December morning light

click photo to enlarge
The flat, Fenland landscape that extends across parts of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk is well known for its fertile soils that comprise about half of England's Grade 1 agricultural land.What is less well-known is the wide range of light that the Fens exhibit, a feature that is particularly noticeable in autumn and winter. This is partly to do with the "big skies" that all flat areas experience, but the low-lying nature of the land and the managed drainage systems that criss-cross the area must also play their part. Mists, strong and slight, are common. Rain squalls can be seen from miles away. Cloud types proliferate. And these effects, and more, are food for the hungry photographer.

Today's photograph shows a typical Fenland scene on a cool but not cold December morning. The shadows of trees and houses behind the photographer darken the field of winter wheat that is showing through the manicured soil. Pantiles and bricks of houses at the village edge glow a deeper orange in the yellow-tinted light. A church tower peeps over the graveyard trees that surround it.Poplars and a walnut that is past its best thrust up into a blue sky that looks like a painter has wiped his white brush clean on it. And in the distance the slight mist almost, but not quite, obscures the sheep that have been tuned onto the remains of a field of cabbages. It's the kind of unremarkable scene I often see but don't often photograph.And each time I do I wonder why I don't do it more often.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: December Morning Light, Lincolnshire
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.6mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Another Fenland sunrise

click photo to enlarge
I grew up among the hills, mountains and valleys of the Yorkshire Dales. In recent years, since we moved to the flat Lincolnshire Fens, when I reveal the place of my childhood I frequently get asked whether I miss the uplands. And the answer I give is "Yes and no". Yes, because unlike many of my contemporaries, I enjoyed the landscape, settlements, communities, wildlife etc. No, because I got fed up with the rain that falls steadily across many, many days rather than in large amounts with long spells of drier weather between. No too, because I like to experience living in different localities for reasonable lengths of time, something I've done during my life, and the Fens is different from anywhere else I've lived.

When people ask me about the Fenland landscape, at some point I start eulogising the skies. Lincolnshire is famed for its "big skies", and I take great pleasure in the changing displays that are always taking place above my head. In the depths of winter I particularly relish the sunrises that I see when I open our bedroom curtains. I posted a shot of one a while ago, and here is another from a couple of days ago. The intense colours filled the sky for only four or five minutes and then they slowly quietened down as the sun climbed fully above the horizon. And, though I've seen such sunrises many times, each time is as thrilling as the first time, and I can't resist photographing it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photograph Title: A Fenland Village Sunrise
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cameras tell lies

click photo to enlarge
Doesn't this Fenland scene look calm, idyllic and bountiful? I think so. The luxuriant wheat is flawless, even the tractor's oval of tracks so orderly that it barely mars the perfection of the growing crop. A solitary wind turbine, a piece of modern technology both reviled and admired, stands pristine over the fields, slowly turning and making its small (2MW) contribution to the nation's energy needs. Above, the unblemished sky adds to the feeling of everything in its place and all being well under heaven. What a lie!

I took today's photograph from the steps of another wind turbine, its electrical hum and the steady swish of its blades slicing the air, loud in my ears. Another eleven turbines and an electrical sub-station, all off to the right and behind me added to the controlled clamour, while behind and to the left lines of electrical pylons marched across similar fields like rows of giants holding hands. The evening scene and the appearance of the countryside in this particular location  was eminently open to manipulation and, with my selective viewpoint, I exploited the opportunity.

In fact, that's what photographers do all the time: they choose a small part of their field of view and try to ensure that it contains only those things that help to tell the story enclosed in their image. And the truth is, as often as not, that photographic image - that people assume is entirely representational - ends up being as much fiction as fact!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15.5mm (42mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fen not steppe

click photo to enlarge
A casual viewer of today's photograph could be forgiven for thinking that they were viewing a shot of the Russian steppe, that vast, flat, treeless plain of south-eastern Europe and Siberia. The featureless sky, the level, equally featureless white foreground and the snow-blasted houses, trunks and branches of the tree-shrouded village all point in that direction. But appearances can be deceptive and the camera doesn't always tell the truth. In fact, the photograph is a winter shot of the village of Bicker in the Fens of Lincolnshire.

This ancient settlement - the Norman church's embattled top can be seen just right of centre - had just experienced a heavy fall of snow and low temperatures, something that happens often January or February, though with nothing of the frequency and ferocity of the snowfalls and temperatures of the  Russian plains. And, though the village looks isolated and in winter's grip, a main arterial road, gritted and clear runs not too far away, linking it with larger villages and towns. Moreover, though snow and low temperatures of this sort can present immediate difficulties, in Britain they tend to be transient and a thaw is often not too far away.

Consequently, the photographer who wants to record the landscape and buildings held in this kind of icy grip has to move quickly because in a few hours, or at most a couple of days, the covering will be gone or slowly retreating, leaving branches black, not white, fields black and green and roads wet and muddy. I came upon this view of the village as we negotiated a small lane on a walk through the snow. The strip of detail, distinct and indistinct, spread across the blankness of land and sky appealed to me and so I framed my shot and pressed the shutter.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Work - a four letter word?

click photo to enlarge

"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else."
J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), Scottish author and dramatist best known for "Peter Pan"

There are many who would agree with the implied definition of work that lies at the heart of Barrie's quotation. For many - probably most - work is a four letter word, a daily grind that is necessary for the income that it produces rather than the accomplishments that it entails. I've heard it argued that capitalism provided the wherewithal for a life that satisfies the bodily needs of the greatest number, but did so at the expense of increasing the amount of stultifying work. And yet, hasn't much work always been physically and mentally wearisome, at least since the time mankind started cultivation and a range of personal tasks became the role of specialised workers; jobs they did to the exclusion of all else in exchange for bartered goods or money?

What I found interesting during my experience of a variety of employment is the way that people find in their work rewards beyond money that make it more pleasurable. Factors such as friendship and camaraderie are not often the intentional product of an unfulfilling job, but frequently they make it more bearable. Those of us who have experienced employment that is generally fulfilling, and is seen by people as socially useful, have been fortunate. However, even this work has its downside as management techniques, systems, and the like impinge negatively on the core activity. It was certainly the case in my line of work that the higher I got within the system the more this happened. It was frequently the companionship of co-workers that kept me grounded at these times.

The other evening I cycled past a combine harvester working over a field of wheat. The sight of the driver in his noisy, air-conditioned isolation, only feet away from the tractor driver, similarly alone, caused me to reflect for a moment on the lot of the Fenland farmer. In the past, when agriculture was more labour intensive, human companionship (or even animal companionship) was common. Today many large Fenland farms are entirely managed by a single person with help hired, or else sought from friends and family, when needed. For much of the year man and machine do the necessary ploughing, sowing and tending of crops alone. Even the buying, selling and other routine exchanges often no longer involve face-to-face discussion but is conducted from the fields by phone. This increasing solitude is the experience of more work these days, from call-centre staff in their booths, hundreds in close proximity, individually spending most of their time alone, to home-workers at their computers and smartphones, communicating without speaking a word.

I stopped  my bicycle and got my camera out to take this shot. Immediately that was done I packed it into its case and put it in my pannier, sealing them tight as a cloud of wind-blown dust and chaff enveloped me.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 73mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Radiatus clouds over the Fens

click photo to enlarge

As a paid up member of The Cloud Appreciation Society and the proud owner of "The Cloudspotter's Guide" you'd think that I'd have no difficulty in naming the type of cloud shown in today's photograph. But I do. I had no trouble identifying it as something relatively unusual in my part of the world, and perhaps a suitable subject for a photograph, or a background to a shot. And I had no hesitation in making the effort to find some foreground interest in a quite open and flat area of the Fens. But as for a name for this cloud formation, well, that required a bit of research that I still haven't completed.

From earlier reading I did remember that some of the basic clouds have what is described as a "radiatus" form. That is to say, they form lines more or less parallel with the wind direction and the perspective effect makes them seem to converge towards the horizon. I've seen cumulus clouds do this, and very striking they were too. I've also seen it in high-level cirrus clouds. The clouds in the photograph, however, weren't the former that are fluffy cotton-wool balls, nor did they seem particularly high and white as is characteristic of cirrus. They don't look like stratocumulus, and probably they aren't altocumulus either. Are they altostratus? They certainly have a greyness about them that is prevalent in that form of cloud. I just don't know. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

When I searched for a composition for my photograph it occurred to me that I should try and include an element that worked with the lines of cloud, so I positioned myself next to a section of road that curved round towards the "vanishing point" and waited for a container lorry to pass by. Fortunately this quite colourful one quickly appeared on the scene.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Drought and fickle nature

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A casual observer might wonder how parts of the UK could be in a state of drought and suffering from such a shortage of water that the use of hose-pipes has been banned. After all, haven't these offshore islands been famous for millennia for their clouds, all-enveloping mists, regular rainfall and verdant pastures? But, much of eastern and south-eastern England is in that situation after two years when rainfall has been significantly less than usual. The fact is, of course, that the prevailing south-westerly winds bring water-laden air off the Atlantic which then falls as rain mainly on the west side of Britain and on the adjacent hills and mountains. By the time the rain does get to the east side of the island precipitation is often much reduced or non-existent. The natural dryness of the east is not helped by the fact that it is flatter and water storage in the form of lakes and reservoirs is much less practical than farther west.

However, sometimes nature is fickle and there are times when it seems to be having a laugh at man's expense. The very day the hose-pipe ban came into force it rained, and it has rained on most days since. It isn't enough to compensate for the many months of dryness, nor will it significantly impact on ground-water levels, but as gardeners we have been pleased to see it, and as a photographer I've welcomed the fine, cloudy skies that accompany the associated changeable weather. On a Fenland walk I framed a few landscape compositions that wouldn't have worked without the towering clouds drifting by overhead. Today's photograph shows a Georgian farmhouse that I've photographed before in winter. On this early spring day it looked quite different with leaves starting to appear on the trees that surround the building, onion shoots in the nearby field, winter wheat thriving beyond, and those billowing, mountainous clouds and blue skies above.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 82mm
 F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fenland misconceptions

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The Fenlands are one of those areas of England about which many people hold misconceptions: that is if they hold any conceptions at all! The first is that the Fens are to be found in Lincolnshire. They are, but they also extend into Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and a small area of Suffolk. Then there is the view that they are flat. That's essentially true, but the area has silt ridges, medieval sea banks, old salterns and small natural undulations that mean it isn't entirely flat. The Fens are a treeless landscape is a view that many hold. This certainly isn't true. There's no doubt that the Fens have fewer trees than most lowland areas, but there is no point where trees cannot be seen, most villages have plenty of them, small stands and individuals are common in open country, and the hedgerows feature quite a few too. There are even areas of new tree planting instigated by government grants.Most people know that the Fens produce prodigious quantities of vegetables and cereals, and often those who are aware of this assert that livestock is absent. In fact sheep, cows, and pigs are present in small but significant quantities - sheep in greater numbers in winter - and an assortment of pet/hobby livestock, from llamas to ponies are found in paddocks being tended by those engaged in "horseyculture". Wildlife enthusiasts consider the area bereft of animals and wild plants. As someone who has lived among the riches of the Yorshire Dales, by the Humber Estuary, and in the region of coast, plain and mountains that is north Lancashire, I can confirm that there are fewer of these than in some other areas, but that any walk in the Fens reveals a good range of birds, animals and plants for anyone who cares to look.

The opinion also exists that walking in the Fens holds few attractions. For those of limited imagination and appreciation this may be true. However, for walkers of wider experience, who know that all landscapes offer interest to the discerning eye and mind, the charms of passing through this region on foot are many and unique. I had such a walk with my wife and a couple of friends the other day. On minor roads, farm tracks, footpaths and the banks of the South Forty Foot we meandered through crops and by waterways under an enormous sky, stopping to watch yellow wagtails, buzzards, reed buntings, sedge warblers and more. As we approached the stand of trees in the photograph we reflecetd on how they were allowed to remain standing, even after the old farmhouse that stood near them was taken down and a new one built nearby. Their presence showed that not all Fenland farmers try to squeeze every last drop of profit out of their land, and that some have a reverence for the landscape and a sense for those things that enhance its special beauty.

click photo to enlarge

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Fens

click photo to enlarge

The Fenlands of Eastern England is a flat, low-lying region of about 1500 square miles in the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and a small area of Suffolk. It includes a large amount of land that has been reclaimed from marshes and the coast. The Fens contain half of the Grade 1 farmland of England - the most productive of our agricultural land. More than a third of vegetables grown in the open are cultivated in this area. It also produces a large cereal crop, and retains small herds of sheep and cattle, animals that were formerly much more numerous in this part of the country, and which, in the case of sheep, accounted for its prosperity during the medieval period.

It is said that in the Fens three-quarters of the the landscape is sky. It is certainly true that big skies are a feature of the area, and photographers who take pictures in this region soon learn to use them to their advantage. In a talk about photography that I gave recently I said that Fenland photographers usually tilt their cameras down or up, and rarely have them level. A level camera tends to produce a shot that splits the composition roughly equally between earth and sky, a distribution that is, I think, the least visually satisfying of the possibilities. When photographing in the Fens I often consciously choose either two-thirds sky or two-thirds land, deliberately giving emphasis to one or the other. Sometimes I give an even greater fraction to the sky.

Today's photograph does the latter. On the January day that I took this shot the sky was largely overcast but with subtle hues and shading. A low, late afternoon sun was illuminating the fields and the distant wind farm, making the white turbines stand out against the dark sky. They provided the main subject that I needed to compose an image that included the lone tree, distant farms, frost-hammered vegetables and that big sky.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm
F No: 7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

The story of a blog post

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Most of the responses I get to PhotoReflect are polite, friendly and thoughtful. However, once in a very rare while an individual blog post takes on a life of its own and roams the web, ending up in odd places and provoking unusual reactions. Here is the tale of one such recent post.

On 4th December I posted a piece called "Rooks, hoar frost and adverts". In it I mentioned the humour that I'd experienced reading the advertising pitches that Toyota and Land Rover were making during the present spell of exceptionally cold, snowy and icy weather. The photograph that accompanied it was O.K., but nothing special, and the text was mildly diverting for me, but not, I think, particularly noteworthy. Consequently I was puzzled to see it achieving so many hits; enough that it is now the fifth most visited page on PhotoReflect since I changed my page counter to Blogger Stats in July. So, I did a bit of Googling and discovered that a Wiki site that trawls blogs and that indexes "similar" subjects had picked it up and listed it alongside sites discussing the Land Rover Freelander. A couple of days later I got an intemperate email (complete with expletives) from someone who owned a Freelander, and who wanted to explain to me why I was wrong to describe it as "dangerous", and how he, with a young family, had chosen it because it was a very safe vehicle. I did what I always do with unsolicitited emails and deleted it.

Later, however, I wondered whether I should have responded - in the spirit of broadening his thinking on the ownership of such vehicles. I'd have talked about how bigger, heavier vehicles are only relatively safer, and how their safety comes at the expense of increasing the risk to other road users and their children. Then I'd have suggested to him that by his logic he should have bought the biggest available 4X4, or better still, have got a massive lorry (HGV) because as far as the passengers go (though certainly not other road users), these are by far the safest vehicles on our highways. Instead I wondered why someone would invest the time and effort to justify himself, using such language, to me, a complete stranger. Perhaps, I thought, it is an extension of the "forum" mentality, whereby people proclaim their own opinions about news articles, etc. and defend them in a completely unrestrained, and often abusive, way. Most odd.

On the day I took this photograph we had hoar frost again, alongside a thick fog and temperatures that never rose from several degrees below zero. During a circular walk I passed a lone tree that I've photographed a couple of times thinking it would make an image, but which thus far hasn't. On this occasion the weather and the frosted white umbellifer in the right foreground made a composition good enough for me to think, "That will do!"

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: +0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A drought then a deluge

click photo to enlarge

When this present spell of snow came I eagerly went out into the lanes, fields and village hunting for photographs. For four consecutive days I came back with shots on my memory card, none of which were any good. I find that I sometimes have periods like this when I can't see the images, and the more I try the less I succeed. But, I've been involved with photography long enough to know that if I carry on looking and shooting, eventually things will come right.

And so it proved this time. On the fifth day I gathered a clutch of minimalist images, and on each subsequent day I've been happy with at least one shot I've taken. Today's was taken on the same day as yesterday's image, when the light seemed to brighten but the fog thickened to the point where the horizon began to be difficult to discern, and earth and sky started to merge. It gave me a landscape that included very little, and so I needed a focus of interest. And what could be better than my wife in her bright red jacket, a small point of brilliant colour against the almost monochrome background!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: +0.6 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Including the sun

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My earliest photographic tuition came in the form of a free booklet from Kodak that gave tips for securing better images. I must have been about sixteen years of age and had recently acquired my first camera when I read it. This slight tome, smaller than A5, with its yellow and red cover, listed the usual advice - photograph with the sun behind you, don't tilt the camera up or down if you want to avoid converging verticals, don't place a person in the dead centre but look for a balanced asymmetrical composition, etc. It was, by and large, sound advice for the beginner photographer. As I progressed with my photography, however, I came to see that these rules were best seen as useful guidance that should sometimes be ignored.

The piece of advice that I've most frequently disregarded was the injunction to "keep the sun out of the viewfinder (except at sunrise and sunset)". The advent of digital has found me frequently, deliberately, including the sun for the dramatic quality that it gives to the image. Why has digital encouraged me in this regard? Well, I can have immediate feedback on the camera's LCD of the effect that I've captured. And, the processing of digital images on a computer has given me much more control over the final output. Moreover, with the cost of each digital exposure being, essentially, "free" (certainly compared with film), there is much more scope for experimentation with a subject that produces more "duds" than many others.

Today's photograph was taken towards sunset over the Lincolnshire Fens. The sky, however, didn't have that red/orange sunset feel; the sun itself was still quite white. But, there were thin clouds veiling it, and the brightness was enough to illuminate the heads of the long grass alongside the lane we were walking down. I thought they would make good foreground interest in an image of the flat landscape with its wind turbines and electricity pylons, and I hoped that the inclusion of the sun would add its own drama too. And, with a little post-processing, so it proved.

This earlier blog post also considers deiberately including the sun in your photographs.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A Georgian farmhouse

click photo to enlarge
I have long been of the opinion that, as far as relatively modest housing goes, eighteenth century architects managed to do more with less than architects of any other period. That's not to say that architects of the Victorian, modern, seventeenth century or any other period couldn't produce good design within cost limitations - they could - but perhaps not as consistently. Georgian buildings often achieve their appeal through the careful management of proportion. This was a feature that became increasingly lost as the nineteenth century progressed. The Victorians too often applied ornament to achieve their effects, and it needed the Arts and Crafts architects, such as Voysey, to show how things such as the relationship of wall to windows and the massing of a building could be used to make appealing structures.

Today's photograph shows a brick building that is essentially of 1772, with earlier parts, and some Victorian additions. It seems to have started life as a Fenland farmhouse - Moneybridge Farm - but is today a residence known as Brownlow House, named after the Georgian family whose cypher can be seen on the stone plaques over the front and back doors. I could have chosen a better example to illustrate my point, but this one has the symmetry typical of the period, with a doorway given prominence by its central position and a wooden case and triangular pediment. The windows have stone surrounds, and brick lintels with an emphasised keystone. Obvious C19 additions are the Westmorland slate roof and the gable chimney stacks: these would have replaced pantiles and similar brick stacks with less detailing. What makes this building particularly interesting is that it forms part of a larger group with brick and pantile outbuildings that date from the same time as the house. Of special note is the tall dovecote with a wooden, white painted turret with two tiers of flight holes.

Brownlow House sits next to a road that follows the River Glen. I took my photograph from a parallel road on the other side of the river, and used the large conifer to balance the composition. The broken clouds that periodically admitted brief shafts of sunlight looked better converted to black and white than they did in colour, so that is how I present the image.

Another eighteenth century Fenland farmhouse can be seen here.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 6.3mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Birds, man and the plough

click photo to enlarge
Today I was looking at the bird box in my willow tree. I placed it there two years ago in the hope that a blue tit (Parus caeruleus) would nest in it. Unfortunately it has been spurned each season; as was the other one I put in the cherry tree. So I've decided that I'll enlarge the hole to make it suitable for the slightly larger great tit (Parus major): I've had better luck with that species in the past.

Those thoughts prompted a short reflection on the way in which birds have adapted to man. Our obsessive tidiness has reduced the number of naturally occurring holes that the blue and great tits formerly used, and nest boxes now provide a significant number of the sites favoured by these species. House martins (Delichon urbica), as their name suggests, have also found man to be a useful provider of nesting places. They get their name from the habit of building their cup-shaped mud nests under the eaves of houses. Before man built houses with eaves these birds built their nests under overhangs on cliffs. I'm only aware of one location in England where that still happens - Malham Cove in Yorkshire; everywhere else man-made structures are preferred. So too with swallows (Hirundo rustica), a bird that I've never seen construct its nest anywhere other than in a building. In the UK one of the key bird habitats is the man-made suburban garden, those that naturally frequent woodland edges finding it particularly to their liking. The food that friendly households put out for them is also a big incentive to hang around dwellings, especially in the leaner winter months.

Of course birds aren't infinitely adaptable to the activities of man, and many species - particularly those of open farmland - are in steep decline. However, today I saw a scene that must have been replayed every year since a farmer first ploughed a field: black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus) (and rooks) following the tractor, picking up the morsels revealed in the turned soil: a symbiotic relationship if ever I saw one. It being February a few birds were showing their breeding plumage of a full head cap of chocolate-brown feathers, though none would be ready for nest building for another three months. I took a couple of shots of the tractor and plough working the Fenland field, one as it headed towards me, and this one that shows the birds to better effect after it had turned away and started its next set of furrows.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Foggy day photography

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I like to convert colour photographs to black and white. I'm not one who does it all the time, nor can I say that I do it with the majority of my images. But, when I have a subject that I think suits the treatment, I have no hesitation about going monochrome. People, buildings, some landscapes, shots with shadows or large areas of darkness and occasional highlights, are the subjects I favour. The Black and White gallery in my "Best of PhotoReflect 5" features many such images.

However, there is one subject that, I think, particularly lends itself to a black and white treatment and that is fog. Many photographs that are taken in fog (as opposed to above it from a hill) have very muted colour. Consequently the step to monochrome is smaller than it would otherwise be. Furthermore, the gentle gradations that foggy images feature are emphasised when they are in shades of a single colour rather than broken up by the complication of several. In addition, black and white often has the effect of giving a foggy image a more sombre or mysterious mood; something that can be very appropriate for the right subject.

Today's photograph is, to my mind, the best of the three foggy photographs that I'm posting following my recent morning expedition. The simplicity in terms of composition and subject make it for me. The road, hedge, two areas of grass, sky and the pair of pine trees would be complicated by a backdrop of more trees and a distant farm in clearer weather, and the image would be much busier. When I composed it I also liked the way the trees were near, but not at the intersection of the converging lines. It's probably not a shot that will have particularly wide appeal, but I do think it's one of my better recent photographs.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The camera always lies

click photo to enlarge
"The camera never lies" is a saying that I remember hearing as a child, long before I owned a camera. To my young, growing mind it seemed like a perfectly reasonable statement. After all, cameras were unthinking machines that simply recorded that which the user pointed them at, unlike painting which was always an interpretation of what the artist saw. I think this is a view still held by many - both young and old - though the advent of digital photography and software like Photoshop has certainly raised doubts in the minds of a few more about whether a photograph can be believed. Ironically it's the more obvious manipulations such as the smoothing out of wrinkles around Twiggy's eyes, the removal of a film star's paunch, or the trimming of a starlet's waist that have prompted such thoughts.

It was only after I'd engaged in photography for a number of years that I began to question the wisdom of the statement that "the camera never lies." But by then, the more I thought about it, the more I came to understand that this saying was, in fact, the opposite of the truth: the camera always lies in one way or another. It lies by being more selective than the eye about what it sees, it lies by giving emphasis to things that the brain doesn't, the colours it shows are never accurate, the relative positions of objects are usually not as we see them, and the meaning that we take from a photograph is usually more to do with how we see the subject in the image than the reality that the photographer saw.

Today's photograph is just the sort of image that an opponent of a proposed wind farm or line of pylons might want to use. "Look", they would say, "these monstrosities turn the countryside into an industrial landscape!" But that's not true. At least it's not true as far as these pylons and these wind turbines go. By using a lens that is the 35mm equivalent of 300mm I've foreshortened and compressed this group of pylons and turbines into what looks like a small space, and I've magnified their apparent size. Anyone walking by this scene, or anyone living near it, would not recognise the photograph as the place they knew. It's just me making the camera tell lies for dramatic effect.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Picturesque pile or wretched wreck?

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What word would you use to describe this derelict Fenland cottage? Bucolic? Enchanting? Decrepit? Quaint? Crumbling? Is it a picturesque pile or a wretched wreck? Structures such as this usually provoke very polarised views. There are those who see them as a dangerous eye-sore that, at any moment, may fall on a passer-by, their appearance regarded as a blot on the local landscape, and an affront to surrounding buildings. Others find the dilapidation picturesque, a reminder of times past, a counterpoint to neat lawns, mathematically precise brickwork and gleaming plastic window frames. The fact is, such a building will usually be one or other of those things to most people. But, there are a few who will see it as both those things, getting enjoyment from it whilst regretting its demise, and also recognising the need for it tbe restored or replaced.

Those who see something to admire in decay and dereliction are often infected, to a greater or lesser extent, by Romanticism as that term came to be used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Frequently they will have an artistic bent, liking poetry, literature, painting, photography, etc. And many will have an appreciation of history and place. Of course, the photographic or painted image often adds its own veneer to a depiction of a ruin, and the selective, edited image frequently betters the reality. My wife suggested today's photograph is an example of that phenomenon, when she remarked as she looked over my shoulder at the image on my computer screen - "That looks more picturesque than it does in real life."

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.4mm (35mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

In the bleak midwinter

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"In the bleak midwinter,
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;"
from "In the Bleak Midwinter" by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), English poet

My current reading is "Between Earth and Sky: Poetry and prose of English rural life and work between the Enclosures and the Great War." This book, by Neil Philip, was published in 1984, and is an interesting anthology about the lives of the rural population during that significant period in our country's history.

The range of the selections is quite broad - traditional rhymes and songs, quotations from novelists, poems by "rural" poets and the more exalted, snippets from official and unofficial surveys of country people, and, most importantly, the voices of the rural workers themselves. Some of the writers, such as Hardy, Cobbet, Flora Thompson, John Clare, and Richard Jefferies will be familiar to anyone who has an interest in this period. However, two sources were new to me, and provide extracts that make the reader want to weep. The first is a publication called "How the Labourer Lives" by Rowntree and Kendall (Nelson, London, 1913). One of the chosen pieces describes the cottage economy of a North Yorkshire farm labourer's family. The father worked 12 hours a day, ate reasonable food at his place of work (valued at 7 shillings weekly), and took home wages of 9 shillings a week to feed, clothe, house, and warm his wife and five daughters. He drank tea at home, ate no food there, and watched helplessly as his family subsisted on mainly turnips and potatoes, with tea, milk, bread, butter and "sad-cakes". During the week of the survey the only "meat" to reach the lips of the wife and children was a cod's head that they had been given. An equally heart-rending extract comes from "The Whistler at the Plough" by Alexander Somerville (James Ainsworth, Manchester, 1852). This is based on a survey of agricultural labour originally undertaken for the Anti-Corn-Law League. In an interview a youth who describes himself as "sixteen a'most", tells the author how he works from 4 in the morning until eight in the evening for three shillings a week; how he lives in the stable loft with other lads with no heat of any sort; has a change of bedding once a year; and eats bread and lard for every meal, except once a week when he buys potatoes that the "master" allows them to boil.

Reading the extracts reminded me that, whilst living conditions in this country have moved on considerably for everyone since those times, there still remain people - politicians and employers - who think that it is right to pay less than a living wage for a week's work. And by living wage I mean enough to feed, clothe, house and keep yourself warm, with sufficient left over to spend in a way that makes you feel you are part of the society in which you live.

I took the photograph above on a walk through the Fenland lanes and fields. The small Victorian cottage sheltered behind the wind-bent trees and ramshackle old sheds made me think of those extracts. For much of the year a smallholding such as this is growing vegetables and flowers, and its fruit trees are flourishing. But in the colder, darker months, with the wind whipping across the open ground, the roads iced over and snow drifting against the side of the buildings it is much less idyllic, and a century or a century and a half ago might have known the conditions described above. With that in mind I prepared this sepia-tone version of my almost monochrome colour image.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm (110mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Snowy fields and contre jour

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For the past two days we have had snow. Not an unusual occurrence in winter, but these falls come at the end of a particularly mild and rather wet autumn, are heavier than is usual in this part of the world, and are accompanied by temperatures that are at or below freezing by day and night.

Snow is like manna from heaven for photographers, and so I've been making the most of it. One of its virtues, photographically speaking, is that it so changes the subjects that you've photographed before that you feel motivated to snap them again. Furthermore, contre jour shots take on a special quality when snow is on the ground, so I feel driven to take rather more of these than usual.

Today's shot was taken during a morning walk around fields near our village. The snow was criss-crossed with hare tracks, the sky above with the vapour trails of airliners, and the snow had long shadows thrown by the low sun. I chose this piece of relatively smooth snow for the foreground because you are never quite sure what kind of flare you're going to get when you shoot into the sun - it varies with the camera/lens combination - and a smooth surface allows any lens artefacts to show up properly. On this one I got a a small "rainbow" towards the bottom of the frame. This shot is just what came from the camera, with no filter or post processing, except for a little noise suppression in the sky.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Go your own way

click photo to enlarge
After I'd given a title to today's photograph of tractor tracks wandering drunkenly across a perfectly prepared and planted field on the Lincolnshire Fens I began a Wikipedia peregrination. The words I chose - Go Your Own Way - seemed apposite, but I also knew them to be the title of a song by Fleetwood Mac.

A quick search of Wikipedia using the title revealed that it was a song about the break up of the relationship between the band's two U.S. members. A quick look at Songfacts confirmed that and added a few other details. From there I went to the Wikipedia page about the album on which the song is featured, Rumours. Here I noticed that this particular Fleetwood Mac album is the 10th best-selling album of all time, so I went to the page that showed the full list of the best-selling albums of all time. It was then that I started to get a little depressed and somewhat concerned. Now there's no good reason why I should worry about the type of music that is bought in the largest numbers: I'm happy with the music I like, and I should be happy that others have found the music that they enjoy. But when that music is by the likes of AC/DC, Meatloaf, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, the Bee Gees, Abba, Mariah Carey, Cher, Bon Jovi, The Spice Girls, Tina Turner..., I could go on, then I'm not only depressed but concerned. I'm depressed if people who bought this stuff have listened to the best that recorded music has to offer, rejected it, and then made these choices. I'm concerned if they haven't heard any of the finest music made by mankind, but feel they've acquired it through these albums. I won't list the music that I think surpasses most of what's listed on this Wikipedia page, but I will say that it includes classics of the rock and pop canon, but also features blues, jazz, folk and classical, and it isn't confined to the output of the last fifty years.

What's obvious when you look at this list is that it reflects the artists who were most popular at the time when recordings on vinyl and CD were at their sales peak. That said, it wouldn't change dramatically, I think, if downloads were added to the mix. Increasing population and increasing sales to a predominantly younger audience who buy, in the main, recent recordings of recently written music is responsible for this ranking. But it doesn't have to be so. As my oldest son once said, "Recorded music has been around for a century yet most people buy it on the assumption that the most recent music is the best. Why on earth should it be?" I think, as far as music goes I'll continue to ignore the top selling albums and "go my own way!"

Incidentally, I don't know how or why these wiggly tracks appeared on this blemish-free patch of agricultural land, but in the early evening light they stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, and invited a photograph that gives me cause to wonder at the event(s) that might have led to them.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/160 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On