Today's photograph was taken three years ago. I came across it twice recently - once in a presentation I was giving about architecture and again when I was searching for the original of another photograph. Seeing it once more reminded me how odd it is. It also prompted the thought that it would make a reasonable blog post.
The first oddity in this photograph is the style the architect (a young George Gilbert Scott in 1837) chose for the facade buildings of a workhouse for the poor and homeless. Why, you have to wonder, did he think that the heavily symmetrical, classically-influenced, style of a country house (in miniature with a triumphal arch in the centre) was suitable. On reflection it is, perhaps, better than using a cotton mill as your inspiration as seems to have happened at Southwell. Quite a bit of money was spent on the facade and its administrative rooms and offices. Behind this range were the tall, plain, brick-built dormitories etc of the workhouse inmates. These are long gone, replaced in the most insensitive and peculiar way by this overpowering run of industrial silos - the second oddity in the photograph.
photograph and text © Tony Boughen
Photo Title: Former Workhouse and Silos, Boston, Lincolnshire
Camera: Canon 5D Mk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
