Look forwards, not backwards

click photo to enlarge

A few months ago I happened upon a photograph of the winner in Boston Borough Council's "Building Excellence Awards 2012". It was a new farmhouse in Kirton, and when I looked at it my heart sank. The accompanying text described it as being in the "traditional country house style". Quite what the writer meant by that I have no idea because the features of the English country house as we know it were nowhere evident. In fact, the exterior was, as are far too many English houses, an amalgam of vernacular details. The best you could say of this example was that they were derived with a reasonable degree of consistency from the eighteenth century where, often, they are plucked eclectically from any or all of the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries. Though the photograph was small I could see gable chimney stacks, shouldered gable wall parapets, dormers, a plait band and brick hoodmoulds. The main elevation was symmetrical except for one of the two main ground floor windows being in the form of a bay with a splayed lead roof. The walls were brick and the roof appeared to be an artfully mottled collection of plain tiles. I'm sure that this is a perfectly satisfactory house to live in, and will serve its owners well. What disappointed me so was that it had been chosen as the very best example of local building to be found in the area during the designated 2011-2012 period. If that's the best, I thought, the others can't be much. Why, I thought, does anyone today want to clothe a building in the appearance of a modest eighteenth century house? Admittedly, the eighteenth century did more with less than most centuries and produced simple, pleasing brick houses that look better than many later examples. But where, I wondered, were the innovative, modern houses, the buildings that sought to push forward the boundaries of what can be achieved within a budget? Buildings that were built in response to today's families' needs rather than the sort of thing that might feature as a background in a kitsch watercolour featuring men in Tattersall check shirts and moleskins and women in Laura Ashley dresses.

Similar thoughts descended on me when I attended the Boston Classic Car Club show (also at Kirton) a short while ago. I was standing in front of what, with my limited knowledge, I thought was an SS100 Jaguar. This sports car was built between 1936 and 1940 by SS Cars Ltd of Coventry, England, the company that after the war was renamed Jaguar (the SS initials having acquired negative associations). However, on reading my booklet, and after further research, I discovered that it was a replica manufactured by Suffolk Sportscars in 1978. The idea of building a replica of an old car is as alien to me as building a modern version of an eighteenth century house in 2011-12, or creating a "new" Mini or a "new" VW Beetle. It represents a failure of vision, a lack of belief in now, it promotes the sham over the authentic, the past over the present, and it shunts design into a cul-de-sac. Most of all it is a missed opportunity for progress. Retro that involves merely aping the past should have no place in either design or styling. Taking old forms and deploying them in new and innovative ways is another matter. Some Renaissance, Victorian and Edwardian architects managed this very well. But, unfortunately, that's not often what we see nowadays.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Old Jags as automotive sculpture

click photo to enlarge

My interest in cars is strictly limited so I feel left out of most conversations about them. I see cars as a relatively inefficient form of transport that is very destructive of our environment: I much prefer my bicycle. For many years I tried to live without a car, using public transport, a cycle and a tandem. However, Margaret Thatcher's assault on the former and a growing family forced my hand and I got a car.

Today I choose my cars on the grounds of utility and economy. I have a small Japanese hatchback that has the virtue of almost total anonymity and the reputation of being one of the most reliable cars on the road. I bought it on the premise that it does everything I need and that a car that doesn't work is nothing more than a useless tin box. Its size (compact), speed (0 mph to well above the legal limit), acceleration (0-60 eventually), ride (whatever that means), its status, what it says about the owner to others, all these are of little consequence to me. Hence the fact that I tend to get marginalised in discussions about cars. Actually that's not strictly true: I am known to offer my views even if they're not sought. At times I see myself as something of a missionary bringing truth and light to such conversations, throwing in what are seen as contrarian views like hand grenades. On other occasions I resort to ridicule. Neither approach is one that wins friends and influences people. The trouble is that at these times I can't help myself because, of all modern conversations, those surrounding the car are one of the most in need of a strong dose of reality.

There is, however, one aspect of cars that I find interesting, which I can debate with car lovers, and that is as objects of design and styling. But here again my tastes are often conflicting because in the main I am more interested in the design of small cars and utilitarian vehicles than luxury vehicles and sports cars. I say "in the main" due to an idiosyncratic liking for some of the 1960s Jaguar designs - the 2.4, 3.8 etc. These are vehicles that I remember from my youth, often characterised then as "getaway cars" (in the bank robber rather than holiday sense) though also used, I recall, by the British police. The front ends of this range of cars have a quality that few other marques can match. Smooth, flowing, tactile, sensuous, they could be detached from the vehicle and displayed in an art gallery simply for their sculptural qualities. I photographed today's example on a visit to the recent Boston Classic Car Club annual show (that's Boston, Lincolnshire, the original Boston, not Boston, Massachusetts). An urge to photograph something bright and shiny overcame me and so I indulged myself at this festival of all things automotive. More to come over the next few days.

I suppose you may be wondering if I fancy one of these sought after old cars. Not on your life! Noisy, unreliable and uneconomic is what they are. That handsome form masks a load of trouble and expense.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Choosing a Jaguar

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Don't worry, I haven't taken leave of my senses, I'm not agonising over which Jaguar to buy. My views on sports cars (and 4X4s) remain as they always have done: I think they are silly forms of transport, that say something about their owners (and not what they think they say). No, today's piece is about choosing photographs to display.

Evidence that many find this a difficult task is well illustrated on virtually every photographic forum. People find it hard to select a single, best image to represent their labours, and end up posting too many. But it shouldn't be quite the problem that it seems. Once you've filtered your photographs for technical quality (sharpness, noise, light etc) you look at composition and the other "artistic" aspects of picture making. That, for most people (the odd photographic genius excepted), reduces the number down to a manageable few, and then it's a matter of taste. During my few hours spent at the Bicker Steam Threshing country fair I took several photographs of some of the veteran and vintage cars that were on display. This Jaguar 3.8 Mk II (helpfully labelled or I'd know little about it) presented a few interesting details for the passing photographer (yes, even one who has no time for sports cars can find visual interest in them), and I took several shots. The only two that I thought worth anything as pictures were these of the radiator, badge and mascot. I present them both because each has a different quality that appeals to me. The bigger image is the more conventional, showing off the colour and details best. I think its composition, though similar to the other, is slightly better. The smaller shot appeals because of the subdued reds, and the clouds and light that enliven the bonnet.

I've photographed Jaguars of this era before. See here and especially here for a very similar composition (and better photograph), though a different colour. And if you are remotely interested in my views on why I find sports cars and 4X4s risible and ridiculous, those posts say more.

photographs and texts (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo 2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.) (79mm (158mm/35mm equiv.))
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100 (100)
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Jaguar

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The fascination that many men and some women have for expensive sports cars is lost on me. Where they see luxury I see inconvenience - how do you fit in people and a week's shopping? Where they see a driving experience I see danger and destruction - why do I need to accelerate from 0-60 mph in 6 seconds, all the while spewing out far more carbon dioxide than is necessary? Where, maybe, they see a car that tells the world about their character, and place in society, I see a car that says different things to different people - not all of them complimentary!

Now some sports car lovers reading these words will immediately brand me as a tree-hugging, envious, kill-joy. However, I've never hugged a tree in my life, though I have planted a few, and chopped down several! And I'm not envious of people who have these cars: when I've been searching for a vehicle I've passed them by and always settled on an economical hatchback or an estate car. As for being a kill-joy - well, read a few blog entries and make your own judgement. My objection to sports cars is similar to my problem with 4X4s - they are much less efficient at their primary task of transporting people and their stuff, on roads, from A to B, than standard hatchbacks and saloons. Furthermore, they are more dangerous than other cars - both to those using them, and to other road users. Put all that together, and you'll see why I don't share the fascination with these kinds of vehicles.

So why, I hear you say, have you photographed the emblem of a 2.4 litre Jaguar, a luxury sports saloon car that epitomises something you claim to dislike? Well, I'm not averse to a bit of interesting styling, and Jaguar have certainly come up with that over the years. However, it wasn't only the styling that caused me to take this photograph of the car as it was parked on display with several other older vehicles. What grabbed my photographer's eye was the delicious juxtaposition of that small dot of the bright red badge against the chrome, green, grey and blue of the car and stormy sky.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On