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

The sunset cliché

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The biggest clichés in photography are generally thought to be the sunset and the sunrise. With the possible exception of babies and, perhaps, cats and dogs, (and not forgetting, in recent years, food on plates!) these two subjects must account for more photographs than any other. If you want to stake a claim to photographic credibility make sure you steer clear of sunsets and sunrises!

Why this should be I don't know. Each is a splendid phenomenon, and each is unique -  no two sunsets or sunrises are the same. Fine artists down the centuries have thought them to be just as worthy of depiction as any other subject, and inventiveness has been given full rein in conjuring up a different take on this familiar composition. This blog has several examples, all different, and to the photographer, all worthy of recording. I make no great claim for them though some are better than others as photographs, but I also make no apology for photographing them either.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Fenland Sunset with Pylons and Wind Turbines
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV

Another Fenland sunrise

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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

Rose-coloured clouds

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"What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives."
E. M. Forster (1879-1970), English novelist

Some people find it hard to look forward to retiring from work because for them it signifies the beginning of the end of their lives, something they don't want reminding about. It can be just that if you let it, if you are one of the many people for whom the three stages of life are childhood and education, work, and lastly retirement. However, retirement can also be seen as a distinct, fulfilling, exciting time, one where each day offers experiences and opportunities that work in particular, often reduced to brief episodes, but more usually denied.

The quotation by E. M. Forster (above) is one that I like because it emphasises the importance and beauty of everyday experiences, phenomena that are too often overlooked because they are common. Moreover, the things that he itemises are those that work can relegate to the infrequent and the snatched, to the periphery of life. Retirement can, if you so wish it, bring them (and many other everyday pleasures) back to the centre of your existence and the joys that they offer can be life enriching.

In my working life I rose quite early and returned home quite late; I had long days. Getting up in the morning I would often speed through ablutions and breakfast and be gone. There was no time to do what I do daily in retirement: namely, open the curtains and look at the day and reflect on how I might fill it. Or admire the frosted grass, the autumnal leaves, the light fall of snow or the rose-coloured clouds of a fine sunrise. The sky in today's photograph appeared for only five or so minutes before I sat down for breakfast. Had I been working I probably wouldn't have noticed it. But, in retirement I got my camera and took a few shots of the beautiful sight.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Selling the weather

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Over three years ago in a post called, "Banish weather forecasters" I lamented a number of recent efforts to "sex up" the weather forecasts that we receive in the UK. Since that time our weather forecasting has gone into overdrive with additional measures to capture the attention of the public, politicians, the press, advertisers and weather forecasting rivals. For example, we now have regular "severe weather warnings" even though we live in temperate latitudes where our climate is marked by an absence of extremes. If fog is predicted the forecast is plastered with yellow warning triangles bearing black exclamation marks to draw our attention to the coming event; this despite the fact that fogs occur every autumn, also at other times of year, and is obvious to all as soon as you step out of your front door. The same warnings accompany strong winds, heavy rain, frost etc, none of which are unusual occurrences in our islands.

The most recent gimmick to get us to give more attention to the weather forecast is the naming of storms to "raise awareness of severe weather". This device, borrowed from parts of the world that name hurricanes etc, serves little useful purpose. For everyone who is heedless of the weather that it manages to alert, there are more who are unnecessarily alarmed by the screaming headlines and warnings of dire peril that invariably follow such an announcement. Today's photograph shows the fine clouds of the sunset before the arrival of storm "Barney" (surely too cuddly a name for a potentially destructive force), the second named event of the autumn.  It was suggested it may bring gusts of wind up to 80 mph "in places", though looking at the detail of the forecast, in most areas they will be substantially less strong, something that will escape the notice of many. I suppose I shouldn't get worked up about this kind of headline grabbing. It is, after all, a characteristic of all the media today. Can it be long before "listicles" are a regular feature of the weather forecast?

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.8mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.) cropped
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A Fenland rainbow

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I had to use the search facility of this blog to establish that this is the first photograph of a rainbow that I have posted. The fact is I've taken quite a few photographs of this phenomenon but never secured any that I considered good enough to display. But, on a recent evening walk round the village, at the end of a day that had started to brighten after hours of steady drizzle, this one appeared. It wasn't a complete rainbow - it quickly fades to nothing beyond the left edge of the frame - but it was bright and against an interesting sky, so I took a few shots of it.

A rainbow is a marvellous, if unlikely, meteorological phenomenon, something that invariably provokes a response from people when they observe one. It's small wonder that the Vikings saw it as a bridge between earth and Asgard (the place where their gods lived).Or that the leprechaun's pot of gold is supposed to be hidden at a point below the end of it. Mankind has spun so many good stories around the rainbow that it almost seems churlish to repeat that it is simply the refraction and reflection of light in water droplets, something that was first conjectured over a thousand years ago and more scientifically explained by the likes of Roger Bacon and Descartes.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Grass fields and droves

click photo to enlarge
When you move to a new part of the country you immediately notice accents and dialect words because, despite the long, dominating presence of TV and radio, and the fact that people move from place to place much more than formerly, regional differences are still evident. And we should be glad that they do because they enrich our experience and provide a link with a past that will, in all probability, eventually disappear.

I've got used to Lincolnshire women I've never met before calling me "ducks" and the way in which words containing the letter "u" are pronounced: computer isn't "compyouter" but "compooter" and the DIY chain isn't B&Q (Bee and Queue) but Bee and Coo! I've also reconciled myself to the fact that in south Lincolnshire the pastures are "grass fields" and that many roads are "droves". However, that field description still puzzles me. I know that over the past century sheep and cattle farming has declined in the county and arable has become dominant, but was the term pasture, a word widely used across Britain, never used in Lincolnshire? Drove rather than road is easier to understand. The roads so named usually lead from settlements into the lower surrounding fens, areas that in the past were poorly drained, used less in winter and wetter weather, and which must have seen much organised "droving" of sheep and cattle to and from the drier land as season and precipitation dictated.

Today's photograph was taken on a recent late afternoon. It shows a grass field that was sown a few years ago to provide fodder for cutting and feeding rather than for the pasturing of animals. The second growth of grass had a beautiful texture and a delicate yellow tinge in the afternoon light, a quality that contrasted with the blue tinged clouds and sky as well as the detail of the distant drove road marked by its collection of trees, farm buildings and a few houses.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11.5mm (31mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Pylons and the big picture

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We are often urged to make sense of the world by looking at "the big picture"; by weaving our way through and past the trivia and minutiae of everyday existence and surveying our existence from on high, from the uplands, from a place where the important things stand out and are not drowned in the inconsequential details of life. The problem is that if (or when) you achieve that exalted position you are just as likely to become very aware of your own inconsequentiality among the multitude and complexity that is life, and the big picture remains just as fragmentary as ever it was.

Perhaps that's why many people specialize or bury themselves in one or two interests. Engaging in activities where you can understand a large part of all there is to know about the subject, or with people who can supply all the answers, clearly has its attractions if you want to avoid the chaos of life. It isn't for me but I can understand why it is for many individuals. Having said that, I still remain baffled at why anyone would choose electricity pylons as their focus! I've mentioned the existence of the Pylon Appreciation Society before. However, now I discover there is also a Pylon of the Month website. I'm not averse to taking a photograph or two of pylons where they present some photographic interest. But in general I look forward to the day (it won't be in my lifetime unfortunately) when the need for such monstrosities no longer exists and mankind finds a less intrusive way of distributing power.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 95mm (142mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wind turbine repairs

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There's nothing secluded or furtive about the generation of electricity by wind turbines. Not only are the windmills themselves very tall, white, often in groups and consequently visible for miles, they also move and so the eye can't help but notice them. And it's those eye-catching qualities that, in the main, cause them to be unpopular. I say "in the main" because there is a significant minority who like them not only for what they do - the generation of "greener" energy - but also for what they are. Such people see beauty, elegance and the future in these tall machines.

However, one characteristic of all machines, be they traditional or leading edge, is their capacity to fail, to break down and to require repair and maintenance. You can often see individual turbines completely still, looking like a sullen schoolboy who hasn't been allowed to join the game, facing a completely different direction from that of its companions. These are frequently accompanied by a white van parked at the base and an open door in the column signifying the presence of an engineer. Given the conspicuousness of wind turbines it follows that when any work is being done on them, it is obvious for all to see, and not just in the form of the van. I posted a photograph last year of workmen abseiling down the blades of a turbine as they went about their repair work

The other day we saw across the fields a large crane next to a turbine and immediately knew it was receiving care and attention. On the following day I went to see what was going on and heard that a gearbox had been replaced. The crane that is capable of reaching the hub of one of these monsters was moving objects about on the ground in preparation for more work so I wasn't able to photograph it at its full height. But, I did get a distant shot of it at work. I also took a photograph of  a couple of men busy on the nacelle. As I drove home I reflected that repairing wind turbines isn't the sort of work I'd like to be involved in. The views must be great but the wind, the rain and not least the height and precariousness of your workplace are not to be envied.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.) (heavy crop)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cameras tell lies

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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

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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

The Ouse Washes

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When, in the seventeenth century, further concerted attempts were made to increase the agricultural potential of the Fens, the 4th Earl of Bedford and his financial partners employed the Dutch engineer, Cornelius Vermuyden (1595-1677), to undertake a programme of drainage.The aim was to make pasture available for summer grazing. As part of his works Vermuyden created, on the course of the River Ouse, two straight channels. These were designed to more speedily and effectively transfer water from the rivers and drains of the Fenland area into the sea near King's Lynn. Today these straight channels, about two thirds of a mile apart, are known as the Old Bedford River and the New Bedford River (formerly the Hundred Foot River). Both are embanked, but the banking is lower on the sides where the parallel channels face each other. The purpose of this is so that when they flood they overflow into the land between the channels and the floodwater is managed  without detriment to nearby villages and more productive farmland. In England land subject to periodic flooding is often called a wash, and this particular land is known as the Ouse Washes (not to be confused with the large bay and estuary near King's Lynn called The Wash). It is rough pasture and wet land when not inundated, and in winter when it is most likely to be flooded, teems with waterfowl (particularly geese and whooper swans) and waders.

The other day we went to Ely. Our preferred route takes us over the twin Bedford channels and the Ouse Washes. However, as we drove onto the bridge over the Old Bedford River we were confronted with a sign saying, "Road closed due to flooding". It hadn't occurred to me that the Ouse Washes would be under water and that our road might be affected. We drove a short way to see how bad it was, and after negotiating a small area of floodwater came upon a place where the road disappeared under a quickly flowing current. Needless to say we stopped. A tractor found the depth of water of no consequence and went through, water flying everywhere, but we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and beat a retreat. Then we consulted our maps for an alternate route, though not before I'd got out of the car to take a few photographs of the floodwaters around us. The early morning light, plus the glow of blue sky on the water all around us gave something of the feel of being on a boat on a lake. The smaller photographs were taken from the road, the larger one from the bridge over the Old Bedford River, its banks and tree trunks hidden beneath the flow.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old walnut tree

click photo to enlarge
The walnut tree was introduced into Britain by the Romans. Its name comes from the Germanic wallnot and the Old English wahlhnuttu, the first part of the word meaning "foreign" or "from the Roman lands", to distinguish it from the native North European hazel nut.

It slowly spread from Roman towns and villas to medieval monasteries, farmhouses and the gardens of the wealthy. However, the main agents of its dispersal across especially southern England were rooks and squirrels. Walnut trees were valued not only for the nuts that could be stored and eaten through the winter, but also for the hard, strongly figured wood and the oil that could be extracted from it. In his seminal book, "Silva" (1662), John Evelyn advocated planting the walnut tree. The beautiful burred wood was useful for veneers to be applied to cheaper timbers, as well as for gun butts and stocks.

When I lived in the north of England I rarely saw walnut trees. In the Fens of Lincolnshire they appear to be fairly common in gardens and hedgerows, with the occasional specimen tree growing to its full size in more open spaces. Squirrels bury nuts in our garden from some nearby walnut trees and at most times of year we have several sending up shoots and leaves in the most unlikely of places. The example shown in today's photograph is much bigger than most I see, and must be a hundred or more years old. It is slowly falling apart: large limbs have been lost and the crown appears to be dead. Apparently the field in which it stands was pasture until relatively recently, and the tree now struggles on surrounded by wheat, peas, brassicas, potatoes and sundry other vegetable crops, as well as passing tractors and harvesters. I took my photograph in the late afternoon as the sky darkened apocalyptically and a shaft of sunlight illuminated the tree, showing off its ragged shape against the black clouds.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 168mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hazel trees and nuts

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In the "wildwood", the entirely natural woodland of c.4,500 B.C. that was unaffected by Neolithic or later peoples, hazel (Corylus avellana) was a prominent tree. It had been one of the first trees to colonise Britain's warming land as the Ice Age came to an end. In time, along with the oak it became the dominant species of much of upland England, southern Scotland, Wales and Dartmoor. It was found elsewhere, but not in the same numbers. But, the steadily rising temperatures encouraged the growth of pine, elm, oak and lime, and these trees overwhelmed the smaller hazel. It did continue to find a place along the edge of forests and in clearings, its nuts distributed by jays, red squirrels, wild boars and other birds and mammals, but it lost its former dominance.

The hazel is the only native British tree that produces nuts (the chestnut and walnut are introduced species). As such it has always been a food source for people, and cultivated varieties such as the Kentish Cob have been bred. In early and medieval times its supple wood was harvested from coppiced trees for use as wattle, hurdles, thatching sticks, hedging poles, fish traps and much else. The thicker branches were used for shepherds' crooks and walking sticks. However, changes in woodland management and farming led to there being only 114,000 acres of hazel coppice by 1945, and today very little of that survives. A further cause of the decline of hazel was the introduction of the grey squirrel in the nineteenth century. These animals can clear trees of all their nuts in September, only some of which they eat. Those that they bury don't usually germinate because at that time of year they are insufficiently ripe. The result is that today, after the elm, the hazel is the most seriously threatened native tree in Britain.

Contrary to popular belief trees do feature in the Lincolnshire Fens. Where I live there is a variety of species, some native such as the lime, others, like the horse chestnut, introduced. Moreover, there are hazel trees. The other day, whilst collecting sloes from the blackthorn bushes we gathered a few ripening hazel nuts to store, further ripen and sample in a few months time. Grey squirrels are common in the villages and small woods of the Fens, but the relatively isolated place where we found these hazel trees is one where I've never seen these destructive mammals (though we did see a jay). In fact, some of the hazel nuts were fully ripe and beginning to fall so perhaps there's a good chance that they'll further propagate the species in this locality. Never one to miss the opportunity of a photograph I picked a small nut cluster with leaves attached and took this rather botanical looking shot in natural light at home.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f13
Shutter Speed: 0.3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.67 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

Photographic credibility

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If I worried about my credibility as a photographer I'd definitely post fewer photographs. Only my crème de la crème would be on display. Or, I'd select for posting only those that impressed the other photographers and critics who I felt I should be impressing. Those photographs would not necessarily be the same as the ones that I thought my best. I'd also be much more selective of the subjects that I photographed. Flowers and plants would be banished. So too would churches and much historic architecture. Macro shots would disappear along with any subject that didn't have "serious" overtones. The titles of my shots would be enigmatic rather than prosaic, and I'd shoot more black and white and more people. I certainly wouldn't publish "reflections" alongside my images or talk about how I created them. Instead I'd periodically throw out a line or two in impenetrable "artspeak", full of the sort of cryptic jargon in which I'd frame the "artist's statement" that I'd display prominently with my work.

And the last, the very last, thing that I'd do is post a photograph of fluffy ducklings and follow it up with a shot of cute calves penned up in the corner of a Lincolnshire pasture. That would be suicide for my credibility. The only thing I could possibly do worse than that faux pas would be to make the following photograph a shot of baby rabbits eating dandelion flowers. Watch this space.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 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

Wind, cycling and wheat

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People who don't cycle think that the main problem with this form of transport is the big lumps of metal and rubber that flash past you at high speed. They're not wrong; motorised road traffic spoils cycling, though not as much as might be imagined. They also think that the second problem is rain. In that assumption they are wrong, because wind is much more of an issue than the wet stuff. For many years I chose to cycle to and from work, and for much of my life, I've been a reasonably regular recreational cyclist. Not a stripped down, day-glo, skin-tight clothing, head down, bum in the air, hell-for-leather kind of cyclist, but a saunter along with my wife, panniers full of camera and lunch, let's stop here and have a look around sort of cyclist. And, while rain can, literally and metaphorically, put a dampener on your day, a strong head-wind will usually do it to much greater effect. In fact, as far as cycling in the rain goes, the adage that I've heard in connection with walking applies: "there's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing". Non-cyclists think that the cold is a problem too when you cycle. It isn't because in those circumstances the bike's in-built heating system can be applied: if you're cold pedal harder and you're soon warm! No, when it comes to the unpleasant side of cycling, for me its motor vehicles and wind, and, I almost forgot, rutted ice on the road.

Consequently, when a few days of cloud with strong and gusty winds was replaced by a day of calm with sunshine and cloud, I took to my bicycle and headed out into the fens. I came back with photographs of wind turbines and sheep. I've said elsewhere in this blog that I make a conscious effort, not always successfully, to remind myself to vary aspects of my photography. "Take more contre jour shots" or "Add to your collection of motion blur shots", I say to myself. Another one is, "Take more shots from a low viewpoint". When I parked my bicycle against a gate near a wind farm it was that last thought that came to mind. So I stepped into a field of short winter wheat that was greening up nicely and took this photograph from down amongst it. My bike with its single pannier and bar bag - great containers for carrying photographic necessities - added a point of interest to the shot.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fost and frog...

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...is what sometimes comes out of the weather forecaster's mouth when delivering his or her predictions in front of the TV camera or radio microphone. This spoonerism of "frost and fog" is as much of a verbal trap for such people as "It is customary to kiss the bride" coming out as "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride" is for a clergyman. Though the latter has got to be apocryphal, hasn't it?

The cold weather that has affected much of Europe in the past week has been felt in Britain, though thankfully to a lesser extent. Night time temperatures have been well below normal for early February and these have been followed by first a light and then a heavy and widespread fall of snow. It doesn't take much of the white stuff to get me out and about with my camera. However, mist and fog accompanied the first morning and my photographs reflect this.

Today's shot shows a derelict barn surrounded by a few trees out in the ploughed fields. The fog has done its usual trick of isolating the foreground and mid-ground from the background. This shot on a clear day would have the houses, trees and church spire of a distant village breaking up the horizon and detracting from my subject. As it is, there is no horizon to speak of and only the hint of what long ago ceased to be a useful agricultural building.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 249mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On