Daft brand names

click photo to enlarge
Wagamama, the British chain of Japanese restaurants cum noodle bars, must be in the top ten daftest brand names in the country alongside the likes of Fat Face, Everything Everywhere (EE) and C'eed. I suppose whoever thought it up considered it memorable, funny, distinctive etc. For me it's the kind of name that puts me off setting foot in the place -  in the same way that the restaurant chain called EAT., a company that insists on a full stop at the end of its single-word name, always sounds to me like a barked order that I feel duty-bound to ignore.

We were in Lincoln recently. It's not far from where we live, a historic city with a fine cathedral. Yet, we go there only once a year. I'm not keen  on the place. It seems to me to have the relationship with Lincolnshire that London has with the UK - it draws far more than its fair share of investment and sucks the life out of its hinterland. Add to that the truly awful redevelopment of the area around the Brayford Pool with its execrable university buildings, toy-town hotels and throw-away flats piled on the water's edge, the fact that the cathedral charges for entry, and the paucity of good, modern architecture, and you'll perhaps understand my feeling that one visit a year is quite sufficient.

But, the Wagamama restaurant built out over the water of the Pool is better than most of the buildings in that locality. The emphasis on horizontals and shallow pitches in its design is refreshing, as is the elegant use of materials. I'm not a great fan of hardwood slats as a wall finish; they soon discolour and stain in our wet climate. However, here they work well with the steel cladding and glass. I particularly like the dash of bold colour that accompanies the blacks, greys and browns. The red painted steel panel, with its large and small holes that covers the air-conditioning units is a nice contrast against the muted colours and I made it the subject of one of the semi-abstract, detail photographs that I took of the building.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 66mm (99mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Engine Shed, Lincoln

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When the Royal Institute of British Architects announced that The Engine Shed, a concert hall and cafe built on the site of a former railway engine shed in Lincoln, was one of its RIBA EM Award Winners of 2007, it must have been on the basis of a professional appraisal of the structure compared with other buildings erected that year. The assessors undoubtedly looked at the interior and exterior, judged its fitness for purpose, considered how the old and new have been combined, and reflected on its contribution to its location. I can't comment on the quality of their decision as far as the building as a whole goes - it may be a model of utility and a sensitive conversion internally - but I've never been inside so I don't know. However, as far as the exterior goes, and the contribution it makes to its location, all I can say is, "What were they thinking of!"

Before I summarise my concerns let's start with what I like. The black and red are a good combination, a slab of bright colour against a dark glossy background. It could work, but not, in my judgement, when the red comes in such an ungainly shape against the relatively elegant glass curtain wall: it looks too much like a vandalised post-box. Furthermore, as a balcony it appears to be on the wrong elevation, because it looks over a narrow waterway to a very busy, noisy road. Then there's the way it sits alongside the other buildings adjacent to the Brayford Pool. The best you could say is that it is one of an eclectic collection because, by and large, each building ignores those around it. I recently posted a shot of the neighbour of The Engine Shed, and I defy anyone to say that they look comfortable bed-fellows.

My apprehensions about the treatment of Lincoln's Brayford Pool have deepened with each visit. I recently came across this article that also expresses concerns about what is being lost through the nature and scale of the waterside developments. Perhaps the economic downturn will ameliorate the further damage that will be inflicted, but I fear that it's probably too late to make this interesting space what it could have been.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo 2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.) (11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.))
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400 (1/640)
ISO: 100 (100)
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV (-1.3EV)
Image Stabilisation: On

Catching your eye

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A couple of evenings ago, during the course of a talk I was giving about photography, I made the observation that the human figure placed in a photograph will usually catch the viewer's eye before anything else. This is something that seems to be part of our natural makeup, and probably has its origins in the hundreds of thousands of years of our development when there was no rule of law. If you lived in a world where other people could be a mortal danger to you the ability to spot humans was one that you developed and honed as a matter of self-preservation.

Today, in our complex world there are, in countries where peace prevails, few direct dangers from other humans, but there are many other hazards. These range from fast moving cars to electrified rails and bottles of lethal liquids. Consequently societies have had to invent systems that warn people of these dangers, and which draw their attention to them. The other day, during my walk around the Brayford Pool in Lincoln, I noticed one such device. It was a multicoloured vertical chequered strip fixed to a wall just above the level of the water in the river. At the bottom it was white, the central section was day-glow yellow, and at the top it was day-glow red. I assume it was a variation on the depth gauges that are frequently seen by the edge of freshwater, but which more usually measure depth in metres, and presumably the colours showed the level of danger associated with the rise in the water level.

I say I saw it, but that's not strictly true. It was inaccessible to me, and what I saw was its reflection in the water just past the underside of a bridge. The very bright colours, moving from side to side with the waves, caught my eye, and their stark juxtaposition with predominantly earth colours suggested  a photograph. So, adjusting my position, and zooming in on a section, I composed this image.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Reflecting on the Brayford Pool

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About a year ago I visited Lincoln for the first time in twenty years or so. That's a long time in the life of a small city, and I noticed quite a few changes on my return. Whilst I was there I took a photograph that was subsequently selected for a London exhibition. It shows a bicycle, semi-submerged on a walkway at the Brayford Pool which was experiencing particularly high water. The last time I'd been in that location it was fairly derelict, with disused quays and crumbling buildings in evidence. But since the 1980s there has been "regeneration". A marina for pleasure craft has been created and university buildings, hotels, cafes and the like have sprung up. On my visit a year ago I didn't have time to stop, look and think about what has happened at Brayford. Yesterday I did. My conclusion is that whoever sanctioned the structures and planning of the the development that has taken place, the marina excepted - it's fine, should be ashamed of themselves.

The Brayford Pool today is surrounded by a group of buildings for which the term banal would be high praise. I made two leisurely circuits of the area and struggled to find anything of architectural merit. Quite the worst building is the Holiday Inn, a "warehouse" look-alike clearly imagining that it both recalls the Rank Hovis mill that it replaced, and is appropriate to the waterside setting. In fact, it's toy-town architecture at its worst. Running it a close second is the large university building directly across the water, a grim, uninspiring amalgam of materials and forms with a desert of drab paving set before it. Of marginal interest is a (1960s?) reinforced concrete framed building with a "hyperbolic parabaloid" roof, but a new rectilinear glazed wall that has been inserted seems to exist independently of the original skeleton, only acknowledging it by being centred on its twin column support. Perhaps the best building is the curved Hayes Wharf with its irregularly placed groups of slats, positioned near the flyover: it's a good structure for that site, and offers style and interest. Overall however, as a piece of urban planning, the renovation of Brayford Pool is an opportunity missed. Even the small details are poor: the pedestrian route around the main pool is gravel and mud on the south side, is badly waymarked, weaves through and around buildings in a confusing way, and, unforgivably, involves going up to the busy, noisy flyover to complete the main circuit. And quite why, in the twenty first century, in an area designed to attract people, we are still being asked to scurry, rat-like, through an underpass (see today's photograph) beggars belief!

photograph & text (c) T.Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Brayford Pool

click photo to enlarge

Yesterday, as I walked past the city of Lincoln's Brayford Pool, a natural lake formed where the River Witham widens, it was obvious that the recent spell of heavy rain had raised the water level considerably. Boats were floating higher, an island with a tree was submerged, the trunk sticking up through the water, walkways out to the moored pleasure craft were below the surface of the brown, stirred-up flow, and a couple of bicycles locked to posts were semi-submerged.

The Brayford Pool is an interesting location with a long history of commercial use despite being 40 miles from the sea. The Romans used it as a port nearly 2,000 years ago. They journeyed up and down the Witham between Lincoln and The Wash, and also connected the city to the River Trent with the construction of the Fosse Dyke. The Normans, in the C11 and C12, brought stone up to the Pool to construct the castle and cathedral. In the C18 and C19 the wharves were lined with warehouses, and for a brief moment Lincoln was Britain's fourth most important port. But the commercial use of Brayford Pool declined, it decayed and was largely abandoned. In the 1960s there was a scheme to fill it in and create a large car park! Fortunately that idea was dropped. In recent years a regeneration project has brought pleasure craft, shops, eateries, walks, and wildlife to the Pool, and the location lives once more. Unfortunately this rejuvenation has been bought at the expense of the older buildings: too much was swept away, and consequently continuity and character are largely missing from the area.

I took this photograph of a rather wet bicycle from a Pool-edge path. As it's locked to a jetty it must belong to one of the nearby boats. It will need a good service and the application of grease and oil before it can be returned to use! The bicycle, poles, oar(!) and reflection made a strong shape, and I decided to accentuate this by conversion to black and white, and by increasing the contrast of the image.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm (200mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On