View of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire

click photo to enlarge
I had an email the other day from someone in the United States who'd been following my photographs from Grimsthorpe Castle with some interest. In the course of quite a long passage my correspondent asked if I had taken a shot of the main elevation that I could post.

It occurred to me that the idea of a main elevation is an interesting one. On most buildings it can be identified quite easily - it's where the main entrance lies. However, on some large buildings there may be more than one significant entrance, so it's not so easy to identify which is the principal one. Many years ago I took part in a planning inquiry into a proposed public building. The organisation I was associated with had concerns about the way the new building would fit in with the older buildings around it. In particular, we could see that the main elevation faced the main road, and the subsidiary, less well-managed elevations faced a selection of historic buildings. The architect was at pains to point out that his design gave equal importance to all elevations - it plainly didn't - and that he had put great emphasis on harmonising with the context. Successive owners and builders of Grimsthorpe Castle have also tried to give all four elevations strength and purpose. However, it seems the case that over time there has always been a recognisable main elevation, but it has moved from the south (see this earlier blog post) to the north (above).

What makes me say that the shot above shows the principal facade? Well the straight, third of a mile drive in a direct line, from the park gates towards the centre of this composition, gives it massive emphasis. Then the walled courtyard with its low corner towers and carriage turning space builds on this. And finally the imposing front, with banks of windows, tall flanking towers, and a large, central doorway seal the argument. Interestingly, a north-facing elevation is never seen with quite the effect that those facing other directions manage, simply because it is in shadow for much of the day, and the sun cannot model the architecture so well. That also presents a problem for the photographer. My answer was to stay well back for the shot and give the facade the context of parkland, trees and sky.

I took a photograph of the west elevation earlier in the year whilst walking near the Castle. The way the roof line falls from the north front (left) down to the south front (right) clearly shows where the main emphasis lies.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

750th post

click photos to enlarge
I just noticed that yesterday's post was a small milestone - the 750th PhotoReflect post. Add the 60 posts under the PhotoQuoto heading and that makes 810 posts since December 2005. All of which begs the question, "How many more posts will I make?" Recently I've had the feeling that I may be drawing to a conclusion with the present format, or that perhaps I need a new direction. Well, we'll see.

Today's pair of photographs show a couple of contrasting buildings with slightly different photographic approaches. The first is a piece of Victorian showmanship from 1856 by the Lincoln architects, Bellamy & Hardy. Corn Exchanges in England are often wilfully odd and awkward looking buildings that take enormous liberties with the Classical vocabulary. Hull's is relatively sedate in comparison with many, and, its original purpose long past, is now part of a museum. For this image I stood in the narrow High Street, positioned myself at the centre of the building, pointed the camera up, and took this symmetrical shot which echoes the symmetry of the structure.

The second photograph is a detail of the corner of the north facade of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, a work of the 1720s by Sir John Vanbrugh. It is also a strictly symmetrical design, and in my earlier photograph of a detail of the centre of the building I acknowledged this. However, in this image I was looking for balanced asymmetry, and so placed the pair of heavy columns slightly off-centre (though with one in the centre anchoring the composition), and included the angular cornice-line and sky, as well as the differing windows, as elements of imbalance.

Perhaps it's because of my interest in painting, architecture and architectural drawing (see yesterday's post), but representing buildings with strongly converging verticals doesn't come naturally to me. It's always seemed to me to be a convention exclusive to photography - which I suppose it is! When I'm photographing architecture I find myself aiming for shots that keep the verticals properly upright, and only after I've done that do I look for shots of this sort.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Image 1 (Image 2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (11) (32mm (22mm)/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1 (5.6)
Shutter Speed: 1/320 (1/500)
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 (-1.3) EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Spherical objects and propaganda

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The UK press is currently full of reports of the lies that U.S. right-wing politicians, fanatics and apologists for the American health-care industry are propagating about our National Health Service (NHS), as they seek to derail President Obama's very modest proposals for reform.

Many Britons, looking at the T.V. adverts and written comments that have spewed out of the propaganda machines have laughed out loud at the lurid fabrications, falsehoods and misrepresentations that are being peddled as fact. Others have become angry that a cherished institution that most people feel does an excellent job should be traduced in this way. However, the ire of British supporters of the NHS has been raised most by the utterances of one of our own MEPs, Daniel Hannan, a man the "Guardian" newspaper describes as a "darling of the U.S. right", who has been happy to appear on TV talking down the NHS and agreeing with those who oppose Obama's proposals. The leader of Conservatives, the party that Hannan represents, has described this man as "eccentric" and unrepresentative of their views about Britain's health care system, but that hasn't stooped him from seeking the cameras or prevented his American bed-fellows from using him as evidence that "socialised" medicine is awful.

My experience of the NHS has been good. It's not a perfect system, none is, but by most indicators it provides efficient and effective health care that is (in the main) free to all, and entirely free to those on low incomes. The concern in Britain is that U.S.-style private health care is seeking a greater foothold here, because, and this hasn't be mentioned much by the American critics, for those who want something different, private medical care can be bought in the UK too. That it provides only a small part of the total provision says much about the quality of the free offering that is paid for through taxation.

However, I will concede that sometimes when you live with a system all your life you don't see it in quite the way that an outsider does. Today's newspaper carries an article by an American professor who has worked in Britain for a number of years and has experience of the NHS for himself and his family. He identifies a benefit of "socialised medicine" that had never occurred to me because I take it for granted. In a supportive statement about his dealings with the NHS he says, "Perhaps it is the absence of fear of becoming ill that is the most important aspect of the system."

What has today's photograph of a door at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, to do with the self-serving anti-NHS propaganda of the American right? Well, both depend for their effect on spherical objects!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Parterres

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The "parterre", a formal garden device employing low hedges, often of box (Buxus sempervirens), in elaborate patterns enclosing contrasting shrubs and flowers, originated in France. It was developed from the "compartimens" where herbs were grown in patterns that enclosed other plants. Claude Mollet (c.1564-c.1649), a gardener to three French kings, was influential in popularising parterres proper through the royal gardens at St Germain-en-Laye and Fontainbleau in the years around 1600. Andre Le Notre (1613-1700), gardener to Louis XIV developed them still further at Versailles, Fontainbleau and Saint Cloud. The French examples were on a grand scale, and often formed part of a much larger formal, ordered, symmetrical scheme.

In England parterres became very popular after the Restoration, though they were usually employed on a smaller scale than across the Channel. Influential gardeners such as George London (1681-1714) and Henry Wise (1653-1738) promoted them amongst their clientele. With the accession of William and Mary in 1688 the formalities of Dutch gardens were introduced, and parterres were produced that were ever more elaborate. However, by the 1720s the informal English landscape garden had begun to establish itself and the ideas of France and Holland came to be seen as old-fashioned.

But, parterres never completely disappeared from English gardens, and remained in use in the gardens nearest stately homes of the aristocracy, even when the landscape garden was taking over further away from the house. Today, when gardeners strive to re-create the schemes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, parterres often make a come back. Today's photograph shows a corner of an elaborate group of box parterres at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire. The radial shape is replicated in each of the four corners of one section, with "S" shapes and more angular lines filling the centre. Small trees, shrubs and a statue enliven the composition. The lavender planting in these compartments looks relatively recent, and will doubtless be encouraged to almost fill the shapes. My idea with this photograph was to extract an element of abstraction from the parterre, and also use this interesting part of the planting to summarize the whole.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Repetition and symmetry

click photo to enlarge
Repetition and symmetry are key characteristics of classical achitecture. The Greeks and Romans who were responsible for this style created an architecture that emphasised man's intellect, and his dominance and control of nature. It was these two devices that allowed their buildings to stand apart from the "messy" natural world. The idea of taking the same form and repeating it across a facade, as here on the ground floor and first floor of the north front of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, began with the repeated columns of Hellenic temple porticos and spread into the serried arches of Roman architecture, most notably in the Colosseum. Renaissance architects both copied the ideas of the ancients and elaborated upon them.

Gothic architecture, however, especially in its Victorian incarnations, had more time for asymmetry. In the position of entrances and towers, for example, and also in the arrangement of floor plans, they frequently proclaimed the virtue of a more practical and studied irregularity. When they sought "balance" in a building it would sometimes be achieved by the careful disposition of different forms, rather than by multiples of the same form on either side of a line of symmetry. However, Gothic and other "Romantic" styles of architecture continued to value the virtues of repetition and even symmetry, as the Perpendicular Style of the fifteenth century, and nineteenth century industrial architecture in England frequently testifies.

It's interesting to speculate whether the repetition of forms in building came about for aesthetic reasons or for convenience of manufacture and construction. We are, of course, unlikely to know the answer to that question, but the designers and workmen of ancient civilizations must have found it easier to replicate and erect several columns that were identical, or move supporting wooden formwork between arches that were all the same size and circumference. Those advantages were certainly not lost on the Victorians who often made and assembled windows and ornament off-site. This is an aspect of classical architecture that I've never seen discussed anywhere, but which occurred to me as I was photographing this facade. The drawings for the design shown here date from 1722, making it one of the last works by Sir John Vanbrugh who died in 1726. Nicholas Hawksmoor may have completed his structure. It's inconceivable that the main entrance of this elevation would be placed anywhere but the centre, and the fountain could only ever be placed in line with it. Even the gardeners, when positioning their planters of topiarised box obeyed its imposing symmetry and repetition, so I decided that I must do that too, in my photograph.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire

click photo to enlarge
Quite a few visitors to Britain are surprised by some of the castles they see. If they go to Bodiam in Sussex, and survey its squat drum towers, solid walls, machicolated defensive entrance, battlements, moat, etc, then they see the epitome of medieval might in a building that offers everything that the word "castle" means to the average person. Conway, Chepstow, Beaumaris, Harlech and many more offer a similar experience. It's not these buildings that mystify people, however, it's the castles that are barely distinguishable from country houses (stately homes) that are the problem.

The fact is, that castles gradually evolved from strongholds with a very real military purpose - either defence or oppression - into large, comfortable, ostentatious houses, which retained the title of "castle" often because of the aristocracy's emotional attachment to buildings that both looked and sounded impressive. The increasing power of the monarch, the greater stability of Britain, and the widespread use of gunpowder brought an end to the building of castles in the medieval period. Those castles that were erected later had the trappings of their forebears, but would have been of limited value in any fighting involving a well-armed foe. An example is Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire. Made of brick, with stone details, it would have impressed the local population, kept peasants with pitchforks at bay, but would have soon succumbed to cannon.

Many castles were converted into large dwellings when their initial purpose disappeared. Today's photograph shows a case in point. From the north Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire, is a typical, grand, Baroque country house displaying architecture in the classical style by Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. From the south it is a much more domestic-looking building of the sixteenth century with pitched roofs, gables, projecting bays, domestic windows in wood and stone, and not a sign of fortifications. Except, that is, for the towers at each end of the elevation. The one at the left (like the two on the north front) is a much later addition designed to increase the resemblance of the building to a castle. The one on the right of the photograph is the original tower from the castle that was built here in the 1200s by Gilbert de Gant, and is known as King John's Tower, its age betrayed on the exterior by the pronounced batter (slope) at the base of its walls.

I took my shot with the overhanging trees and their shadows framing the elevation, and used the gravel path to add a leading line and a little more foreground interest.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Aspect ratios - to crop or not

click photo to enlarge
There is a school of thought that says the best photographs are achieved by composing within the confines of the viewfinder. Those who hold to this idea often also believe that composition that takes place after the shutter has been pressed, through cropping, lessens the worth of the image. This isn't a maxim to which I subscribe. I have nothing against composing photographs in the viewfinder: I do it all the time. However, I don't believe that it's the only way to compose, or that cropping necessarily makes for poorer images.

Photographic film and digital sensors are rectangular - either squares or oblongs - following the precedent of painting. It's interesting that the circles, ovals and other shapes that painters sometimes employ haven't found their way into photography. Perhaps one day! In some respects the aspect ratio of the oblongs used in photography are arbitrary. The 35mm size, and its so-called "full-frame" digital successor, derives from the shape settled on by the makers of movie film. Like painters before them camera manufacturers also paid some attention to the aspect ratio of the Golden Rectangle. But, the imperial and metric sizes of paper used for printing (which is now a complete mess, a point that no one would have aimed to be at) are also constraints that weighed on the designers' minds. My camera has a 4:3 aspect ratio which perfectly matched the shape of most CRT monitors, but is less of a fit for "widescreen" LCD panels. So, given that photography's different shaped viewfinders arose through the influence of a group of rather odd constraints, and that our subjects vary too in terms of the best way to compose them, why should we always shackle ourselves? Painters didn't do it: why should photographers?

I was reflecting on this as I processed today's photograph, taken during a walk near Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire. The image is cropped, with some sky and some of the foreground track removed. I took the shot knowing I'd do this, and I think it makes for a better image than the full frame offered. I've also added another shot of the cockerel's feathers that I posted yesterday. I rather wish I'd used this cropped image instead of the version I chose - I think the variety of colour and texture across the cropped "letterbox" frame is definitely superior.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Image 1
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 83mm (166mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Image 2
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm (200mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On