Windows, frames and light

click photo to enlarge
Commercial buildings of today have virtually banished the window as a discrete architectural feature. Glass curtain walls have made the window as a transparent opening in a solid, opaque wall seem like a quaint artefact of the past and have merged the features of the elevation into nothing less than a giant mirror. However, in traditionally built houses the window continues, a hole that admits necessary light and that also frames the inhabitants' views of their surroundings.

Down the centuries windows have changed and evolved. Early medieval examples were often simply apertures, left open when the weather was kind and calm, covered with translucent greased cloth when inclement and windy. I've seen sixteenth century windows filled with glazed, iron casement windows that were only an approximation of the shape they filled, through which draughts must have whistled and where heavy curtains were required for any kind of winter warmth. Today's house windows tend towards the utilitarian, their plastic frames requiring neither paint nor a second glance.

Some of the most elegant windows date from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when simplicity and proportion were imposed on window design in a way that we could learn from today. I came across an example recently in the Guildhall in Boston, Lincolnshire. This mid fifteenth century building, erected for the Guild of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has been added to and modified over the years. Some of the upstairs windows were replaced in the eighteenth century and it was one of these that I stopped by to look down into the garden of Fydell House (also eighteenth century) next door. The way the light and sharp shadows fell across the fielded panels of the internal shutters had caught my eye, and as I looked at the nine-over-nine sash window and the view through the panes I was moved to take this photograph. What had appealed to me was one of the fundamental attractions of traditional windows that have all but disappeared where curtain walls have taken over, namely the way the entry of light models the interior and the way the firm outline of the window frames the world outside. It's a charming attribute that a painter such as Vermeer could build a career on and it's something that has the capacity to captivate us still.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fydell House, an armillary sphere and doggerel

click photo to enlarge

Lincolnshire is justifiably proud of the explorers that it sent out into the world during the eighteenth and early  nineteenth centuries. In earlier posts I have mentioned the discoveries made by George Bass, Matthew Flinders and Sir John Franklin. The other day, during a brief visit to the eighteenth century Fydell House in Boston, a building that to the credit of the town is open to all at no charge, I came across a memorial of sorts to another Lincolnshire man who sailed uncharted waters and set foot where no "Old World" traveller had trodden before.

Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), was a landowner with an estate at Revesby in Lincolnshire. He accompanied James Cook, as a naturalist, on that explorer's first circumnavigation, and collected many plants new to science, especially from Australia and the Pacific region. The armillary sphere on a plinth near the end of the garden at Fydell House has a plaque showing that it was unveiled by the High Commissioner for Australia in 1997. This is all absolutely fine - a model of the celestial globe in an eighteenth century garden among the box parterres, classical statues and chinoiserie gate is quite in keeping, and its connection with this famous Lincolnshire man is very apt. Unfortunately, whoever had it put there also added a poem to Banks (by A.M. Cook) that is one of the finest pieces of doggerel to be found this side of William McGonagall. I won't inflict all four verses on you; the first sets the tone perfectly:

In Mr Fydell's garden
Sir Joseph sat at ease
And talked of many travels,
Of ships and Southern seas,
Of coral reefs and wattle,
Of palms and wallabies.

I've photographed this garden before, but never captured anything I was particularly pleased with. The image above isn't perfect by any means, but it's the best I've done. Perhaps it's the composition I like, maybe it's the autumnal trees, or it could be the very satisfying way the little LX3 camera seems to take high dynamic range scenes such as this in its stride with minimal post processing needed.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

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