfitting for the newly independent, national and puritanical church. Consequently they were either plastered over, scrubbed or scraped from the walls, or painted over with whitewash. Of these three methods of removal the one most likely to result in some kind of later salvage of the paintings was the latter. And, in fact, during restoration work in 1871-2, whitewash was removed from the old walls to reveal the work of Romanesque artists.

The Victorians sought to preserved them by applying various clear coatings, all of which made the original colours darker. More sensitive conservation work was done in the 1950s and the figures and patterns in reds, ochres, blues and whites were better revealed. The centre of the ceiling has Christ in a triple mandorla giving benediction, the night sky, candles and the Evangelists surround him. Also represented are the Virgin and St Peter with the Apostles sitting under arcades on the north and south walls. The scheme continues in the nave, with interruptions due to damage, where it is joined by fourteenth century work and seventeenth century texts. Evidence of medieval wall paintings can be seen in many churches. In some, for example Pickering in North Yorkshire, it is reasonably extensive. Elsewhere it is often in the form of a "Doom" above a chancel arch. However, for the most part we are left with the odd figure, part figure, pattern or text, and splendours of the kind to be seen at Kempley are to be treasured.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Saturated greenery

click photo to enlarge

A run of days with blue skies, temperatures in the upper 20s Celsius, and a high sun during the main part of the day, all characteristic of July in eastern England, almost made me wish for the uncharacteristic, overcast, wet and changeable weather that marked much of spring and the first part of summer this year. Almost, but not quite. Family duties and other activities have forced me to draw upon a photograph from a couple of weeks ago for today's post. Such has been the very limited amount of time I've been able to devote to photography recently.

My shot shows a view of the River Welland in Stamford, Lincolnshire. I took it from the Town Bridge looking west (upstream). The area of grass beyond the piece of exposed shore and the weeping willow is the start of the Town Meadows, an area of park-like open space in the middle of Stamford. On the left is the rear elevation of Lord Burghley's Hospital, almshouses founded in 1597 on the site of the medieval hospital of St John the Baptist and St Thomas the Martyr (founded 1170-80), by the lord of that name. Some twelfth century work remains visible here but most of what can be seen is of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

I took this photograph because it seemed to sum up the weather of early July - cloudy skies, churned up rivers with heavy flows of water, and saturation. Not, in this case, we Britons, dripping under our damp clouds; rather the saturated greens of the grass and trees which at this time of year are usually showing a great deal more of summer's parched yellows and browns.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Kilpeck's remarkable doorway

click photo to enlarge

The other day, in connection with the Anglo-Saxon (Romanesque) church at Barton upon Humber, Lincolnshire, I was talking about architectural exemplars; those buildings that best exemplify the characteristics of a style or period. When it comes to the style that follows the Anglo-Saxon in English architecture, that is the Norman (also Romanesque), the church of St Mary & St David at Kilpeck in Herefordshire is one of the most quoted in architectural textbooks. More particularly, its elaborate south doorway of c.1150 is held up as one that best displays the achievement of post-Conquest architecture.

Yet, when I first saw this doorway I felt sure that an over-enthusiastic Victorian restorer must have had the carving re-tooled, that is to say have a sculptor go over it with his chisels to make it look more like it would have done when first completed. But I was wrong. It seems that the red sandstone was particularly well chosen and has simply survived the centuries much better than most stone. So what does it show? In the tympanum above the door is a stylized Tree of Life with grapes to left and right. It sits on a lintel with a band of horizontal chevron moulding that looks like it has been re-used from elsewhere. The outer order of the arch has medallion like shapes with birds, fish and dragons, joined by carved bands with eyes. The inner order has characteristic beakheads, but also angels and dragons, some devouring themselves. The columns and capitals that flank the doorway are even more remarkable. They have elongated figures (as do the church's chancel arch columns), long dragons, heads and much writhing foliage. The Viking origin of much of this is very clear, and of course the Normans were descended from Scandinavians that settled in France.

Beautiful though the doorway is, one has to question the extent to which it is an exemplar of Norman architecture. There are other doorways and arches of this period that show similar carving: Pevsner cites Shobden's re-sited arches, and he might have mentioned certain cross columns. However, Kilpeck isn't typical so much as a pinnacle of the style, a flowering that is admirable but also exceeds the quality and departs from the characteristics more usually seen.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The sanitized past

click photo to enlarge

Much of the past that is presented to us in film and television, print and the web is a heavily sanitized version of reality, a past that is made more acceptable for modern consumption by being scrubbed clean and tidied. This is especially so with regard to heritage sites. There are a number of factors that give rise to this. Much of what remains was the property of the rich, is durable, designed to be visually attractive, and consequently over-represents their part in history. The remaining artefacts and homes of the poor are much fewer, less substantial, and are invested with less ornament. Unlike the rich, the remains of the past's poor frequently lacks a written narrative or primary sources that allow a detailed story to be woven around it. History is written by the victors, and the victors were invariably the rich.

England's National Trust has often been criticised for their lack of representation of the poor in the properties that it owns and chooses to receive or buy. It has responded to this by attempting to show the lives of servants in country houses as well as those of the owners, and by giving greater emphasis to the everyday activities - cooking, cleaning, gardening etc - alongside the usual interpretation of the building, art, sculpture and furniture. To further counter this criticism the Trust has also acquired a wider range of properties, including, for example, Southwell workhouse. For some critics, however, the final product looks like tokenism. Stephen Bayley has called it, "Disneyfication" and "intellectual slumming".

Today's photograph shows the inside of a large kitchen at Audley End, a Jacobean country house in Essex. This building, like most of its kind, was modified by successive owners. The kitchen presented here dates from the Victorian era. It looks quite a sight with its large, blacked range, white tiles,  glowing copper pans and rustic basket. What's missing of course is the army of servants engaged in hours of drudgery, using the range and pans to prepare meals and burnishing it between times. In fairness to English Heritage, who are now the custodians of this building, staff in period costume do make an attempt to show something of this. It does, however, like most re-enactments, come across as all rather jolly fun rather than a daily grind of long hours and hard work.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

St Peter, Barton upon Humber

click photo to enlarge

When I was studying the history of architecture the church shown above was invariably the second most cited example of an English Anglo-Saxon (Romanesque) parish church, after Earl's Barton, Northamptonshire. Other churches of this period were sometimes illustrated and discussed, particularly the examples at Brixworth (Northamptonshire), Sompting (Sussex), Stow (Lincolnshire), Escomb and Monkwearmouth (Durham) and Greensted (Essex), but the two "Bartons" were the most frequently chosen exemplars. These two buildings perhaps best illustrate the widest range of characteristics of Anglo-Saxon architecture: simple, rounded arched windows often with baluster shafts; triangular headed windows; small, splayed, circular windows; mid-wall shafts with arched and zig-zag bands; corner lesenes (long and short work); very narrow chancel and tower arches, and crudely formed arched- or pointed-headed doorways with large lumps of stone in place of classical elements. Barton upon Humber also shows the simple, three-cell plan with axial tower derived from Byzantine precedents.

The current arrangement of St Peter's, Barton upon Humber, is two thirds of  the original Anglo-Saxon church with a large medieval addition that dwarfs the early work. To see it as it was when first built in the late 900s we have to visually remove the top stage of the tower (late eleventh century). We must also remove the mass of building to the east of the tower (mid fourteenth and fifteenth century) and in its place imagine a chancel no bigger than the baptistery/porticus we see on the west of the tower (the left of the photograph). This small building, the base of the tower serving as the nave, lasted unchanged for probably less than a hundred years. A larger eastward extension with an apsidal-ended chancel was built in the late eleventh century. This was swept away for a bigger nave and chancel in the twelfth century. However, this too lasted a mere hundred or so years before the present structure was built.

St Peter no longer functions as a parish church and is in the care of English Heritage, a body who through their excavations and renovations have discovered much about the life of this venerable building. However, the parochial needs of the small town are not neglected because a few hundred feet away from St Peter's stands St Mary's, Barton upon Humber's second medieval church. It is reasonably common to find more than one ancient church in an English town, but it is most unusual in a settlement as small as Barton upon Humber.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.00 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Honeysuckle

click photo to enlarge

The charmingly named honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) was also long known by the equally delightful name, woodbine, after its habit of twining tightly around the trees and shrubs on which it grows. However, in Britain this appellation was sullied by being applied to a brand of cigarettes, a move that effectively robbed the plant of its old name and transferred it to the cigarette. Today most people call the plant only by the common name. The plant has a particularly attractive flower that often (though not always) has a lovely scent. Greek architecture made use of the shape of the unopened buds of the honeysuckle in the ornamental motif known as anthemion. It was often used in friezes, alternating with palmettes.

I first came across this plant as a wild flower when I was a child growing up in the Yorkshire Dales, and knew it as one that particularly attracted moths and bees. Only later in life did I recognise it as a garden climbing plant, available in a number of varieties. We have two honeysuckles that climb up hedges and pergolas in our garden. One is the early flowering Lonicera x tellmanniana with yellow blooms, and the other is the later flowering variety shown above. The "Serotina" part of its name means "late blooming".

I've always thought that there is something insect-like about the flower of the honeysuckle. It's probably due to the long, curved filaments that remind me of a proboscis or antennae. This photograph accentuates that characteristic, making the plant look like it is reaching out.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 250
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Visual ambiguity

click photo to enlarge

I've said elsewhere in this blog that visual ambiguity is something in which I take particular delight. Whether it be reflections, selections, juxtapositions or angles, the ability of the camera to present the everyday and ordinary as uncommon and extraordinary is something that holds a great attraction for me. The semi-abstract shots that I periodically take, many of which are visually ambiguous, make up a large percentage of my personal favourites.

Another way in which ambiguity can be achieved is through the use of a macro lens. This can transform a close-up view of a quite familiar subject into something strange or puzzling. Take today's photograph. At first glance it looks like a bubbling liquid, perhaps an industrial oil or maybe the scum on some molten metal. In fact, it is a long forgotten toy that belongs to one of my sons, a set of ball bearings of three sizes that can be arranged on a magnetic base. I came across it when we were tidying out some stored boxes. I'd not seen it before, but when I looked at it I knew that it could be the subject of a photograph.

I set it up on my desk at dusk on some black card and pointed my anglepoise lamp down at it. The single light source formed a large single reflection on each ball bearing, but this became multiplied as the bottom half of each of them reflected its neighbours. It's this phenomenon that gives the photograph the appearance of bubbles and the resulting ambiguity.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Clouds, letters and imagination

click photo to enlarge

"Clouds That Look Like Things" is the very accurate title of book available from the Cloud Appreciation Society*. The photographs for the publication were supplied by Society members and come from all over the world. Flying saucers, fish, dragons, people - you name it and someone, somewhere has probably photographed a cloud that, with a little imagination, looks like it. When you think about it, it's quite an obvious subject for a book. Who, as a child, hasn't stared at the clouds and seen the profile of a face, the outline of a castle, a bird or some other shape momentarily formed then slowly dissipating into an amorphous, cotton wool-like mass? If you're like me you see such things still.

But, as I discovered the other day, sometimes clouds, like people, feel the need to break the chains of their everyday existence and venture into situations new and challenging. I was photographing the "Water's Edge" visitor centre in Barton upon Humber, Lincolnshire. I'd taken shots inside the building, and I was looking for some of the exterior. One end of the building has a very prow-like canopy that reaches out to an area of tarmac where cars can be parked. I walked away from the building, turned round, put on my wide-angle lens and raised the camera to my eye. Immediately, what hadn't been apparent in my unencumbered field of view, suddenly became very obvious within the confines of the viewfinder. Clouds were forming the letter "Z" in the sky. More than that, they were making it right next to what, with a little imagination, was the letter "A". What a fortuitous conjunction - A to Z! What are the chances? Why have I never seen anything like it before? Perhaps, I thought, these were rogue clouds, clouds that wanted to extend their aerial art by combining it with earthly shapes. Perhaps the "letters" in my photograph are forerunners, the avant garde, the shape of things to come.

*I am a proud member with a certificate, number and badge to prove it!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Humber Bridge

click photos to enlarge

For the 16 year period from its opening in 1981 until 1997 the Humber Bridge was the world's longest single span suspension bridge. It is currently the sixth longest though apparently retains first place among the longest suspension bridges that you can cross on foot or by bicycle! I've never crossed it on foot but I've done so several times on a bike.

During the years that the Humber Bridge was built we lived in the city of Hull (as Kingston upon Hull is more generally known) which is to the east of the northern point of the span. Before the bridge's completion the River Humber presented a barrier that could be crossed only by passenger ferry or by road via a circuitous detour of many miles, both of which we enjoyed and endured. The rationale for this major construction was to promote a wider area of economic activity that embraced both banks of the river. That never really happened. One reason was the debt that was incurred to construct the crossing, a figure that over the years grew instead of falling. An initial cost of £98 million had, by 1998, reached the enormous sum of £360 million. Despite write-offs it was still £333 million in 2008. It was the size of this debt that caused toll charges to be unfeasibly high. And, of course, high toll charges deterred many potential users, reducing income and making any reduction of the debt impossible. However, in 2011 the government agreed to write off a further £150 million. This allowed the toll for a single crossing to be halved from £3.00 to £1.50, a change that was implemented on 1st April 2012. It remains to be seen if this has any effect in terms of increasing traffic and promoting additional economic activity in the region or whether it is just too little too late. From a personal point of view it makes our visits to Hull a little less expensive than they were.

I took today's photographs from the "Water's Edge" visitor and business centre on the south bank of the river at Barton upon Humber. The smaller image is a crop of a shot taken with a lens at 300mm. As I was writing this piece I remembered that I'd posted a shot of the bridge in the early days of the blog. Here it is. I recall being particularly proud of the title I chose for this one!

photograph and text © T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Glass blocks and connections

click photo to enlarge

Earlier this year we visited Peterborough Museum. It had re-opened after undergoing a refurbishment and very interesting it was too. The building itself started life in 1816 as a fine Georgian mansion but its time as a private residence was relatively short-lived because in 1857 it became the city's first hospital, a role that it fulfilled until 1928. The operating theatre from those days remains and is now an exhibit within the museum. When we entered that room with its white tiled walls, sinks, stainless steel and utilitarian atmosphere I was reminded, fairly appropriately I thought, of some late Victorian and early twentieth century butchers' shops. The easily cleaned surfaces from which blood could readily be swilled were very similar. The other thing that came to mind was the kind of clinical-looking modern kitchens that fill the pages of some magazines.

Connections of this kind are a very strong influence on what people buy and on how they view things. For example, I could never buy a pair of grey trousers because they would remind me too much of the uniform that I had to wear as a schoolboy. It was associations and how they affect how we see the world that came to mind on a recent visit to Water's Edge, Barton upon Humber. This fairly new Lincolnshire building combines a visitor centre and offices on land next to the River Humber. It is an aggressively modern design that, in places, makes use of glass blocks (sometimes called glass bricks). I've written elsewhere in this blog about my liking for these blocks. At Water's Edge they have been used to form short sections of north-facing walls. The regular grid, subdued light transmission, and translucence that simplifies the outside view making it a semi-abstract experience, drew the photographer in me. I took a shot of the wall, then realising that the irregularity of the human form would make a good contrast to the regularity of the grid, I asked my wife to stand in front of it.

As we wandered off to take shots of the Humber Bridge I reflected once more that there isn't enough use made of these blocks in Britain, and perhaps that's associational. They found some use in the 1950s, often in places such as bus stations, public toilets, the stairwells of flats and such like. Less often were they used in private houses (except determinedly modern higher cost examples) or for their decorative qualities rather than their utility. Perhaps those early uses coloured people's view of glass blocks and that memory will have to fade before they can be more widely adopted.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 36mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Police stations new and old

click photo to enlarge

Ever since I started to take an interest in architectural history, about forty years ago, I've compared buildings. Take town halls. These are invariably made to look imposing and designed to ornament the community in which they are located. They are a visible symbol of civic values and pride. Architectural styles and fashions come and go, and town halls reflect these changes. I've seen excellent town halls, mediocre examples, and some that are downright terrible. You'd think the same would be true of police stations given that they originate from the same public procurement processes. Yet, as far as Britain goes, it's unusual to see a good police station and all too common to see a bad one.This is partly because many date from the period when Britain had a spell of building new, bigger police stations - the late 1960s and 1970s. Examples from this time often exhibit the worse fashion of those years: raw, shuttered concrete, acres of barren paving, grim glass walls, main entrances that are hidden from view, and flat roofs topped by excrescences - lift gear rooms, flag poles and multiple aerials. I remember particularly dour examples in Morecambe and Blackpool, Lancashire.

The other day I came across a police station from a much earlier time, 1847 to be precise. It was in the small Lincolnshire town of Barton upon Humber and it currently serves as the premises of a veterinary surgeon. However, the main entrance doorway boldly proclaims (sans one letter) its original purpose. It is made of brick laid using the Flemish bond (alternating headers and stretchers) with stone dressing round doors and windows and a Welsh slate roof. The main entrance is flanked by windows and at each side a wing projects forwards, single storey on the left, two storey on the right.The building is not, overall, a thing of beauty. But, the section with the main entrance, shown above, has a certain simple charm. What prompted my photograph was the paving, seating and planting, some work of recent years, and the way it complements the symmetry and regularity of the building. As I looked at the building I reflected that the original door would almost certainly not be the strong red that it is today, was more probably dark blue, perhaps black, or some other reserved or muted colour, but definitely benefited from the louder hue.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Kingsforth Windmill, Barton on Humber

click photo to enlarge

The first house we bought was quite old and so to smarten it up we quickly set about painting the main downstairs rooms. However, despite taking great care in the choice and application of paint, we found that on one ceiling it dried, cracked and then flaked, peeling back from the surface. Someone more experienced told us that it must have been painted with distemper, a form of whiting or whitewash, a paint based on chalk or lime, widely used in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. There was nothing to do but remove all the new paint and old distemper, and get right back to the original plaster surface. It was an arduous task.

What has this to do with my photograph of the remaining tower of Kingsforth windmill in Barton on Humber, Lincolnshire? Well, during the first part of its life as a working mill, as well as grinding the usual corn it had an additional pair of vertical edge runner stones that produced Paris Whiting from local chalk. This was the best grade of whiting with uses in putty making as well as the production of whitewash and distemper. But, whether due to changing fashion, newer technology, or some other reason, the production of whiting ceased in 1859, though corn milling continued until 1950.

Kingsforth windmill is a tall, tower mill with an ogee cap,  a type common in Lincolnshire. It dates from around 1800, was erected on the site of an earlier windmill, and is unusual in having chalk rubble between the brick walls. The black finish is pitch, designed to improve the weather protection, something that is also widespread in the eastern counties. A granary building is attached to the tower which today houses a pub, "The Old Mill". The mill itself originally had six sails. However, when one blew off in 1868 the power for milling was changed to the town's gas supply. Consequently, the view that we see today is the one seen for most of the windmill's life. I quickly took a photograph as we passed by. But, as we continued on our way a Royal Mail worker delivering letters on a bicycle came by, adding a little local colour and making for a more interesting and better balanced composition.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ruskin, weather and contre jour

click photo to enlarge

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic and author


Though an active supporter of the Pre-Raphaelites and a firm believer in the primacy of painting over all other visual arts, John Ruskin took a keen interest in photography and used a camera. He was one of the subscribers to Eadweard Muybridge's 1887 publication, "Animal Locomotion, an Electro-Photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements." In 1856 he made daguerrotypes of the towers of the Swiss Fribourg, also drawing them freehand, then comparing the results. His view was that the photograph was "more right" but that the sketch "nevertheless conveys, in some respects, a truer idea of Fribourg than the other, and has, therefore, a certain use." Though he was thinking in artistic terms I am sure Ruskin would not have been slow to spot the continuing use today of technical drawing rather than photographs to illustrate car, camera and many other instruction manuals, and to use this as further proof of the value of drawing over photography.


His views on weather are ones I share, particularly from a photographic point of view, though our recent extended wet spell is testing me. Extremes of weather offer "different" kinds of images to the photographer. Snow, fog, rain and the rest, though presenting certain difficulties that fair weather doesn't, nonetheless give the opportunity for photographic drama, simplicity, contrast and much else. The recent wall-to-wall rain that has beset the British spring and summer briefly cleared one recent afternoon and we took the opportunity to venture out for a walk. The roads were lined with deep puddles that hadn't drained away, the tarmac glistened, reflecting the sun, and the ragged clouds offered every shade of grey. I caught my wife with this contre jour shot as she wended her way between the pools of water. When I looked at it on the computer screen I liked the deep contrast and almost moonlight feel to the image that appeared when I converted it to black and white. It was, I reflected, a photograph that could only have been taken in this kind of Ruskinian good weather.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.9mm (37mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cobblestones

click photo to enlarge

"You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone", as Joni Mitchell put it in her song, "Big Yellow Taxi". That's certainly true of cobblestones and setts (they are different but are popularly the same). In my youth there were many more cobbled roads to be seen. However, the needs of motor vehicles and their occupants resulted in many such roads and paths being taken up and replaced with smooth tarmac, others simply buried under the newer material. This was a gain for the posteriors of drivers and passengers, and doubtless improved the longevity of car suspensions, but there was a loss to the sense of place when this long-lasting surface disappeared. Eventually people realised what they had done and started to re-instate the popular cobblestones and setts.

As I moved around the country I came to realise that there were regional differences in the materials used as cobbles or for cobble-like road surfaces. Seaside towns often had sea-worn pebbles laid in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. In the Yorkshire Dales river-worn beck (stream) stones were commonly seen. Retangularly cut granite setts were used in Scotland, some northern towns and elsewhere if the heavy material could be cost-effectively imported. South coast towns often favoured flint nodules. When I lived in the Yorkshire city of Kingston upon Hull the High Street was paved with pitch-impregnated wooden setts.

Today many towns have uncovered their buried cobbles and setts and re-laid them. Some have put down new roads, paths and squares using local materials. However, many more have sought the durability and character of setts (in particular) by laying modern, concrete substitutes. These have the advantage of being cheaper whilst giving something of the appearance of the traditional road surface. Moreover, being flatter they make vehicular and pedestrian passage smoother. The disadvantage is that they rarely match original setts made of local materials, and they bring uniformity where regional difference would be preferable. It must be said, though, that they are a welcome break from the monotony of tarmac. Today's example shows some "new setts" in Stamford, Lincolnshire. I have to say that they look fine in this location. So much so that I took this "mouse's-eye view" of them with the backdrop of some of the town's old buildings.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Lady's Mantle

click photo to enlarge

Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) is one of those plants that, once you have it, you need never be without it. It readily spreads from the original clump and is soon spotted, spreading itself around the garden. But it's also one of those plants that people either strongly like or equally strongly dislike. Those who have an aversion to it see only a low growing, leafy, green plant with relatively unspectacular, weed-like, yellow flowers, a perennial that multiplies where it isn't wanted and which becomes somewhat straggly at the end of the season. However, people who favour it admire the palmate shape of the leaves that were once thought to resemble the scalloped mantle once worn around the neck and over the shoulders of women (the Lady is the Virgin Mary). They also appreciate the effective ground cover that it provides and its hardiness. But lovers of the plant most especially like the way that multiple water droplets, looking like liquid mercury, bead on the leaves after rain or a heavy dew.

This latter characteristic happens because of the small, soft hairs that cover the leaves. These beautiful drops of water caught the eye of the medieval alchemists (hence the Latin name) who, it is reputed, judged it the purest form of water and employed it in their attempts to turn base metal into gold. The plant in today's photograph has frequently been dotted with these jewel-like spots of water due to the frequency of rain in Britain this spring and summer. I took my hand-held shot after a particularly heavy downpour, just as the sky brightened for a short period before the onset of the next deluge.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tractor lines and wheat

click photo to enlarge

I've lived in Lincolnshire for five years and during that time I've taken an interest in the agriculture that is to be found here. Cereals and vegetables prevail, especially on the Fens and the better land. Beef and dairy cattle are also reasonably common though there is much less than in the west of Britain. Sheep can also be seen though again in smaller numbers than in the west. What is very noticeable is the way that the land is intensively cultivated with a view to maximizing production and profit. This is most obvious in vegetable production, but it can be seen with cereals too.

I read that the UK produces more wheat than it consumes. However, though some wheat is exported, there is also importation of wheat varieties that can't be grown in our climate. All this is good for the balance of payments, seems to produce a good income for farmers (with the help of the EU farm policy), and provides for the country's food needs in flour and animal feed. Over the past few years I've watched the cycle of the local winter wheat production. The activities are roughly as follows, modified, of course, by the weather: September - land ploughed and prepared for sowing; October - seed sown (drilled); November - herbicide application to control weeds; December - young wheat left to grow; January - as for previous month; February - fertiliser applied; March - fertiliser applied; April - nitrogen fertiliser applied; May - nitrogen fertiliser applied; June - fungicide application applied; July - wheat left to grow; August - wheat harvested. As you can see there is very little respite for the land, and the wheat fields' contribution to feeding wildlife, which was formerly significant, has been reduced to virtually zero.

On a recent outing to photograph "lines in the landscape" I saw many fields with flourishing wheat, some with patches where recent strong winds and rain had flattened the crop, and more than I've seen before with puddles of water in the tractor lines. The example above is not untypical. It will be something of a nuisance for a farmer, but for a passing photographer it's a very useful piece of foreground interest!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Simple pleasures

click photo to enlarge

Simple pleasures are always, without exception, the best pleasures. Watching your children's first encounters with what we take for granted is an experience that's hard to beat. I remember my first-born sitting in his pushchair and laughing uncontrollably at a donkey, the first he'd ever seen, that put its head through a fence to look at him. Simpler still, isn't a cool glass of water on a hot day a drink unsurpassed by any man-made mixture? Or what about the view at the end of a strenuous climb to the summit of a mountain? Isn't it just the perfect reward for your effort?

And then there's clouds. I take almost daily pleasure in looking at clouds. Formations that I've seen countless times still attract my eye and instill the same awe that I must have felt the first time I saw them. New and different takes on common configurations also draw my attention. The other evening I was out and about looking for a few "lines in the landscape" to add to my collection. The tracks left by farm vehicles as they traverse crops have a fascination for me, and when I saw the examples in the photograph above I was pleased to see the clouds overhead. Those straight flicks of cirrus looked like they were painted on to the blue sky with a lightly laden brush. The effect of the wide angle lens at 17mm was to make them converge towards a vanishing point and introduced a linear quality that echoed the lines below. It was enough to make me take a shot that gives the sky more emphasis than the land below.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Eau, the confusion

click photo to enlarge

"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet

A few years ago I read some research indicating that the further you go with formal learning the unhappier you are likely to become. Learning, the authors suggested, was characterised by an upward payback curve that stopped after a first degree and thereafter went downwards. If this is true then Pope's observation isn't entirely accurate - at least as far as happiness goes.

One could argue that it isn't true anyway because a little learning - if it is presented to the student well - is a catalyst for further self-directed learning that continues throughout life, and far from being dangerous, is life enhancing. The problem is that much education doesn't achieve this goal. It used to be a characteristic of English primary education. However, the introduction of the dead hand of the National Curriculum and the utilitarian and market demands placed on the already moribund secondary and higher education put paid to that.

Pope's famous lines and education in general came to mind when I looked at my semi-abstract photograph of Bourne Eau, a stream that runs through the town of Bourne in Lincolnshire. The word "Eau" is, today, usually pronounced like the French word for water that has the same spelling. However, this is, in the words of "A Dictionary of Lincolnshire Place-Names", "a spurious Frenchified form" of "ea" (prononounced as in "bead"), a word deriving from the Old English for a river or stream that was variously written as ea, eay, ei, ee etc. The spelling "eau" and the current pronunciation has come into use, presumably, due to the "little learning" of French in English schools that has been common for seventy or so years. The old, original pronunciation clings on in some parts of the county and with some older speakers. One wonders for how long.

It's often said that a successful photograph immediately indicates its subject to the viewer. However, this aphorism, like all such sayings, is subject to exceptions. Confusion can be an appealing quality in a photograph, with the subject not immediately apparent, and the component parts of the image requiring study for the viewer to make sense of what is seen. It was those features that I noticed in this watery scene.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

What's in a name?

click photo to enlarge

Names are rather like hairstyles: many people want to change the one they have. Parents who give their children more than one forename offer their offspring a choice, the opportunity to choose one of the alternatives if the given one isn't liked. But if you've been saddled with just one forename you tend to be stuck with it and can only shorten it or go to the trouble of making a legal change. The Linnean system of naming plants and animals seems to avoid these problems (not that plants and animals have strong opinions on their names). A country-specific name - in my case English - is accompanied by a Latin name that prevails everywhere regardless of the language(s) spoken in the country. I've written elsewhere about my preference for English names over Latin because of the history and beauty that they often display. However, it isn't always so.

In my garden there are a couple of plants with unfortunate names. The small, attractive blue, pink and purple flower with green spotted leaves that is called lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) seems lamentably named. Lungs, though vital, have never had the appealing associations of, say, the heart. So, we like the name heart's ease (Viola tricolor), for the small pansy-like flower, but lungs, well they conjure up images of dissection, disease and offal. The name arose for the way the spotted leaves recall diseased lungs. One might wish that a different association had been spotted!

Then there's the spurge (Euphorbia sp.). The very name sounds like an uncontrolled exhalation of something unpleasant. And in a way it is, the plant long being used as a purgative. The Latin name comes from the Greek physician, Euphorbus, who noted the plant as a laxative. It also has the unfortunate similarity - just one letter too many - to the word euphoria, a word that means well-being or feeling good. Not a quality that immediately comes to mind when you look at the plant or when the irritant sap gets on your skin. All that being said, I find myself photographing this plant quite a bit. I like the way some of the varieties grow, particularly how the rosettes of leaves present themselves with a slight twist. Today's plant was growing, not in my garden, but in a churchyard. I photographed it with my pocket camera and thought I'd try a black and white version to accentuate the shapes.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hard times for pubs

click photo to enlarge

The smoking ban, increased taxes on alcohol, cheap beer, wine and spirits in supermarkets, rapacious "pubcos" and the recession. In the past few years pubs and their tenants and owners have had a lot to deal with. Small wonder that wherever you go in the UK you see closed premises, "for sale" signs or advertisements for people to run pubs. As a career the management of a public house looks like a one way street to bankruptcy or, at best, penury.

I came across the pub shown in today's photographs on a recent visit to Newark in Nottinghamshire. Ye Olde Market on Boar Lane had clearly succumbed to the belt-tightening that has affected much of the country. But, to lessen the impact of a derelict premises on the surounding shops and streets suitable pictures/window boarding had been commissioned, each advertising a local business. As I studied the images and the building I couldn't help but notice the unwitting commentary on the present-day difficulties of runnning a successful pub that the juxtaposition of the early twentieth century traffic sign and the picture offered. It was either that or a mischievously contrived pairing by an advocate of the temperance movement. It seemed good enough for a picture.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On