The city blacksmith

click photo to enlarge
During my lifetime I've lived in the country, in towns and in a city. I've always been grateful for that breadth of experience because it taught me that all locations have their advantages, disadvantages and interest. Moreover, I came to realise that the supposed antipathy and incomprehension that separates urban and rural dwellers is something dreamed up by slightly unhinged individuals and interest groups such as the so-called "Countryside Alliance".

When, as a child and youth, I lived in the country I was familiar with the work of the blacksmith. One of my early memories is standing watching the Kirkby Lonsdale smith, Jonty Wilson, at his work in his smithy on Fairbank mending some agricultural implements. Those premises are a smithy still. I also have a number of memories of Alf Limmer on Castlebergh Lane in Settle, shoeing horses, making gates, and fashioning some sledge runners for me. This smithy still exists today too.

But, despite the longevity of these particular premises, there are certainly fewer blacksmiths now than when I was young. However, they can still be found, usually in large villages or small towns, fashioning and repairing metal for domestic and agricultural customers and sometimes shoeing horses too, though mobile farriers seem to do most of this work now. Blacksmiths have always found work in cities and a few still do. Recently, on a short visit to London, I came across one in Rotherhithe. He was working at his forge in Surrey Docks City Farm, a place that aims to give London children a taste of farming, food production and farm animals. We'd been there before with our grand-daughter, but on this occasion I went in by a different entrance and passed the open door of the forge, allowing me to grab this shot as the blacksmith heated the metal he was working on. I added a touch of dark vignetting to my photograph to give emphasis to the figure, his forge and the glow from the flames.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 2000
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Avenues

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The word "avenue" in English originally comes from the French avenir and Latin advenire, to come to or to approach. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the word was often spelt, "advenue", and in the eighteenth century "a'venue" was used. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records the first use of "avenue" meaning "approach" in a piece dating from 1639. However, by the eighteenth century the definition of the word that we use today - an approach or road lined with trees - was widely accepted. The United States seems to have modified its usage of the word to mean any fine, wide street, but in Britain trees are usually implied by "avenue".

The habit of lining a street, road or entrance driveway with trees to give it an enhanced status is a practise of long standing. It is a feature seen in the grounds of most large English country houses. Towns and cities with streets of eighteenth and and nineteenth century foundation often have such trees and feature the word "avenue" in their name. Municipal parks of the Victorian and Edwardian period usually have avenues, and the rare park of eighteenth century date, such as that at King's Lynn, frequently have them too. Go to the municipal cemetery- usually a nineteenth century creation - and here too you will find a tree lined road leading from the main entrance or to the chapel.

We recently, for the first time, walked into the cemetery at Boston, Lincolnshire, and found here a fine, imposing avenue leading from the entrance gatehouse to the chapel. Unusually it had a mixture of trees rather than being restricted to one or two species. Pines stood alongside beech and lime, with the deciduous trees shedding their leaves on the tarmac and gravestones below. we didn't venture far into the cemetery - that exploration can wait for a later date - but I lingered long enough to see two men come into view at the bottom of the avenue, figures to give some scale to my symmetrical shot down the roadway.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The ones that got away

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Photographers are like fishermen: they dwell upon the ones that got away. I can still see the shot I missed when an enormous sheet of agricultural plastic, more than 100 feet long, blew past me and floated over a bungalow, twisting and turning in the air, a surrealistic sight that I came upon when I was without a camera. And the photographs that I've missed when driving along roads where stopping was dangerous or forbidden are too numerous to mention. However, the failure to get photographs on these occasions can be be easily forgiven; you simply feel that fate, circumstance - call it what you will - were against you. What's harder to deal with is when you see a shot, consider how to secure the best that it offers, and still don't end up with the photograph you wanted. Today's two images are examples of this phenomenon.

We were walking through some trees at Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, when the tip of a beech tree branch hanging low against a background of foliage caught my eye. There was no light coming through the trees behind, so I knew there would be no circular highlights to detract from the serpentine line of the twig or the delicacy and fine colours of the leaves. I opened the aperture to f4.5 to blur the background and mounted the 70-300mm lens to provide a longer focal length to further increase the blur, then took the main shot at 141mm. The composition and the light through the leaves is just what I wanted. However, I could see from the LCD that the background could do with more blur. So, I took a second shot. For this one I increased the focal length to 300mm. Then, knowing that the depth of field would be very shallow, opened the aperture to f5.6 (hardly worth the change). I took my shot looking carefully at the background, and was very satisfied with it. However, when I came to look at both shots on the computer I realised that I'd missed my composition on the second shot even though I'd got my background as I wanted. If I'd been paying better attention I'd have got the composition of the main photograph with the background of the smaller one. My next chance of that particular confluence of details is probably next autumn!

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 141mm
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Waterside colour

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The trees and bushes of town and country are full of colour at the moment as autumn's progress wreaks its toll on deciduous leaves. In my garden the cherry trees and the silver birches show the brightest hues; orange/red and yellow respectively, and their leaves daily pile up on the lawns and gravel, inviting us to gather them up with rake and barrow.

On my recent trip into Spalding, during a stroll round Springfields Gardens, I came across a fine reflection in the stream that was duplicating the strong colours of the waterside shrubs. The yellow and green looked natural enough, the sort of tints that can be seen everywhere. However, the pink/purple leaves were obviously not a native species, and they gave this corner of the garden a slightly exotic feel. As far as I could see it was a variety of dogwood (Cornus), a shrub grown as much for the winter colour of its stems as for the beauty of its leaves.

Reflections in water are a recurring theme in my photography. I like the element of confusion that the doppelganger introduces and the hint of abstraction that comes from a subject that has no very obvious main subject. In fact, the reliance on colour and texture often gives such images a painterly quality - another reason I favour them. If you like the photograph above you might also like these earlier examples involving water and reflections: willow branches, trees with cherry blossom, reeds and a fence.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 92mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Performance Art

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We stumbled on the subject of today's photographs by accident during a walk around Spalding, Lincolnshire. As we passed a large bay window at the front of the old house in Ayscoughee Gardens I noticed a young, barefooted woman standing inside on the wide window sill, a basket in her outstretched hand. It could only be some kind of "art" I thought, and when we went in we discovered it was just that.

The performance artist, Amanda Coogan, was working with seven emerging artists creating and showcasing "site-specific durational performances". Apparently Amanda's practice "involves communicating ideas through longitudinal performance. Her work often begins with her own body and challenges the expectations of discernible context, such as head banging to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and signing the lyrics to Gill Scott-Heron’s ‘The Revolution will not be Televised." On this occasion she was standing in an empty hall, her neck painted blue, weighed down with multiple bags, slowly rotating, one part of a work that also included other performers, film, text, and a link that wasn't clear to me with local ghosts or ghost hunters.

I'm more of a visual arts (and crafts) person myself, so whilst I often view paintings, sculpture, photography and associated  media, performance art is not something that I usually seek out. However, as readers of this blog will know, I'm happy to point my camera at anything that piques my interest, and this did that. The smaller photograph shows Amanda in the context in which she was performing at the bottom of some rather fine stairs. It also includes my wife ascending those stairs to join me in looking down from above on what I can only describe as "the bag lady".

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Homes, castles and inviolacy

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"An Englishman's home is his castle."
Old saying

There can be little doubt that the saying quoted above was known to whoever it was that, during the nineteenth century, built Tower House in Spalding, Lincolnshire. This relatively modest building, on Tower Lane near the River Welland, is a castle in miniature. Or rather a building with a selection of debased features typical of castles of the medieval and later periods.

If we were to look at it from an architectural viewpoint, rather than as the charming folly that it is, we'd have to question the mixture of medieval trappings. We have battlements, turrets, mock machicolations and semi-circular headed windows (Romanesque?). On the riverward side is a semi-circular window, a crow-step gable, buttressing and a pinnacle. Even the wooden gates into the enclosed area are embattled. The building and the perimeter wall at the back of the house, is constructed in brick laid, appropriately enough, in English bond (alternating rows of headers and strethers).

And yet, despite its peculiarities, the house does seem to be an example of the famous quotation made real. Where does that idea come from, the suggestion that you can do as you wish in your own abode, that home is somewhere inviolate, a place where the state cannot intrude? It seems to have become a popular belief in the sixteenth century when the headmaster of the Merchants Taylor's School in London declared of the householder that, "He is the appointer of his owne circumstance, and his home is his castle." The principle gained wider acceptance through Sir Edward Coke's, "The Institutes of the Laws of England" (1628), a book that said, ""For a man's house is his castle, and each man's home is his safest refuge."

In fact it has never been the case that the state cannot intrude into a home where significant illegality takes place, and today more organisations have rights of entry than ever before. A sham castle like the one above wouldn't be much of a deterrent to such people though some real castles, suitably defended, might be!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Watching the carp

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When we moved into the house where we currently live there was a small pond in the garden. It's the first pond that we've had. At our previous house, and where we live now, a stream acts as one of the perimeters of the plot; water to enjoy that is labour-free. But, we've never had an area of water actually in our garden that we've needed to tend, and the fact is, it's something about which I have mixed feeling. I like the water lilies that grow in the pond and some of the waterside plants around it. I enjoy how it changes with the seasons and offers a fruitful photographic subject for me. I don't mind the wildlife that it supports directly and indirectly - water insects, newts, frogs etc - and the birds that it attracts that drink and bathe there. However, I have never been keen on the seven fish that came with it. These are an ornamental variety akin to goldfish; perhaps some kind of small carp or orfe. I see them as unnecessary and unwanted interlopers, though not everyone of my acquaintance agrees with me on this!

We've never fed these fish - they make their own arrangements - and that will account for the fact that over the years they haven't grown very much, if at all. However, earlier this year they disappeared. We'd earlier seen, for the first time in over four years, a heron in that part of the garden, and we assumed that it had eaten them. I think we were right, or almost right, because a couple of weeks later we saw, briefly, two of the fish. They'd obviously been hiding below the water lily leaves much more than usual, perhaps traumatised by the sight of their five brethren disappearing into a heron's gullet. These two continue to survive - and continue to be rarely seen - though for how long I can't say. There's a part of me hopes that our heron acquired a taste for gold coloured fish and will return to finish his meal. However, not everyone of my acquaintance agrees with me on this!

On a recent shopping expedition we once again called in at Springfield shopping centre and Festival Gardens in Spalding. The carp in the stream and ponds there are typically enormous. As I watched them, glad that I didn't have to look after such Leviathans in our pond, they briefly came together in a small shoal and I took this photograph of them. I'm not immune to the languid movement of these fish as they search for food, the flashing sheen of their scales as the light catches them, or how they slowly appear and disappear as they rise and fall in the dark water. However, I'd much rather enjoy all this in short, controlled spells rather than as a permanent feature of my garden that involved all the attendant work and worry!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tree shadows

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Walking through Ayscoughee Hall Gardens in Spalding, Lincolnshire, recently our route took us behind the Lutyens war memorial. There we came upon some wonderful shadows made by the perfect conjunction of low sun, clear sky, trees and a white, rendered wall. There was a light breeze gently disturbing the autumn leaves, dislodging one every now and then, causing it to drift down from the branches onto the grass below. In front of us was the large shadow, also perceptibly stirring, some parts sharp, others soft, looking like a black and white movie projected onto a big outdoor screen.

I'm partial to good shadows; they feature frequently in my photographs. Not everyone, I'm sure, sees the attraction that I perceive in them. To me they are one of the great blessings of photographing in sunlight. If I lived in a country where the sun shone much more than it does in the British Isles I'd make shadows a really strong feature of my photography, such is the power that they can add to an image. As it is I use them where and when I can.

Today's shadows, to my mind, offer subtlety, softness and quiet interest rather than drama,but I like them nonetheless.

For more photographs featuring shadows see this violin , this winter tree shadow, this palm and this bicycle stand.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Pine tree bark

click photo to enlarge
With a "normal" length lens mounted on your camera - say 35mm or 50mm - or a zoom that covers the normal range a photographer wanders along looking around in much the same way that you do when you're not carrying a camera. However, putting a macro lens on a camera immediately alters the photographer's focal distance and field of view. You immediately start to look more closely at the objects nearby, and you home in narrowly on them, searching for interest in detail. At least that's what generally happens to me.

In the past I've likened seeing the world through the macro lens to returning to one's childhood, a time when small, nearby details, for example the ground, holes, tree roots, the texture of a wall or the reflection in a door handle, invited extended study and offered endless fascination. A while ago I was doing a little communal work with a group of villagers, cutting suckers and low branches from some roadside trees. As we went about our task I found myself at the base of one of a group of tall pine trees (Scot's pines, I think). The pattern and colour of the bark immediately caught my eye. Tree bark has been one of my recurring photographic subjects (see, for example, the bark of this silver birch, this Tibetan cherry and this plane tree), and I made a mental note to return with my camera and get a couple of shots of the fine texture.

When I did so, on a rather dull morning, I ended up with bark photographs that have a quality that in the past has caused me to reject such shots. Namely, the fine granularity of the bark can make the photograph appear to be out of focus when in fact it is perfectly sharp. That has happened, to an extent, here. However, in this instance I quite like how it offers a contrast to the sharp lines. Incidentally, and thinking once more about our childhood eyes and interests, the patterns in bark are rather like wallpaper, curtains and clouds in being very good at suggesting hidden faces, animals etc. I can see a vulture's head in this example, but again, that's probably just me!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  0.33
Image Stabilisation: On

Acers and architects

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I've written elsewhere in this blog about the way architects use trees and shrubs around buildings (see here and here). As far as trees go many appear to have a predilection for what I call "lollipop" trees, that is to say those trees that don't grow very tall and which can be easily pruned to produce a clear straight trunk topped with a pile of roughly spherical, elliptical or cone-shaped foliage. The species that lend themselves to this kind of treatment and which, therefore, abound around new buildings (at least in the UK) are: rowan, whitebeam, False acacia, bay laurel, crab apple, flowering cherry, acer, etc.

Recently, as I've travelled around, I've been struck by the number of new buildings that have been planted with acers of one kind or another, but especially those cultivars with leaves that turn a bright orange/yellow in autumn. I know from experience that though acers are hardy if sheltered they can be damaged by late spring frosts and cold winds. Consequently I'm a little puzzled at their apparent popularity in open, windy locations where they are frequently going to receive intermittent tending and are likely to be relatively dry in summer due to the hard surfaces around them. Perhaps landscape architects know something about these trees that I don't.

Today's main photograph shows the Boathouse Business Centre in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, a building that has featured before on this blog (click here, then scroll down). It has three of these trees giving bright splashes of colour that contrast with the white and muted tones of the building and paving. At this time of year it's easy to see the strong contribution that the trees make to the building and its location. Elsewhere in this development the alder - an interesting choice - is the main tree that has been used. The smaller photograph shows the decorative swan and part of the main facade of the former Fogarty Feather Factory in Boston, Lincolnshire, now converted to flats. I've also featured this building before. If you'd like to view the full facade or read of its history see here. In this instance the acer is not planted in connection with the old building but forms part of the landscaping of a car park in front of a fairly new "shed" i.e. a superstore selling computers and associated paraphernalia. I couldn't bring myself to photograph the tree in front of that awful building with its pink paintwork so I positioned myself to include the older facade and that very unlikely looking swan.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old walnut tree

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The walnut tree was introduced into Britain by the Romans. Its name comes from the Germanic wallnot and the Old English wahlhnuttu, the first part of the word meaning "foreign" or "from the Roman lands", to distinguish it from the native North European hazel nut.

It slowly spread from Roman towns and villas to medieval monasteries, farmhouses and the gardens of the wealthy. However, the main agents of its dispersal across especially southern England were rooks and squirrels. Walnut trees were valued not only for the nuts that could be stored and eaten through the winter, but also for the hard, strongly figured wood and the oil that could be extracted from it. In his seminal book, "Silva" (1662), John Evelyn advocated planting the walnut tree. The beautiful burred wood was useful for veneers to be applied to cheaper timbers, as well as for gun butts and stocks.

When I lived in the north of England I rarely saw walnut trees. In the Fens of Lincolnshire they appear to be fairly common in gardens and hedgerows, with the occasional specimen tree growing to its full size in more open spaces. Squirrels bury nuts in our garden from some nearby walnut trees and at most times of year we have several sending up shoots and leaves in the most unlikely of places. The example shown in today's photograph is much bigger than most I see, and must be a hundred or more years old. It is slowly falling apart: large limbs have been lost and the crown appears to be dead. Apparently the field in which it stands was pasture until relatively recently, and the tree now struggles on surrounded by wheat, peas, brassicas, potatoes and sundry other vegetable crops, as well as passing tractors and harvesters. I took my photograph in the late afternoon as the sky darkened apocalyptically and a shaft of sunlight illuminated the tree, showing off its ragged shape against the black clouds.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 168mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

More of the fence

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In a recent post I mentioned how, in common with most photographic enthusiasts, I make multiple exposures of a subject that I feel is going to produce a good photograph. But I also observed that, in the great majority of instances, the first or second shot that I take usually proves to be the best, and that the subsequent ones rarely improve on them in any way.

But, a subject that can produce one good photograph can often produce a couple more slightly different photographs, and I frequently find myself "working over" a subject, trying to find in it everything that it has to offer photographically speaking. In the past I've likened this to mining a photographic seam in the way that miners try to extract every last piece of coal before moving their machinery on to the next location. The fence I encountered the other day offered that kind of opportunity and today I've posted a couple of the other photographs I took of it.

The main one has a semi-abstract look that appeals to me, and I was pleased that the newly planted, alder trees still had enough leaves on them to add some shadows to the bottom of the image. The idea of the smaller photograph appealed for the same reasons that yesterday's did - the ambiguity of real sky juxtaposed with a photograph of sky. I was tempted to include the graffiti that was at the bottom of the sky photograph but it was just too coarse for family viewing! However, the scratch and and the odd mark add just enough to make it clear what is being viewed.

The other photographs on the fence were old, black and white shots of Wisbech. They were the work of Lilian Ream who ran a photographic studio in the town from 1909 to 1949. She did any work that came her way including portraits, events and news. I didn't manage to make a satisfactory image that included any of her displayed work, but I did buy a book of her photographs from the local museum.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reality and illusion

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In the days before the dark arts of digital manipulation through programmes such as Photoshop many people held the view that "the camera never lies". It was taken as self-evident that a photograph was a factual representation of a scene. Yes, if it was in black and white then clearly the colour had been drained from it, but if it retained colour then what you saw was, people believed, the truth. In fact, "the camera never lies" was never a particularly useful statement because the meaning carried by every photograph is, in some way, altered by both the photographer and the medium. And of course, even in the days of film, deliberate deception was possible in photography. Multiple images could be blended into one, tricks with people and objects near and far could be constructed, people could be erased from photographs, and much else could be done to deceive the viewer.

Today almost anything is possible and "Photoshopping" of one sort or another is widespread. Sometimes the viewer is aware of the alterations, at other times they are not. Yet many photographers - I count myself one of them - prefer to limit their manipulation to essentially those things that were possible with film: tricks such as dodging, burning, adjusting contrast, removing dust on the film/sensor etc. Such people also often prefer to find real scenes that have the ambiguity necessary to deceive the viewer, to make them scratch their head and wonder quite what is going on, rather than spend time altering a photograph using the computer to achieve that effect.

The other day I walked past some wooden fencing in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. It screened a site that is earmarked for development. The fencing has been there for a while, and the economic downturn seems to be extending the period that it is needed. There are painted patterns on the plywood boards and photographs of local scenes, devices that aim to make the utilitarian structure a little more palatable and a little less grim. When I stood and looked at different sections of the fencing the possibility of a few "deceptive" or ambiguous shots came to mind. The first photograph that I took is shown above. It doesn't take long to work out what is going on, but at first glance it is a little puzzling - rather like the bull in the lorry of a few days ago.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f7.1 Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Politicians and limestone scenery

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It increasingly seems to me that anyone who puts themselves forward to be a politician, through that very act, demonstrates their unsuitability for the job. It could be the ageing process taking its toll on me or perhaps it's the filter of the press distorting my perception of politics, but I get the distinct impression that few people today go into politics because they are serious people who have deeply held convictions and because they want to change the world for the better, improving the lives of all. And those that do rarely make it to the important posts. All too often going into politics appears to be an entirely self-serving act where egotism and personal aggrandisement come before principle.

Two of the most prominent politicians in Britain today are the prime minister, David Cameron, and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, neither of whom are appropriate for the job that they hold, and both of whom daily broadcast that fact through their utterances. At the recent Conservative Party conference Johnson is quoted as saying that if he can run London he can run Britain. The implication is that he is an effective mayor of London who has the skills to run the country. Neither is true, as anyone who has watched Johnson's actions and, more importantly, lack of action in recent years will realise. That he is a clever publicist capable of making himself liked and elected through careful management of his public persona is undoubtedly true. However, he appears to have few of the essential qualities of an effective politician. Unfortunately, as David Cameron has demonstrated, today these are not necessary to secure the top job.

At the same conference that Johnson made his remarkable assertion David Cameron trotted out a line that is deeply revealing of the public relations based muddle-headedness at the heart of many of his speeches, statements that have a baleful influence on government policy or, more often, are simply forgotten once they are deemed to have completed their "sound-bite" purpose. He said, "I'm not here to defend privilege, I'm here to spread it." This half-baked line is more revealing than he thought. Through it he wanted us to ignore his privileged upbringing (and perhaps the fact that he never needed to strive) and suggest that the opportunities he had in life can and should be made widely available. Despite being the recipient of what some consider the best education that money can buy he doesn't seem to have realised that, by definition, privilege ceases to exist if it extends widely. As an aim it is absurd because it is impossible. However, the meaning I took from it was that he is determined, at a time when the majority of society is having to tighten its collective belt, to spread the largesse that he enjoys to "his" social group. And, through the government's policies this is precisely what he is doing.

I sometimes think that my views about our present leadership are too coloured by my own political beliefs. However, I was encouraged to think otherwise today when I read Max Hastings' occasional column in The Guardian. I normally have few views that coincide with his, but as someone who knows Boris Johnson well (having been his editor) it was revealing to hear him say: "He is not a man to believe in, to trust or respect, save as a superlative exhibitionist. He is bereft of judgment, loyalty and discretion. Only in the star-crazed, frivolous Britain of the 21st century could such a man have risen so high, and he is utterly unfit to go higher still." Perhaps he'll now give us his views on David Cameron.

All of which has nothing much to do with this photograph of the carboniferous limestone landscape of Warrendale Knotts and Attermire Scar above Settle in North Yorkshire. The pictured cliffs, caves, boulders and scree were my childhood playground. When I crave release from the cares and woes of the world a walk through these hills accompanied by only my wife and the cry of the jackdaw and curlew soon puts me right.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mist and contre jour

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It occurred to me when I was reviewing my recent photographs that Keats' "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" is also, for this photographer, the season of getting back into contre jour shots, a time when I once again become a "close bosom-friend of the maturing sun". In high summer I tend to see the sun as something to work around. Its position, high in the sky and its floodlighting of the landscape make it something to be avoided across the middle of the day. Only very early and very late does it offer itself for inclusion in the frame, and only before 11.00am and after 3.00pm does it produce the kind of shadows that I like for modelling a landscape or building.

However, from September onwards the sun becomes much more co-operative. Its position in the sky when I am out and about with my camera means that I can often choose to include it if I wish. Moreover, early and late that low position adds drama to contre jour shots. The third of my "misty" photographs from the Yorkshire Dales exemplifies this. As we continued our walk the mist thinned then, unexpectedly, swirled back in again. The small group of trees ahead of us started to be enveloped and the clouds that had rolled in began to be obscured. And, as we climbed the hill towards them the sun broke through behind the foliage sending out the odd light ray: perfect for a contre jour shot, so I framed a composition and pressed the shutter.

I suppose for the benefit of doubters (you know who you are!), and in the light (pun intended) of my recent posting, I must add that no artificial photographic aids were used in the production of either the mist or the light rays. All is as was laid out before us on that October morning.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Watery Lane, Settle

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph was taken only a couple of minutes later and a few yards on from where I took yesterday's shot. The two trees on the left can be seen in both images. Here though the view is more to the south and brings into sight the stream that enters the lane from the field behind the drystone wall. The path bridges the stream and continues alongside it. It can be seen as a thin, worn strip through the grass, shining wet with the rain, that recedes into the distance.

If you look at the 1:25000 Ordnance Survey map this lane is shown as part of Brockhole Lane and it links to a lane/path that carries the same name which veers off left and uphill towards Lodge Gill. However, the lane before us actually carries on past Fish Copy Barn to Lodge Lane, and that section is un-named on the maps (even on the old 6 inch map). In fact, in the locality, this part of the lane and the section that stretches to Lodge Lane is seen as one and the same and is known as Watery Lane. Perhaps one day the official maps will reflect this. It is well-named, because in all but the driest of summers water flows along it, and can make the route, in parts, almost impassable. As a child I often sought out the section of stream in the photograph though usually when it was calmer and only a few inches deep. It was here, after reading "The Water Babies" by Charles Kingsley, a very odd book, part of which is set in a limestone stream of the Yorkshire Dales, that I first saw a caddis fly larva in its strange case made of gravel and twigs.

On this day when we walked along Watery Lane it would have been no pleasure to delve into the depths in search of wildlife. It did, however, prove to be a good test of the waterproofing of our boots and, I'm pleased to say, they passed with flying colours.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Yorkshire Dales mist

click photo to enlarge
A few days in the Yorkshire Dales market town of Settle, the place where I was raised, held the prospect of not only seeing members of my family but also walking the hills and doing some photography. With that in mind I hoped for some calm weather with sun and cloud. However, I knew from long experience that Settle in October (or any other month!) frequently delivers rain. Being on the west side of England's main mountain range, receiving the full force of the moisture-laden prevailing south-westerlies how could it do otherwise? And, true to form, it rained. Often it was heavy and sustained; at other times heavy shower followed heavy shower with the briefest of interludes between. But, on one day it relented and a day of mainly sun and clouds was interrupted by only a single downpour. So we got a longish walk on "the tops" as the hills are known locally and I got some photographs.

In fact, the day we spent walking started with thick mist in the valley - a temperature inversion mist - and the summits above bathed in sunshine from a clear sky. The dramatic mist proved to be perfect for photography and produced some of my best shots, including today's. In fact, as we walked and snapped and talked and hauled ourselves up out of the Ribble valley onto the limestone and millstone grit heights it occurred to me that, as far as photography goes, the weather you get is often better than the weather you wish for. Perhaps that phrase will join my list of self-penned photographic aphorisms. It has so often been true for me that my best shots have been taken in weather that is "extreme" in one way or another, or is quite different from what is usually thought of as good photographic weather. I reflected further on this when we passed a bookshop in Settle. In the window were a few different volumes of photographs of the Yorkshire Dales. All had a cover that showed a well-known location photographed in sunshine with blue sky and white clouds. I took a few shots of that kind myself during our time in Settle, but the ones taken in the unanticipated and unwanted mist please me more.

The photograph above was taken near the start of our walk at a point when it looked like the mist would rapidly lift. In those circumstances an eye for any available images and rapid composition is needed. Here the two gates  in the drystone walls, the short lane, and the trees offered the best possibilities.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Chandeliers, electroliers and names

 click photo to enlarge
On a couple of occasions I've reflected on the way that words pass out of daily use and acquire the status of "archaic" in the dictionary. Today's photograph prompted me to wander down that path again.

I took the shot near the west door of the church of St Wulfram at Grantham, Lincolnshire. The faceted glass or perspex is the top of the new internal porch which, on the dull day of our visit had its light turned on. Above is the Victorian glass of the west window. Appearing to float in the darkness nearby, like a spaceship in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", is a ... well, what shall I call it? Like many such examples of branched church lighting this one dates from the early 1800s and started life as a chandelier - a hanging ornamental light fitting that held candles. It would have been lit and replenished by someone standing on steps or by the whole light being lowered using a chain or rope. Both these methods of servicing this kind of light were inconvenient. Consequently it is no surprise that when electricity became widely available churches frequently converted their chandeliers from candles to light bulbs. The flick of a wall switch was much easier than struggling to light 18 or so candles with a flickering taper. But with this change-over came the problem of nomenclature.

The first "chandeliers" that were purposely made for electric light bulbs were named, quite sensibly, "electroliers" (the first instance of use cited in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is 1882). It was a good marketing tactic and it better described the new take on an old idea. Moreover, the gas versions that preceded them were called "gaseliers". But immediately a problem arose: what do you call an old chandelier that is converted from candles to electric light bulbs? Do you stick with the name that indicates what it was originally or do you use the newfangled "electrolier" to show how progressive you are and to more accurately describe the updated light? There was no great debate on this matter, usage alone determined the course of what happened. The newly made electric chandeliers, for a few decades, often (though not always) were described as electroliers. Conversions generally (though not always) stuck with chandelier. Then, over time, the use of the word electrolier declined and chandelier re-asserted itself to describe the electric versions, which had become the dominant type, as well as those versions continuing to use candles. Today the word "electrolier" is mainly restricted to describing the early "electric chandeliers" that would have had that name applied when they were first made. The OED doesn't yet describe "electrolier" as archaic, but it can only be a matter of time.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sweet peppers

click photo to enlarge
I can take only a relatively small amount of credit for the produce that grows in our greenhouse. Most of the work there is done by my wife though I do help to get it ready for the growing season, clear it after that period has ended and I also do maintenance jobs periodically on the structure itself.

The food crops that we regularly grow in it are tomatoes (Gardener's Delight has been our preferred variety for many years) and green peppers (we've tried quite a few varieties but not settled on one). Each year, alongside these staples, something different is given a try; this year it was other varieties and colours of sweet peppers, chili peppers and aubergines. Of course, the greenhouse also holds quite a lot of flowering plants and is used for bringing on flowers and vegetables that are to be planted out in the garden or vegetable plot.

2012 has been a year of mixed fortunes in the garden and the greenhouse. Dull, rainy and unseasonal cold weather in spring and early summer doesn't usually result in flourishing plants. So, in the greenhouse the tomatoes haven't been as good as usual. However, the peppers have done quite well. When my wife brought a collection into the house recently she suggested they might make a photograph. Not being one to miss an opportunity I waited until she'd cleaned and polished the peppers then I put them on a shallow glass dish and photographed them on a sheet of my favoured black vinyl. The deep colours show off well against black. I used a sheet of white vinyl as a reflector to get the natural light just as I wanted it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A conversation with myself

click photo to enlarge
How much should a blogger reveal about themselves? The answer to that question will vary from person to person: some will be happy to be more expansive than others. I always think of myself as a private person, and though I'm fairly free with my opinions in this blog (which blogger isn't!), any details that I include about my personal life tend to be brief and fairly innocuous or non-specific. I deliberately don't speak in any depth about my immediate or extended family. Nor do I write too much about the village community of which I'm a part.

With an outlook like that I do, of course, eschew the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and all of the other social media sites that are so popular today. The idea of documenting the details of my life, important or inconsequential, minute-by-minute and day-by-day is quite alien to me for reasons of time and inclination. The plain truth is I find it difficult enough to respond to comments on this blog, so I really don't know how I'd manage communicating with pseudo-friends through Twitter!

People sometimes ask me why I blog. There are a few reasons that I've mentioned before, largely centred around the idea of a window for my photography and a means of improving it. That usually leads to the next question: "Why do you accompany your photographs with a 'reflection'"? The original thinking was to differentiate my efforts from those of others and to give me a regular intellectual challenge quite different from those I faced in my day job then (and face now in retirement). But as the years have passed I've sometimes come to think of this blog as a conversation with myself: the putting into print of the thoughts that buzz around my head, thoughts which, in the ordinary course of events, would go unheard unless I shared them with friends and family. The fact that quite a lot of people visit PhotoReflect on a daily basis to read them and look at my photographs still surprises me. The fact that relatively few comment doesn't! I appreciate that is down to me being a fairly ineffective blogger - for years I've taken none of the recommended steps to "build my readership". Moreover, I'm not the loquacious type, so the chatty conversations that some bloggers and readers value don't often occur here. But I'm O.K. with that because I'd find it hard to give the blog more attention than it currently gets.

Today's photograph is one of my rare, openly manipulated shots. I took a photograph of myself reflected in the mirror of a lift that opened alongside me when I was photographing the numbers I recently posted in the triptych. The resulting image was symmetrical with strong perspective and me just to the side of the vanishing point. I found myself wishing for a stronger convergence of lines in the photograph and so I added them in the form of "light rays".

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.9mm (37mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 250
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A de Chirico moment

click photo to enlarge
Recently, walking through a small paved area that has a row of fairly new shops, I had what I can only describe as a "de Chirico" moment. I briefly felt that I'd stepped out of my everyday existence into the scuola metafisica world of the noted Greek/Italian painter, Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). This quite unnerving experience was prompted by the sight of a casual assemblage of items propped up against the front of a virtually empty shop that bore a number of "closed" and "closing down" signs. The cracked tailor's mannequin, hoops and wall cupboards/shelves (?) in the clean, deserted space had a look of the unsettling surreal paintings of incongruous objects in architectural scenes with which de Chirico made his name. All that was missing were his deep shadows that the overcast English sky was unable to manufacture.

I took my photographs and as we walked on I reflected further, wondering whether the collection of redundant pieces had been placed there in a deliberate way, but I concluded they probably hadn't. In a blog post of 2008 I pondered on the concept of "found poems" - poetry that is found and extracted from prose that was written for non-poetic purposes. This assemblage seemed to me the artistic equivalent: "found sculpture" perhaps. The use of everyday objects in art has a long history but in terms of "found" articles didn't become mainstream until the "readymades" of the French artist, Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) achieved widespread acceptance.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On