Sunday, September 01, 2013

A few of my best photographs

click photo to enlarge
For a number of years I've had a link in the sidebar of the blog to a "Best of PhotoReflect". This showed some of what I consider to be my better efforts with a camera. However, the external service I used for that purpose kept introducing changes and "improvements" in a way that has caused me to ditch them.

So, to give anyone who wants a flavour of what the blog is about, at least as far as the photographs go, I've put together a page of ten colour shots and a page of ten black and whites. These can be reached through the side bar links as usual. I say they are my ten best in each category, but that isn't strictly true. Why? Because those lists are going to be different each time I compile them. I'd like to think any future changes will be due to me becoming a better photographer and producing images that I rate more highly than earlier ones. But that isn't going to be the case, or it will apply only in the odd instance. The fact is, once I get past the first couple of shots in each category the rest that I add depend pretty much on how I feel at the time.

I will change these lists periodically, though not too often. Incidentally the borders of the photographs differ. That's because I'm an inveterate fiddler and change my presentation now and again. I haven't linked any of the photographs to their blog posts. I may do that at some point in the future.

Today's photograph isn't one that I count among my very best. In fact its a reject, one I prepared for posting then cast aside after I changed my mind. It shows a bier and a tomb in the church of St Andrew at Rippingale, Lincolnshire. The wheeled bier, probably Victorian, is still used to transport the coffin into the church and, after the service, to the grave in the churchyard. It stands in front of a wall tomb-chest that has a lady on top. She is surmounted by an ogee canopy with damaged cusps, fleurons and plentiful ballflower ornament. All the indications - dress, ornament etc - are that it dates from the the period 1300 to 1350.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On