Acer leaves and real colours

click photo to enlarge
The widespread use of photographic enhancement is starting becoming a problem. I don't frequent social media websites, but the images that I see associated with them frequently have an effect applied - bleached colours, heavy vignetting, "antiquing", heavily saturated colour, etc. Enthusiast websites such as Flickr, 500px and the rest all too often feature shots that have been heavily processed to the point where I'm often tempted to ask, "On which planet were these taken?"

Now, I'm aware that photography comes in many forms, and manipulated images have always featured in the craft. However, too often the manipulation is to achieve no other end than to make the image more eye-catching; in other words they are a substitute for vision and skill, and they frequently take the photograph into the realm of painting. Down the road of ever more effects, lies an escalation that ends in madness.

The other problem with the omni-presence of manipulation is that it makes us disparage reality and even forget what it looks like. Consequently it can make some examples of photographic reality look like examples of manipulation. Take today's photograph of fallen acer leaves. The colours on display have a similarity to shots that have received a washed-out magenta cast. But, there has be no such trickery involved. These are the colours the camera recorded and they are quite close to what my eye saw. The only effect I've added here is that old stalwart, vignetting, where I used it to accentuate the shadows that were naturally invading the scene. My armoury of effects, by and large, involves the digital equivalents of the wet process effects we used in pre-digital days, especially dodging, burning and vignetting. Am I old-fashioned? In this regard, probably.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm (150mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6 Shutter
Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:720
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fallen leaves and Blogger colour

click photo to enlarge

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

Acers and architects

click photo to enlarge
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

Privatising public space

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The insidious spread of private space into what was formerly, or should be, public space continues. Whether it be shopping malls, new developer-created streets, gated communities, or public-private partnerships that trade space for council-owned facilities, the result is the same: areas that would, in the past, have been publicly owned and would have offered unfettered access to everyone, are now often places in which we have restricted rights, and what we can or cannot do is limited in order that the owners can sell more effectively to the public or to their tenants. So, watch out if you're taking photographs, collecting for charity, skateboarding, or doing anything that offends the delicate sensibilities of the owners or their private security guards: if they don't like it they have the power to tell you to "clear off".

On a recent visit to London it was pointed out to me that one of the largest redevelopments of the river front is privately owned. The area upstream of Tower Bridge on the South Bank, a location that has a riverside path, green space, benches, multiple office blocks, open-air amphitheatre and is known by the ridiculous name of "More London" is not the public space that it seems to be. If one looks carefully you can see discreet metal plates fixed to walls that proclaim its private status. This is all the more remarkable because the space includes the new City Hall from where the London Assembly governs the metropolis. One of the architectural features of this Norman Foster-designed building is its openness, designed to bring transparency to the democratic process. Yet it is located in a privately owned part of the city. As they say in the United States - "go figure".

All that being so, I did wonder whether I might be stopped as I pointed my new camera at the orange coloured acers in front of the offices with their blue-tinted glass. However, anyone trying to restrict my photography would, in fairness, have to do the same with the thousands of tourists snapping away at Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast, the city skyline and the "Glass Gonad" itself, so I felt fairly safe.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

That was spring, this is autumn

click photo to enlarge

Cameras are wonderful machines for recording the passage of time, though when I look at the way mine have documented my transformation from youthful lad to "getting on a bit" oldish bloke, I think they are perhaps a little too good at the task. My wife takes a set of about fifty photographs of our garden at the end of each month. By regularly looking through these groups of images she can track the changes over the year, decide what planting has worked and what hasn't, and make plans to remedy any areas that she thinks need attention. She did ask me if I'd do the photography for her, but I saw it as a boring chore, so the job has fallen to her! There's no doubting the value of it however.

A few days ago I was selecting images for a talk that I'm giving shortly. It's about the photography that I've done in the village since I moved to it just over three years ago. One of the main points I'll be making and illustrating will be that photographing your immediate location at different times of day and year, in different lights and weathers, is a great way for a photographer to proceed and will invariably produce some of his or her best photographs. This is a theme I wrote about in the early days of PhotoReflect. One of the quotations I'll be using at the start of the talk is one that I used in that blog entry. It is by the contemporary U.S. photographer, Aaron Rose, and perfectly sums up the value of seeing the photographic possibilities in the mudane as well as the exotic - "In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary."

As I was selecting and rejecting images I came across a photograph I took this spring (in fact early May) of the fresh, lime green leaves of an ornamental acer tree that grows in my garden. It's a shot I like and I added it to the list for the talk. But then I started wondering what the acer looks like now, in mid-October. So, I went out and photographed it in all its autumnal beauty. I think I may add this one to the talk too.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Acer, Amazon, ambiguity and trees

click photo to enlarge
Say the word "Acer" to the average young person and they are likely to bring to mind a shiny notebook computer, the product of Acer Inc., a Taiwan-based multinational electronics company. It's surprising how quickly such associations take hold. Consider "Amazon". Once it referred only to the South American river of that name. However, today, for many people, it is firstly the internet retailer, and only secondly a geographical feature.

That said, the word acer means more than one thing for people like me who see it as the name of a variety of tree. It is actually descriptive of the species known as the maple. But, whilst gardeners think of the ornamental tree with copper, green, red, orange or yellow leaves (a variety represented in today's photograph), others know it as the maple that produces the North American syrup, yet others as the Norway Maple of Europe whose wood has commercial uses, whilst some foresters (including those in Britain) see it as the sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), an invasive tree that is something of a woodland weed.

My garden has two ornamental acers: one with light green leaves that is thriving, and another with copper leaves that was hit so hard by the long, deep freeze of last winter that I had to cut dead parts off it, and it now grows as a squat, mis-shapen thing, not much of an asset to its rockery location. A sycamore grows just over my garden boundary, and true to its type it is prolific. Every autumn its "helicopter" seeds whirl down onto my vegetable garden, lawn and borders. Then, in spring, it seems that every single one takes root in an attempt to grow a forest around its parent. The mower deals with those in the lawn, but the rest need hoeing. And, try as we might to get each seedling, there are always a few that elude us and become established.

I took today's photograph when the leaves of this ornamental tree were at their best under a bright but cloudy sky. The fresh yellow/green really stands out in the garden, but over the next couple of months it will tone down to a deeper green until, in autumn, it changes hue once more. The word "acer" comes from the Latin and means "sharp" (as well as keen, eager, severe and fierce): in this case referring to the pointed shape of the genus' leaves.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Yellow leaves, blue sky

click photo to enlarge
Autumn is a time of year when, depending on the turn that the weather takes, you can convince yourself that it's still summer or you find yourself lamenting the onset of winter. As I type this "reflection" the area of Lincolnshire in which I live has had a full day of light rain - the first such day for months - that brought with it thoughts of the darker, colder, shorter days to come.

However, two days earlier, when I took this photograph, the sun was shining on the brightly coloured leaves of the maples. As I looked up into a tree and framed this shot, full of bright yellow, deep blue and clear white it almost seemed like I was looking back into summer: only the slight edge on the wind and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet reminded me that it was definitely autumn.

The yellow/orange with blue of this image shows the power of complementary colours, each deepening the apparent hue of the other, and generating a vibrancy that has appealed to artists, photographers and designers down the centuries.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Leaves of spring

click photo to enlarge

In 1664, John Evelyn (1620-1706), the English gardener and writer, published "Silva, or A Discourse of Forest Trees". In this ground-breaking book, written to encourage the planting of trees to meet the ship-building needs of Britain's growing navy, he described the species found in the British Isles. He noted those that were native to the islands, and those that were introduced. One of the trees discussed by Evelyn is the sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus. There were relatively few of these trees at that time, and he correctly described them as an introduced variety. No one can be sure who first brought the sycamore to Britain. Perhaps it was the Romans, or maybe it was later travellers bringing seeds or saplings from its native home in south and central Europe. Whoever it was, they are responsible for a tree that is now widespread, one of the commonest trees in many parts of the country.

Acers, confusingly also known as maples, are widely used as a source of wood for flooring, furniture and joinery. Its white, clean wood is almost odour-free making it useful for jobs associated with food. The sap from the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) is tapped and made into a highly prized syrup. In Britain, though foresters see the sycamore as useful, it is also invasive and subject to control in some areas. However, gardeners love the acer and many varieties are cultivated for their distinctive and attractive leaf colours seen in spring and autumn. In my garden two acers are currently spreading their leaves: one a copper colour, the other a bright lime green, though today's photograph shows an orange variety that I came upon early one evening in a nearby cemetery! The blue sky proved to be the ideal complementary colour for the attractive foliage, and the shadows cast by higher leaves on those lower down added a further layer of interest.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm macro (76mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off