Fydell House, Boston

click photo to enlarge

I don't watch a great deal of television so my observations on the medium are not as well-informed as they might be. However, it's my feeling that one of the mainstays of recent years - the house makeover programme - seems to be in fairly steep decline. Apart from the grinning presenters with their mock bonhomie and ill-timed, over-exuberant hand gestures, can there be anyone who is lamenting the passing of this drivel, the audio-visual equivalent of food bulking agents?

Unfortunately the pressing need to find programme formats to fill the ever increasing number of channels means that equally tawdry replacements are already filling the airwaves. As I scan the listings looking for the odd film or two I come across such titles as The Great British Bake Off, Come Dine With Me, and Jedward Let Loose. The synopses of these programmes suggest they are every bit as mind-numbing as those they replace, and to call their underlying ideas threadbare is to imply that there was something of substance that has been worn out in their gestation: the fact is they are completely bereft of any redeeming features. And then, lurking in the listings, sandwiched between the soaps, I came across what must be the successor to the house makeover series. It is called DIY SOS, and as far as I can make out involves "experts" helping a DIY householder who has ruined his property (perhaps by following the ideas in an earlier house makeover programme!) to put it to rights. Televisual tripe it may be, but even I can see that the concept is brilliant: you devise programmes to encourage viewers to trash their houses whilst thinking they are making improvements and adding value, then you come up with another series that shows these poor saps being helped to sort it all out.

I was reflecting on these things as I photographed the staircase of Fydell House, Boston. This early eighteenth century building, possibly by William Sands of Spalding, is one of the town's finest. Its main staircase has walls and ceiling decorated with plaster moulding and stucco panels and it is lit by a tall, arched window. It occurred to me, as I gazed at the two hundred year old decoration, that doing a job well and sticking with the original design long enough for it to have passed the point of being "out of fashion" and to have become plain "old", is much better than frequent cheap makeovers designed to show how up-to-date you are. I used the LX3 for this photograph, and applied a sepia tint to a black and white conversion.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

DIY and flower arranging

click photo to enlarge
I've aways considered myself to be reasonably "handy", in the sense that I can turn my hand to a variety of household chores and DIY tasks. Over the years I've replaced floors, taken out walls, installed rolled-steel joists, laid paths and paving, made furniture, decorated rooms, tiled floors and walls, cut down trees, and much else. On the whole I've enjoyed doing these tasks: they made a break from my day job that involved managing an organisation and people, talking, writing, making decisions, and dealing with problems of my own and others' making. However, there are two jobs that I have never become acceptably competent at doing: plastering and brick-laying. I never set myself much of this kind of work, but that which I did undertake was not completed to a standard that pleased me. I'd like to think that my under-achievement was due to my not having done enough to learn the skills well enough. Perhaps, but perhaps not.

But then, when I think a little more on this subject, there are quite a few things that I wish I could do better. Take flower arranging. I'm never going to do a great deal of it when my wife is so much better at it than me. But, I would like to be able to put flowers in a vase so that they didn't look like they'd been yanked out of the garden and stuffed in by someone wearing welders' gloves! (Writing that line reminds me that the few times I tried welding I wasn't particularly competent either).

The other day, visiting a church, I came upon the flowers featured in today's photograph. It was placed in a recess in the nave, and the attractiveness of the pot and arrangement against the stark background, immediately caught my eye. Someone - and it was surely a woman - had selected the red tulips and narcissi, and by the judicious addition of euonymus, grass and some dark leaves, turned them into a very attractive display. There is no sense that these flowers and foliage have been casually rammed into their container: the grasses are designed to be above the blooms, their silhouettes offering a delicate note, the greens are intensifying the reds of the tulips, the narcissi "stars" contrast with the tulip "cups", and the dark leaves are placed lower to add further silhouettes and give a more globular overall shape. It would take me a long time and much practice to do this sort of thing, so I think I'll continue to deploy one of my managerial skills and carry on delegating the task to someone who does it better.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On