Hatchments

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"His means of death, his obscure funeral -
No trophy, sword nor hatchment o'er his bones"
said by Laertes in "Hamlet" (Act 4, Scene 5) by William Shakespeare

For the layman the sight of hatchments hanging inside a church, on the wall of the nave or on inner east face of the west tower, is something of a puzzle. They are heraldic, like the commonly seen royal coats of arms, and like them are painted on a square board that is placed point upwards. But whose coats of arms do they show and why are they found in churches?

"Hatchment" is an Anglicization of the French, "achievement", and therein lies the clue to what they are. Medieval noblemen had their armour, weapons and heraldic colours displayed in church on their tomb during their funeral. In later centuries this was formalised in the custom of the family coat of arms being painted on a square board that was hung, lozenge-wise over the main entrance to the family home during the period of mourning. After the funeral the board, now called a hatchment, was often moved to the church and displayed there on a longer-term basis. Some of these have survived and adorn our churches still.

By the eighteenth century many conventions had grown up around hatchments. For example, if the wife lived on after the passing of her husband then the sinister side of the background (left from the point of view of someone holding it like a shield but right as we view it) would be painted white (see top example above), with the reverse (dexter side) indicating that the husband was the survivor. The status of women as unmarried or married was marked by the former's arms being decorated by gold cord and the latter with a golden, winged, cherub head. The last of a family line was indicated by a skull and cross bones painted under the coat of arms. It's regrettable that names and dates were never put on hatchments (though they are on royal coats of arms) and that considerable detective work has been necessary to work out who it is that they commemorate.

The parish church of St Wulfram in Grantham, Lincolnshire has six fine hatchments and two royal coats of arms (one dated 1586, the other some time before 1701). In recent years these have been grouped for display purposes and they make a fine sight spot-lit against the stone of the ancient walls.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.3mm (33mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Normal service is about to resume

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Unusually for this blog it's been on autopilot for a few days while I've been at home and I haven't attended to it at all. We've had a family Christmas with children and grandchildren staying, and that has been my alternate focus over the festive period. But, they've now headed off to their respective homes so here's a short post to keep things ticking over. Normal service will be resumed from tomorrow - I think.

After the colourful Christmas-themed post of bells, baubles and glitter balls I felt a need for a contrast; something simpler, starker and more restful. So, here is a photograph I took a week or so ago when we stopped off in Barton upon Humber having returned from the part of Yorkshire just over the river. It shows a rather utilitarian (and uncomfortable) chair on an equally utilitarian floor next to strictly functional walls made of painted blocks and glass bricks. On the face of it not the most inviting of rooms. However, the light through the glass wall emphasised the lines and shapes very nicely, silhouetted the chair, and gave the whole scene a luminous quality that looked like it would convert to black and white very well. And so it did. Or at least I think it did!

I've written elsewhere on the blog about how I like the effects that glass bricks produce and how I wish they were more widely used. I'm pleased to say that appears to be the case. I've seen quite a few more of them in new buildings in recent years, though I'm sure I can't claim any credit for that!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix G6
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bells, baubles and glitter balls

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I'd hate to be a professional photographer. The idea of taking photographs to order would, I am sure, remove all pleasure for me from the act of photography. In fact I revel in the ability to point my camera at whatever I like, whenever I like, and compose pictures just as I like. My photography is entirely selfish.

However, now and then I do take photographs to order though not for money. I once shot a wedding for a couple who couldn't afford a pro. I've photographed events for people as a favour, and I've done some portraiture on the same basis. My wife likes us to send birthday cards that feature one of my photographs, but I generally select these from my stock of existing shots. And, she likes our Christmas card to have one of my photographs on it too. But, selecting something appropriate for this purpose is much harder. It's on the run up to Christmas that I experience a hint of the external pressure to perform that I would resent were I a full-time photographer. The fact is, a few snow scenes and appropriate stained glass windows excepted, my photographic output doesn't usually include many shots that sit easily on the front of a Christmas card. This year's card was, once again, a stained glass window; rather a  nice one as it happens, featuring "The Flight into Egypt". It was only when we had produced and distributed the card that I came across the photograph above, a shot that I took in early December as I sat waiting for a meal. The centrepiece on our table was a basket with lots of metallic bells, baubles and small glitter balls in a variety of colours. When I filled the frame with the subject I quite liked what I saw, and I'm rather glad that I unearthed it from my pile of rejects. Maybe it will do for next year's card and save me the anguish of the frantic search for a suitably festive subject as 2014 comes to its end. Merry Christmas!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A sign of the times 2

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Walking through London one recent evening I came upon a No Entry sign that had been "artistically augmented". To the white edged red circle with its white central bar someone had added what I took to be a traffic warden. This figure was either looking over or slumped on the central bar and two red hearts were either coming from him (or her), or were the object of his (or her) attention. Clearly the person responsible for the "artwork" was trying to say something but I couldn't for the life of me see what. As far as I was concerned the would-be artist had failed, though I did think that could have been because I wasn't part of his target demographic. Nonetheless I took a photograph of the sign, and, over the past few days, I've wondered a little more about it. But to no avail.

Then it occurred to me to turn to that modern fount of all knowledge that is the world wide web for some enlightenment. So, I typed "London no entry sign graffiti" into an image search box and came up with photographs of the same subject and different "augmentations", perhaps by the same person. They included the white bar as stocks through which a head and arms poked, the white bar as a surf board under someone's arm, a figure in the process of sawing through the white bar and the white bar as an actual bar at which people were drinking. Seeing my example alongside the others it was clear that no deep meaning lurked behind the graffiti, WYSIATI (what you see is all there is), and the highest aim of the artist was whimsy. Banksy has a lot to answer for!

Why have I given this blog post the title, "A sign of the times 2". Well, I was obliquely reminded of another sign that I blogged about in 2009, one that that was unintentionally humorous, to which I'd given the original title.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 23.6mm (63mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Thames Cable Car

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There has been something of a kerfuffle in the UK because a supposedly independent body has suggested that members of parliament should receive an 11% pay rise and the great majority of MPs think they deserve it. On the face of it the suggestion is reasonable since the parliamentarians haven't taken the pay awards that have been offered in past years and their pay is relatively less than it was. However, the proposal comes at a time when public sector workers are in the middle of a multiple years pay freeze (imposed by MPs), and when the pay of other sectors (the City, directors of companies, senior management excepted) is either declining, stagnant or barely rising. Opponents of the MPs' pay rise rightly point out that they are public sector workers and that unlike most other state employees they are able to take on a second job -  say, a nice non-executive directorship or "adviser" to a company - and that they are in a line of work for which there is no shortage of applicants.

I have a lot of sympathy with the opponents of the pay hike. To their persuasive arguments I would add that the MPs' suggestion that their pay should mirror and be linked to the pay rates of "other professionals" such as GPs (family doctors) is risible: our elected representatives are not professionals. They have no formal training for the job, need no qualifications to secure it and are not subject to regular scrutiny by a professional body, factors that distinguish most professional occupations from others. The government and opposition leaders who are rejecting the advice for the pay rise are doing so for public relations reasons, worrying how it would play with the electorate; it would be better if they refused as a matter of principle. I was reflecting on this when I rode on the Thames Cable Car recently. This £60 million plaything, subsidised by the budget under the authority of the mayor of London is a colossal waste of money, the most expensive cable car system in the world, and the sort of vanity project that you might expect from amateurs - which is what most politicians are. The current incumbent of the mayor's post is famous for his extra-mural jobs, and is reported to have little of the detailed knowledge needed by someone in his position. Moreover, he is widely believed to want the job of prime minister. It was a disaster for the capital when he became mayor of London; it would be a catastrophe for the country were he to achieve his greater ambition.

So, did I enjoy my ride on the cable car. I did! I'd rather it had never been built, but I'm not immune to the delights of being transported over the River Thames at maximum height of 295 feet (90 metres). Not least because it offers opportunities for some great photographs. It's just a pity that money was spent on this fairground project that currently runs at 10% or so of capacity, rather than the much needed pedestrian and cyclist bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf that has been suggested by Sustrans.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21.5mm (58mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Night photography

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When I used a film camera the photographic day was shorter than it is now. By that I mean the film that was widely available wasn't at its best when light levels started to drop away. If you used a tripod with a static subject you'd got a chance of a reasonable shot, but hand-held it was a different matter. So, I rarely shot in the early morning or in the evening after sunset. And, of course, those are the times when you can make some great photographs.

That slowly changed with the arrival of digital. As sensors improved we started to use ISO numbers that were unheard of with film. From a film-days maximum of ISO 400 or so we soon progressed to the point where 800 and 1600 were regularly used to good effect. The arrival of in-body and lens stabilisation allowed us to hand hold these numbers quite comfortably at speeds down to 1/15 or 1/8 second despite the fact that often the lenses were not as bright as the 50mm 1.8 or 1.4 that we routinely used with film. Then technology moved on and ISO 3200 and 6400 became viable. Today we see cameras offering 12800 and even 25600.

Consequently, when I'm in London I think nothing of hand holding my camera for night-time shots. Sometimes, if I'm away from street lights and strongly illuminated buildings, I'll brace the camera against a wall or on some railings. I never - thankfully - need to consider carrying a tripod because the results I get hand-held are quite acceptable. We passed Canada Water Library the other day. I first photographed this striking Piers Gough/CZWG designed building at the turn of the year during daylight hours. The night offered a different take on the structure and the opportunity to use highlights on the adjacent water of the old dock.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Travelators and the future

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I've commented elsewhere about how the twenty-first century future, as predicted in the forward-looking 1960s, hasn't worked out quite as forecast. We aren't yet eating our meals from toothpaste-like tubes, routinely travelling in our flying cars, wearing jump-suits (despite the passing fad of onesies) or holidaying in space. Of course, much that wasn't foreseen has come to pass in the form of ubiquitous hand-held computers, the world wide web, the resurgence of interest in crafts and hand-made objects etc.

However, every now and then I have felt that those seers of fifty years ago hit a few bulls-eyes. In fact, I experience it each time I use the travelator (a horizontal escalator) between the Jubilee and Northern Line platforms at Waterloo on the London Underground. During the 1960s my idea of what the future held tended to come from children's comics, films or TV programmes set in the future, or "Tommorrow's World", a weekly series looking at inventions, that began on the BBC in 1965. Travelators were frequently presented as the future of city centre transit. However, on my most recent visit to London, when we once again used the travelator, I didn't have that feeling of experiencing the future. Why? Because a few weeks ago I discovered that the only other travelator on the London Underground, at Bank tube station, began running in 1960 and had its fiftieth anniversary in 2010. In the 1960s, as far as Britain goes, travelators (then spelt travolator) in the 1960s were the cutting-edge present, not the future! What wasn't predicted at the time was that airports would be the place where travelators would find greatest use.

Today's photograph shows the converging lines of Waterloo's 140 metres (460 feet) moving walkway. It also shows a favourite game of parents and children when using the system - a race between the small child on the moving travelator and their parent walking along the non-moving central section.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO: 320
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Otherworldly photographic colours

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I was looking at some competition-winning photographs online recently. Those judged the best were chosen by the popular vote of the particular online community. As I went from category to category - landscape, still-life, travel, etc - a recurring thought kept popping into my head: "Which planet were these shots taken on?" The reason for my query? The colours of many of those selected were so heavily saturated, so unnatural looking, so "otherworldly" that they were unbelievable as images of planet Earth.

This penchant for bright, deep, fantasy colours has, I think, grown with the rise of digital. Sometimes it's down to the preference of the photographer. On other occasions "vivid", "saturated" or some other synonym is the default setting of the camera, chosen by the manufacturers in preference to "natural" or "standard", because the they know these stronger colours will appeal to buyers. Deeper colours can also be a deliberate or perhaps even an unwitting manipulation of the saturation slider by the photographer who makes that choice because they feel that's how "good" photographs now look or how they must look in order to win photographic competitions. Then there's the influence of HDR, Instagram and all the other "effects" that are so easily applied digitally. Well, I wish it would stop. I wish that photographic colours would look more like they do in life.

However, there are three more reasons why saturated colours abound. Two causes are hard to deal with and the other should be left alone. The first is the inability of camera sensors to accurately record all colours in all situations. Colour film couldn't do it and neither can digital. If you want total accuracy you've sometimes got to adjust the hues the camera records to a closer approximation of what your eye saw. And that's not always easy. Then there's the fact that monitors are frequently not colour calibrated. Consequently there is often a mis-match between the way the colours of a particular photograph are seen on different computers and devices. Finally, there's the fact that sometimes, in some lights, the natural colours of the world are saturated in a way that makes them look unreal. A few weeks ago I pointed out a pasture to my wife that was so intensely green it looked like it had been spray painted. It probably had been sprayed, but with fertiliser and herbicides. Then, more recently we saw dozens of small clouds at sunset that were a vibrant salmon pink against a glowing cyan blue sky. On this occasion I actually said to my wife, "A photograph of this sky would look like it had been heavily manipulated in Photoshop." Where otherworldly, unusual colours occur naturally there's nothing that needs doing to change the photograph. Today's shot has something of these qualities because the colours look unreal or manipulated. I took it near the River Thames in London, and it's as it came out of the camera, the colours fairly close to what we saw in what was the second best London sunset I've ever seen. For the very best London sunset of the past few decades, one that was widely acknowledged as such, see my photograph here. Note - I did use a graduated neutral density filter for this shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: crop of 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Advertising and happiness

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Modern advertising has always intrigued me. One of my early blog posts, in 2006, was called "Gullibility and advertising". I returned to the subject via product names in 2010 in the post, "Silly brand names and pier views". In 2012 "Underpants, celebrities and gibberish" found me reflecting on no less than David Beckham's boxer briefs, and in April of this year the sight of people volunteering to stand under artificially created rain while fake thunder and lightning crashed and flashed about them prompted "Advertising puzzles me". Advertising is so ubiquitous and, it must be said, often so clever, that we often fail to register it at a conscious level. However, at a subconscious level it feeds on us like a tapeworm, gnawing away at our very being, influencing what we buy, why we buy it and changing our perception of just what a product can do for us.

Many years ago I came to the conclusion that one of the main aims of advertising was to obscure the distinction between pleasure and happiness. We see this in the cliche of a new car being sold through a film of a young couple driving down an empty road in beautiful, sunny countryside, smiling beatitudinously, as though blessed with all the happiness that it is possible for life to confer upon them. Buy this car, the subtext says, and you will be like them. Or buy the wrist-watch that George Clooney advertises and you'll be like him. Or happiness is yours if only you wear this or that brand of clothing, eat at our restaurant, or live in our exclusive residential development. The fact is, that advertisements rarely give you straightforward, factual information about the product they are trying to sell. Instead they tell a fictional story about achieving happiness, pleasure, status or a life-changing experience, in which you are encouraged to see yourself as the main character, the person who is transformed by something as simple and easy as a purchase. At the heart of much advertising, it must be said, is dishonesty.

That thought was sparked the other day when we were in London. We were heading for Waterloo tube station one evening and passed the British Film Institute's IMAX cinema, a large circular building with illuminated, wrap-around advertising. The word "Honestly" was part of an advert for I know not what. And, as I raised my camera to photograph the building with a cluster of London Transport double-deckers below it, I wondered whether honesty figured anywhere in the pitch being made to we passers-by.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24.1mm (65mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Crystal, Royal Victoria Docks, London

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I returned yesterday from a visit to London and, as I sat looking through the photographs that I'd harvested during my time there, I fell to thinking about the metaphors that have been used to describe our capital city. The political reformer and farmer, William Cobbett, called it "the great wen" in his book, "The Rural Rides" that was written in the 1820s and published in 1830. A wen is a sebaceous cyst and Cobbett saw its rapid growth and the way it attracted people and money as detrimental to the country as a whole. For a couple of centuries centuries the city has colloquially been called "The Smoke" because of the amount it generated from its houses and industries. Economic geographers frequently refer to it as a "magnet" for capital due to the way it sucks in national and international investment.

What prompted these thoughts, and why was I pondering "black hole" as another suitable metaphor and rejecting it (there quite a bit that I like about London)? Well, it was something my son said as we walked past a shiny, angular, new building standing on the edge of the Royal Victoria Docks across the Thames from the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena). He commented that in most British provincial cities "The Crystal" - the building's name - would be a noteworthy, feted structure used to draw visitors, whereas here it was just another such building, one of so many in the London, that he'd never been in. It has been built as "a sustainable cities initiative exploring the future of cities". I imagine it's also a so-called iconic building intended to help with the regeneration of this area of former docks. The Crystal's origami-like appearance made me wonder whether Terry Farrell had a hand in its design because it put me in mind of his aquarium in Hull, "The Deep". But no, this building is the work of Chris Wilkinson of Wilkinson Eyre who says that its "crystalline geometry" is inspired by nature. There can be few natural objects that share this building's faceted exterior but I suppose some quartz formations do. For a photographer the building provides some striking shapes and reflections, and as my companions went to watch some wake-boarders using a fixed line at the edge of the old dock, I circled the building with my camera putting together a few semi-abstract compositions as well as one or two more conventional photographs.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19.1mm (51mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Melton Ross chalk quarries

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The popularity of Joseph Wright of Derby's paintings or those by Philip James de Loutherbourg of the industrial revolution in Britain stems, in part, from a paradox. On the one hand there is the fascination, excitement and money-making potential of processes, machines and large new, landscape-moulding developments that have never been seen before on such a scale before - forges, furnaces, bridges and tall chimneys, big factories, mines, new workers' housing etc. But there is also a feeling that the new industries, whilst clearly being the future and progress, also mark a change from a gentler, more natural, essentially agrarian Britain to one where the forces of industry and finance are being let rip and their rapid march is stamping all over the traditional, the loved and the familiar. The appeal of paintings such as Loutherbourg's showing the Bedlam Furnaces at Madeley Wood, Coalbrookedale in Shropshire, is in part because of this kind of ambivalence towards large-scale industry and its consequences.

As a photographer I recognise something of that when I photograph wind turbines or electricity pylons that have been dumped, like metal monsters, into rural or offshore locations, places that either haven't changed much, or have changed slowly, and which represent the nearest we get to continuity in a fast changing world. As a subject for the camera both turbines and pylons can offer something striking that even the most ardent protector of rural Britain must recognise. It's a feeling that I felt again when I stood just outside the gateway of Melton Ross chalk quarries in north Lincolnshire and photographed the buildings and machinery associated with the extraction and processing of lime. Ugly? Undoubtedly. Grim? Certainly. But also imposing and visually interesting. I liked the tyre tracks the lorries had left on the wet ground, the bright colours of the safety signs and their reflections against the earth colours of the buildings and conveyor belts, and the dark, threatening clouds flecked by the white smoke from the works' chimneys, that promised more rain.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5D Mk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Getting to know the willow

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It wasn't until I had willow trees growing in and adjoining my garden that I really got to know them. One of the first expansions of my knowledge of Salix alba came about when I looked out of my bedroom window one morning and saw that overnight winds had brought down a huge branch. It was flattening a section of ten feet high conifer hedge, had bent a bay tree down to the ground, crushed a shrub border and gouged the lawn. It took four of us most of the day to cut it up with a chainsaw and remove it. Prior to that event I had heard this tree called "crack" willow: now I understood why it had been given the name. The countless small leaves had acted like a sail in the wind that had forced the limb from the tree where it forked. Evidence of the rending crack could be seen on its trunk.

But, the fact is, the willow tree has many endearing habits and I like it. In winter its slender new branches glow reddish-orange in the yellow-tinged light. In March it is one of the earliest trees to come into leaf, a real sign that spring is on the way. The sight of the branches of a willow swaying in the summer breeze, like tresses of long hair, is an arboreal phenomenon that is hard to beat. Birds, large and small love willow trees for the nest sites it offers and the insects that abound in it. As a garden screen the willow tree has few deciduous equals because it carries its leaves for such a long period of time. However, that advantage brings with it some of the tree's disadvantages. It loses leaf through most months of the year so if a tidy garden is your idea of a good garden then it isn't the tree for you. Moreover, the leaf loss is accompanied by long, slender, whippy twigs so composting the gathered leaves becomes more difficult. And then there is that late leaf drop in autumn (or rather early winter). A couple of weeks after you've cleared up most of the deciduous leaves from lawns and flower beds in late November the willow decides its time to shed its leaves too. This is usually in early December. In fact, after completing this blog post collecting up the carpet of willow leaves brought down by yesterday's high winds is my next job!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17.8mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Britain's oldest houses?

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It's not easy to determine which are the oldest houses in Britain. We can reasonably discount the caves that were inhabited by prehistoric man because a house surely implies a man-made, rather than natural, structure. But then the question arises of just how much of the house needs to exist before it can be considered a house? The post marks found in soil that show where, for example, Iron Age timber and turf houses were built are clearly insufficient. But what about the low, circular, stone walls, on Holyhead Mountain, Anglesey, the remains of possibly Neolithic, but probably Iron Age, dwellings? Or the stone footings of Roman houses in the military settlements along Hadrian's Wall such as Housesteads and Vindolanda? Perhaps they qualify as such.

However, in my mind, it is the very few remaining Norman houses of the twelfth century that are the oldest houses in the country because, despite restorations and additions there is sufficient original work remaining outside and in for us to easily imagine what they looked like when they were first built. The small cathedral city of Lincoln is fortunate in having two of the best examples of Norman town houses, and the not too distant village of Boothby Pagnell has the best small Norman manor house. The so-called Jew's House (leftmost building above) at the start of Steep Hill in Lincoln has a facade with ground floor and first floor walls that date from the late 1100s. The arch over the doorway and the two arched upper windows (one with its dividing column long gone) exhibit carving of that period. The two string courses and the chimney breast are also contemporary. All the ground floor windows are, of course, much later in date, as is the rectangular one on the first floor. Inside are three original twelfth century doorways. Though the pantiled roof looks old the Norman roof would probably have been straw or reed thatch, split stone tiles or wooden shingles. The building adjoining is called Jew's Court. The lowest courses of its facade appear to be similar to its neighbour but everything above dates from the seventeenth century and later.

Britain abounds in houses of the eighteenth, seventeenth and sixteenth centuries. Fifteenth century houses are not unusual, but buildings earlier than that tend to be churches, castles etc and houses of earlier centuries are much rarer. Consequently it's a privilege to be able to view a house such as the one shown above, and remarkable that it still finds a use in the twenty first century, over eight hundred years after it was built.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bracken and silver birches

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The other day, while walking in the vicinity of Woodhall Spa, we passed Highall Wood. Not unusually for woodland in that area of Lincolnshire the two dominant species were bracken and silver birch. I stopped to take a photograph of the pale, flecked trunks of the slender trees rising out of the blanket of brown bracken, plants that only a couple of months ago would have been a sea of green. A few pale, yellow leaves still clung to the thin branches of the trees, though as I write this, a couple of days later, I suspect the recent stronger gusts have brought even those stragglers down.

As I child in the Yorkshire Dales I loved bracken and played in it on the hillsides. We liked the way the individual fronds uncurled and the fact that it grew taller than children making it ideal for hide and seek. But, ever since I discovered that the plant has carcinogenic properties I've viewed it in a different light. Apparently the relatively high incidence of stomach and oesophagal cancers in Japan and Korea may be connected to a liking by those countries for the plant as a foodstuff. When I read this I wondered if I needed to be concerned by the plants' air-borne spores too. I'm not aware that bracken has ever been eaten by people in Britain, but I do know it was used here for thatching cottage roofs, as bedding for humans and animals, as fuel for the fire and as a floor covering. Today it is generally seen as an invasive pest that takes over pasture, something to be controlled and eradicated. In the wood above it appears to be growing wherever it likes. As I walked on I wondered whether the way in which it carpeted the woodland floor led to its roots reducing the already short lives (in tree terms) of the silver birches.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17.8mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fallen leaves and Blogger colour

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Over the years I've been generally quite happy with Blogger, the Google-owned service that provides the blogging platform I use. It is free, easy to operate, easy to adapt, doesn't require me to host advertisements and it is very reliable. It has fewer bells and whistles than Wordpress, a blogging service I use for a different site, but overall I prefer Blogger for the reasons listed: it does all I require.

However, a while ago something happened to the way that my photographs were displayed. Instead of showing just as I had prepared them, as soon as I uploaded them the colours became over-saturated. I take a lot of care in preparing my images and the last thing I wanted was for them to glow with artificially bright colour. I searched to see if there was a reason for this but came up with nothing. So I muted the colours of the shots I posted hoping to compensate for what was happening. It did somewhat ameliorate the effect, but I wanted an answer to why it was happening and a better solution. A search some time later turned up the answer. At a point I couldn't determine Google's Picasa photograph hosting had been placed under the wing of Google+. A feature of these galleries is that photographs there are always made brighter because Google in its wisdom has a feature called Auto Enhance turned on by default. Why? I can only think that they assume people like the "vivid" or "saturated" look of TV, magazines and some phones and cameras. Well, many don't, and so I looked for a way to turn it off. After much searching I discovered that the only way to do so was to join Google+. I was not happy with that at all because I've deliberately ignored all the social media services for reasons I won't go into here. But, Blogger is free, I pay nothing for it so I can demand nothing of it. I had no choice but to sign up to Google+. I did with bad grace and in a minimal manner. I then turned off Auto Enhance, found all was well, and I now carry on as I was, and ignore Google+. At some point I intend to find out if I can exit from it without Auto Enhance turning back on again.

I was reminded of all this when I took today's photograph of fallen acer leaves we came across in Lincoln. When I looked at the camera screen after I'd taken my shot I showed it to my wife. The colours weren't saturated, they were unnaturally muted! I assume the white balance was wrong. But I was out shopping and photographing only incidentally so rather than change it until I got it right I made a mental note of the brightness of everything and went on my way. I was glad I did because when we came to the fallen willow leaves the camera recorded the colours perfectly. Go figure!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Waiting for the frugivores

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The waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) doesn't seem to have made its appearance in Lincolnshire as I write this piece, but it can't be long before they do. Interestingly the first locations where these winter visitors are spotted are usually urban or suburban, often the superstore car-parks of Tesco, Sainsburys or Morrisons. The reason for this is the prevalence of large numbers of small, berried trees in these locations; trees such as the rowan. Waxwings are frugivorous, that is to say fruit eaters, and so they make straight for where fruit is available in large quantities.

Frugivorous is a word I came across for the first time only recently and it means "fruit eater". Autumn is a time when fruit in the form of berries or wind-fall apples is plentiful, and frugivores are quick to take advantage of the bounty. Today I saw a horse gorging itself on rose-hips, carefully avoiding the thorny stems to pluck off the ripe, red berries one at a time. That's something I've never seen before. I've seen horses eat apples from a branch or from the ground, but never rose-hips. Who would have thought they had a fancy for them?

The tree in today's photograph has lost almost all its leaves but still has a full complement of berries. I came across it outside the museum in Lincoln. As I took my shot, captivated by the way the silhouette of branches and the bright berries contrasted with the flecked brickwork behind, I wondered how much longer they would hang there before blackbirds, fieldfares, redwings or, perhaps, waxwings, descended on the branches and stripped the tree bare.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 36.3mm (98mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Incidental photographs

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Some of my best images I think of as "incidental photographs". That is to say, they came about when I was engaged in other business. In other words, I hadn't gone out with the express intention of taking photographs, I had other things in mind, but I had a camera with me "just in case". If I'm visiting my family in another part of the country I carry one. Shopping in town or city, one is with me. When I take the car for its service a camera is in my pocket. If I ... well you get the picture. And so do I!! It's an often repeated truism that the best camera is the one you have with you and, by and large, I've learnt my lesson on that score.

I've done this for more years than I care to remember, and my "go everywhere and anywhere" camera has always been a reasonable quality, small, pocketable device. It's currently a Sony RX100. Prior to that it was a Panasonic Lumix LX3. I had the Sony with me recently when we popped into Spalding for some shopping and I took a photograph of the Sessions House, a stone-built, castle-like, court building of 1842 by Charles Kirk senior, as the low sun illuminated the leaves of a nearby tree. I also had it when we visited Southwell in Nottinghamshire one evening and we came upon the Minster, a Norman and later church of cathedral size, floodlit in its leafy precinct. Of course there is the odd occasion when I forget to carry it, and it's then that opportunities for a photograph are seen and lost. And, like the fisherman who loses the big fish, the lost photograph takes on ever more impressive qualities the more you think about what might have been. Neither of these photographs are ever going to feature in my top ten or even top one hundred photographs. But both have qualities that I like and that, I think, make them good enough to post on the blog.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen
Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13.6mm (37mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec
ISO: 2000
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Crystal Palace dinosaurs

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In 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park, London. When it closed the newly built exhibition building, an enormous plate glass and cast iron structure that came to be known as the Crystal Palace, was dis-assembled and moved to Sydenham Hill. Here it was re-built in a quite different form, becoming an exhibition space, concert hall, gallery, meeting place and museum in the newly created Crystal Palace Park. This Victorian pleasure garden, a 389 acre development of the grounds of a former mansion, also acquired a formal Italian Garden, a Great Maze, an English Landscape Garden, a cricket ground, a football stadium, aquarium, a concert bowl and much else. It also gained some areas of water with islands and it was on one of these that the most interesting attraction was sited.

In 1852 the sculptor, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807-1894) was commissioned create 33 life-size models of extinct, prehistoric mammals and dinosaurs. He was assisted in his task by Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), a biologist and palaeontologist, and the man who coined the word "dinosaur". The models were based on the best current interpretation of the animals' form derived from the fossils that were being collected in increasing numbers. They were probably the first ever dinosaur sculptures and the limitations of their accuracy soon became apparent as science and fresh finds threw new light on the creatures. However, they proved a great attraction, even spawning what may have been the first tie-in merchandising in the form of a set of miniatures based on the originals and available for the sum of £30. They certainly drew the crowds, and despite the ravages of time and neglect, concerted restorations have returned them to close to their original condition and they continue to be a draw, especially to children.

I'd never visited Crystal Palace Park before the autumn day on which I took these photographs. As I moved from group to group I reflected that, in terms of the appearance of the trees and shrubs, I couldn't have chosen a better time to be there. The deep reds, yellows, oranges and browns of the leaves added to the more usual greens gave the backdrop to the giant beasts an appropriately other-worldly appearance, and animated them in a way that probably doesn't happen in high summer.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 25mm (67mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Autumn in London

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When I engaged in paid, daily work I always regretted that I didn't have the time to watch the seasons change in the way that I knew they did - slowly and incrementally. The transition from autumn to winter involves not only a peaks and troughs decline in the temperature, but a change in the light from blue-white to yellow tinged as the sun moves closer to the horizon. The autumnal tints of the trees and the drifts of leaves against walls and kerbs were easy to see. Less visible was the subtle colours of individual species - the red-orange of the cherries, the yellow of the limes and field maples, and the lingering green of the willow.

When I lived in a city such changes were masked by the prevalence of concrete, brick, tarmac and grass. Yes, there were trees, parks and gardens, but the daily grind meant that often you could pay little attention to seasonal metamorphosis. Before you knew it the end of August had turned to November and you had only a vague notion of how the transformation had been achieved. The pace of modern life means that we rarely have the time to stop, stand, stare and fully appreciate the beauty of the changing seasons.

The other day I took a couple of "autumn" shots in London. The first was of the tower and spire of St Mary's church at Rotherhithe. The current building, completed in 1716, replaced a church of the twelfth century. As I walked along the cobbles of the adjacent road I looked up through the yellows, browns and greens of the trees and took a photograph that, when I viewed it on the camera screen, looked like it could have been taken in a small town, a village or the open countryside almost anywhere in England. The presence of a churchyard with its old trees was enough to turn autumn in the city into a more universal view of the season. That couldn't be said of the second photograph of what looks like a red oak near the glass curtain wall of some offices near the centre of the city. Here a grid of man-made, regular, modernity contrasts strongly with the irregularity of the branches and leaves of the specimen trees tat are dotted among the gleaming towers. The contrast of of the two photographs taken only a couple of miles apart in the capital city couldn't be greater, and yet I think both say something about autumn in the city.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19.3mm (52mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Proximity as a photographic device

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Proximity, juxtaposition, adjacency - open the thesaurus and choose your word. Whatever you call it, the photographic device of arranging two, often very different (but sometimes oddly linked) objects in the frame, is one of long standing. Depending on the objects that are chosen this compositional approach can be arresting, humorous, thought provoking, surreal and much else. It's something that I like to do when the situation arises, and a technique that I will often go out of my way to engineer into an image.

I've touched briefly on the subject before, but anyone who has looked through my offerings on this site will recognise the frequency with which I put the idea into practice. I've used a trompe l'oeil bull and a passerby, old and new architecture, primary colours, a traffic sign and a poster, a futuristic public bench and a roller coaster and many other pairings in an effort to bring something new and different to my compositions.

On my recent stay in London the echo of the unusual colours of the ready-mix concrete lorry and the block of flats called for a photograph that made something of the slightly odd proximity of the two. The adjacent railway bridge gave something of a frame to my shot and the whole was lifted by the low sun and deep shadows of the early morning. Not as obvious a juxtaposition as in some of my photographs, but one that pleased me. Incientally, I've commented to my companions on more than one occasion that I really like the architectural treatment of the exterior of this building. Thus far I've found no one who agrees with me!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hither and thither and morning coffee

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Though the language police would wish otherwise, language changes. Over time spelling and grammar are modified by use. New words are introduced, existing words take on new or additional meanings and old words are cast aside. I was thinking about this the other day when, in a slightly self-conscious manner, I used the phrase "hither and thither". These two words, both singly and in this pairing, are rarely heard today; they sound old-fashioned, the sort of language you'd come across in Shakespeare or in the novels and poetry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The context for my use of the phrase was an explanation to someone that we'd been travelling about a lot in recent weeks and consequently much of my photography during this time had been done beyond the confines of Lincolnshire. As I uttered the phrase, I made a mental note to try and find out whether "hither and thither" was ever in widespread use and, if so, when it became replaced by "to this place and that" or, more colloquially, "here and there". A bit of research produced no satisfactory answer to the question. Most of what I discovered came from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and from that source I was interested to find the words had more meanings than I knew.

The word, "hither" has its origins and equivalents in Old English,Old Norse and the Germanic language. "To or towards this place" (now "here") is its principal meaning. However, it was also used to mean, "to, or or on this side of", "up to this point in time", "to this end" and "in this direction". A United States variant is, apparently, "Hither and yon" (or yond). The earliest recorded use of the phrase as I used it (though with somewhat different spelling), dates from the early A.D.700s. "Thither" has a similar lineage to hither, as does "whither" ("to what place" or "where").

One of our recent "hithers" (or was it a "thither") was London. Whilst there I visited the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and took this photograph of people taking morning coffee. The bird's-eye-view of the tables and chairs, the subtle colours and raking light that produced elongated shadows, appealed to me and so it became the subject of one of my better photographs taken at that location.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The beauty of church vaulting

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The vaulting that graces many a church and cathedral ceiling, especially inside a tower, is a recurring topic on this blog. I am fascinated by the variations on a theme that medieval masons and carpenters wrought in their desire to beautify the space above the worshippers' heads such that an upward glance really did feel like a glimpse of heaven. Architectural historians have created a whole specialised vocabulary to describe the development of vaulting down the centuries from its beginnings in simple barrel vaulting, to groin vaults, rib vaults, quadripartite and sexpartite vaults, vaults with tiercerons and liernes, culminating in the glories of stellar vaults and fan vaults.

The purpose of vaulting is to take some of the weight of a roof or tower above and distribute it laterally on to arches, walls, piers and columns. In the crossing vault shown above the ribs that form fans stretching from the centre to the four corners are instrumental in achieving this weight transference. However, this vaulting also has a central star pattern made by the addition of short decorative ribs called liernes. Clearly it is a design that seeks to impress with its beauty as well as do an architectural job of work. In fact, all is not what it seems with this vaulting. The tower of Holy Trinity was built during the period 1500-1530 on a raft of oak trees for the lack of any firm bedrock below. These were replaced by concrete in 1906. The vaulting, however, was erected as late as the 1840s, and the beautiful, rich paintwork must surely originate from that time - a mixture of medieval ideas and Victorian interpretation and development of those ideas. When I magnify my photograph I can see that the infill is timber planks so I imagine the ribs must be timber too. This vaulting will have replaced an earlier ceiling. That may have been stone, but is more likely to have been timber too. I've often seen fine Victorian work that replaced an insensitive, flat Georgian ceiling (itself inserted in place of the medieval original) though I've no reason to believe that is the case here. In fact, timber roofs were more widespread in England during the medieval period than in any other North European country and exhibit a unique ingenuity and beauty. Here, at Holy Trinity, the wood mimics painted stone and is none the worse for that.

The organ pipes on north and south sides of the crossing belong to the largest parish church organ in Great Britain. The oldest of the more than 4,000 pipes date from 1756 and are by Johannes Snetzler.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

No budget for photographs

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When I changed my contact and enquiries page in February 2012 (modified in April) I had an email from a regular visitor suggesting that my wording was, perhaps, a touch off-putting to people interested in using my photographs. I explained that it was meant to be because I was getting fed up of people contacting me and asking to use an image commercially, but unwilling to pay for doing so. The last straw, and the prompt for my somewhat brusque re-write, was a communication from a company working in the field of Combined Heat and Power units. They explained that my photograph of the undulating, rather artistic cladding that surrounds one of the CHP units at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in London, would be perfect for a publication they were putting together. They explained that they were a "non-profit" company and regretted that they had no budget for photography so couldn't pay for the image. However, should I consent to them using my photograph, they explained, I could be sure that they would give me full written credit.

My response was polite, curt and in the negative. When I re-wrote my contact information I wrote my reasons for this approach in a blog post called "Something for nothing". I was reminded of it the other day when browsing a photography website. One of the posts was a copy of a letter from a musician who had been approached by a TV production company seeking music and regretting that they had "no budget for music" to pay for it. His eloquent and heartfelt response to the solicitation (originally posted on music websites) chimed with a lot of professional and enthusiast photographers who are regularly asked for their work without the offer of recompense and consequently it has been widely circulated on photography websites too. It's well worth reading.

All of which has nothing to do with today's photograph of the upturned, broken top of a Victorian cast iron fountain basin. Except, I've discovered that you never know just what kind of photograph is going to be attractive to a company. Who would have thought the hospital CHP unit would be attractive to anyone? Is this broken fountain? It makes me glad that photography is my interest rather than my job.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 88mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Views with spires - take two

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For quite a while my blog statistics have shown a photograph that I posted in May 2011 called "Views with spires" as the one that receives most hits each month. I often try to work out why such things happen because, on the whole, the most frequently viewed post in a particular month is one published early in that same month. However, for reasons that are usually unfathomable, posts reasonably frequently depart from this pattern. Sometimes it's because I can see a particular website has referenced it and readers have looked at a link to it. But mostly I simply can't account for it. Why, I often wonder, is "Tree shadows and architectural drawings" my blog post with by far the most hits, fifty percent more than the second most visited? Who knows? It certainly can't be down to the quality of the image!

"Views with spires", to return to the current favourite, does I suppose, describe a subject that appeals to those of a traditional and Romantic mindset, and that title may in fact explain its popularity. Today's photograph of the church of St Denys at Aswarby, Lincolnshire, is another photograph on the same theme. More than that, it shares compositional similarities, with the road curving away to the prominent church tower with its tall spire. When I look through my landscapes I find that I frequently use church spires as strong compositional elements. And why not? Is there anything to beat the strong vertical accent of a medieval tower and spire set against the flat or rolling English countryside? Lincolnshire abounds with convenient examples. Churches such as Sempringham, Gosberton and Donington grab the eye and grace any photograph in which they appear, even if they are shrouded in mist or fog, as is Swineshead in this winter photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Motion blur and stained glass

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On a recent visit to Gloucester Cathedral I felt motivated to try a motion blur photograph. My recent post where I'd inadvertently done such a shot and liked the result was still fresh in my mind, and I had been looking for an opportunity to try for another, more considered, example. As I photographed monuments, architecture and windows the possibility of rendering some figurative stained glass in a non-figurative manner came to me.

My usual method when trying to achieve motion blur is to either set the aperture very small (say f11 or f22) so that a slow shutter speed results or use a speed priority mode or set the camera completely to manual and dial in numbers that I think will work. However, in those instances I've usually been trying to blur something that is moving. Here I was trying to make something that was static blurred by moving the camera. In theory there's little difference, but when I came to take my shots I was dissatisfied with the outcomes. So, I put the camera on auto and had a look at what that produced. Counter-intuitively, it produced much better results. I think this was due to a large amount of chance and the way I moved the camera. Nonetheless it resulted in today's photograph. I was pleased to transform this rather dark, poorly lit (it was early evening on a dull, wet day) window into something bright and colourful that looked like it had the summer sun streaming through it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Auto
Focal Length: 36.8mm (99mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec
ISO: 2500
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fruits, vegetables and names

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A shopping trip to Stamford found us in the market buying buying a couple of items. Whilst my wife made the purchases I headed over to a stall selling fruit and vegetables, attracted by the bright colours and the arrangement of the produce in stainless steel bowls.

As I looked at what was for sale I was somewhat envious of the flawless quality of each item. Though we have grown items of produce that equal the standard on display, we do end up with quite a few less than perfect pieces. I comforted myself with the thought that such perfection comes at a price, often in terms of taste, and commonly with regard to the environment. "Give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees, please", as Joni Mitchell put it. Moreover, the distorted and deformed examples that we grow and happily eat never make it to the market stall but are separated out to be used in sauces and prepared foods.

A further thought came to my mind as I looked at the peppers and aubergines (and potatoes) shown in the photograph. Though they are undoubtedly fruit, biologically speaking, they are often - at least in the UK - regarded as vegetables (and called such) because of the way they are used with savoury rather than sweet dishes. Moreover, we are somewhat confused in these islands by the English name(s) that we call the sweet Capsicum annuum. Most commonly they are peppers. However, that causes misunderstanding because chili peppers are often called by this name too. Capsicum was used more commonly in the past but seems to have fallen out of use. That name was specific and gave rise, as far as I know, to no misunderstanding. Sweet pepper is also commonly used, probably as a deliberate attempt to prevent the confusion with chili peppers noted above. It's not one of the most problematic linguistic quandaries, but precision in names is helpful and it would be convenient if we settled on one explicit name and used it to the exclusion of all others. However, in a country that perversely uses both the metric and the imperial system for measurement, I'm afraid there's absolutely no chance of that!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The organist and the photographer

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This is, I think, the third photograph that I've posted showing a church organist. There's something about a dark church, with the silhouette of the musician at the console in a pool of light, that appeals to me. The first, taken at St Wulfram's in Grantham made much of the rather fine, highly ornate, organ case. The second was taken, as I recall, in Holbeach church and was more a study in concentration. It also resulted in a flurry of hits on the blog by people (presumably) looking to book an organist for their wedding. Today's comes from Ledbury church in Herefordshire, and here I took the opportunity to include myself in the shot, reflected in the mirror that the organist uses to take a cue from the officiating vicar.

As I processed the photograph I noticed a couple of copies of "Hymns Old & New". These can often be seen on church organs. As a youngster I was aware of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" and I've always assumed that the current book is an updated version of this old classic. However, I'm told that's not the case; the book "Common Praise" seems to attempt that task. Moreover, as I read a little more about "Hymns Old & New" I discovered that it is a tome that appears to be either loved or reviled. Critics accuse it of re-casting old favourites in different keys, and generally  pitching them for lower voices. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is, apparently, in F rather than the usual G (gasp!). They also see the hymns as being subject to "politically correctness" citing the fact that "Onward Christian Soldiers" has become "Onward Christian Pilgrims"! I don't have a view on all of this but in reading the scathing comments about this collection of hymns, and the equally passionate defence of the modernised versions of old favourites, I was reminded that there's often nothing like religion for irreligious argument, vituperation and rancour.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.8mm (40mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On