White roses

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I was raised in the white rose county of Yorkshire but, because I was born in Westmorland, I've never considered myself a true Yorkshireman. Our boys are Yorkshire-born, as my wife, but I still see myself as a son of Westmorland, an ancient county that in 1974 was carelessly and unthinkingly parcelled up with Cumberland and part of Lancashire into the newly formed county of Cumbria. However, when I was growing up I seem to have absorbed some of the characteristics of Yorkshire being both stubborn and argumentative, proud of the area in which I lived and showing a certain disdain for the neighbouring red rose county of Lancashire.

The Wars of the Roses on which the Yorkshire/Lancashire rivalry is based was something that was impressed on us children, and I was fascinated by the way that, after much bloodshed, the two roses symbolic of the two counties were combined to form the Tudor rose. That union did not, however, end the rivalry between the counties. For example, during every childhood summer I took note of the outcome of the regular cricket matches between Yorkshire and Lancashire, always rooting for my adoptive county. But then, after thirty odd years living in Yorkshire I lived for twenty years in Lancashire. That put an end to any vestigial disdain for Lancastrians because in living among them I found them to be friendly people with an equally fine and interesting county of which they are justifiably proud.

I was thinking about my childhood affection for the white rose the other day when, with a visiting friend, we went to a few of the local church flower festivals. One particular display featured a variety of white flowers against a black background and I selected part of it for this shot of a group of white roses. The lighting in the church was such that it only needed a bit of underexposure and some "burning" during the post processing for me to make the blooms "float" against the black card the arrangers had used to show off the flowers.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Jowetts, speed limits and the big picture

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Our dismal government seems consumed with the desire to make almost daily proclamations about policy and legislation. Its febrile activity (and its political inclinations) usually result in bad decisions and frequent U-turns. The latest nonsense involves a proposal to increase the maximum speed limit to 80mph. This announcement - like many - seems to be driven by an unwholesome mixture of wanting to appeal to its voters, an ideological commitment to the individual over the community, and a sop to the "hard-pressed motorists" (copyright the AA, RAC, Daily Mail, Jeremy Clarkson, et al).

You'd think that the hands-off, managerialist style of our prime minister, David Cameron, would allow him to see the big picture that the ministers and "think tanks" who come up with these individual proposals don't. But, no, that seems beyond him. His role-model, Tony Blair, would not have been so careless. So, in the spirit of succouring the needy here are some reasons why he should conclude that it's a bad idea.

The de facto maximum speed on less congested parts of our motorways is already around 80mph. Many motorists seem convinced that they won't be prosecuted unless they go more than 10mph over the limit. There is a great danger that a legal rise to 80mph will increase the actual maximum to 90mph. Then there's the fact that the government is committed to a specific pecentage decrease in carbon emissions: a higher speed limit will burn more fuel and make us miss that by an even bigger margin than currently seems likely. Journey times on many motorways are not governed by the maximum speed limit but by congestion, so in most cases an 80mph limit will simply have the effect of speeding the driver to the next hold-up with no reduction in overall journey time. Britain's relatively good statistics on deaths and injuries involving motor vehicles will inevitably worsen should the proposals come about. Finally, if despite all the above, a higher speed limit does actually result in shorter journey times it would negatively impact on the sustainability of more efficient forms of medium and long distance travel such as buses and trains.

Today's main photograph shows a Jowett Jupiter, a British sports car from a different era when 1500cc and a top speed of 86mph was more than enough to enjoy open-topped motoring. The Bradford-based manufacturer went out of business in 1955 but some of its cars live on in museums and in the hands of enthusiasts. I photographed this example, one of a dozen or so on a club tour to the Isle of Man, when I was photographing the Midland Hotel, Morecambe. More Jowetts can be seen lined up in the smaller photograph.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 33mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Midland Hotel, Morecambe

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The Midland Hotel in Morecambe, Lancashire was built in 1932-3 for the London, Midland and Sottish Railway Company by the architect, Oliver Hill (1888 - 1967). It replaced a Victorian design by Edward Paley, with Hill being required to construct "a building of international quality in the modern style." Hill was an architect who moved from the Arts and Crafts tradition to modernism, or at least what passed for modernism in 1930s Britain: more Art Deco or "moderne" than the full-blown European model.

His curving design at Morecambe is a fine piece of work that still looks good today. It has a main entrance elevation that faces the town and a liner-like facade overlooking the sea. When I first saw it as a child in the 1950s it impressed with its size, and its whiteness. As I grew and became more interested in architecture I liked the banded windows, the prominent, bowed and glazed central stairwell (though I could have done without the sea horses), the Mendelsohn-like curved projection at one end and the spiral entrance pillars. Over the years as the sea-side resort declined so too did the Midland Hotel. It became grubby, something of a faded beauty whose charms could only just be glimpsed beneath the weeds and peeling paintwork. However, in recent years the building has been redeveloped by Urban Splash. I say redeveloped rather than restored because some sensitive changes have been made with the result that The Midland Hotel is once more the most noticeable and architecturally most outstanding building in Morecambe.

I was pleased to be able to photograph the Midland on a day with enough sun, blue sky and clouds to capture a holiday mood that suits it. It looked stunning, though I'm not so sure about the comfort-factor of those angular cafe chairs.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

On the beach

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A while ago I was talking with some friends about the sort future that was held out to mankind in the 1950s. We could all remember looking forward to shorter working hours, greater leisure, longer life-spans, limitless energy, automation, flying cars, interplanetary settlement and travel, the conquest of disease, and consumer goods and food a-plenty. Some of this future has certainly come true for those of us fortunate to live in the "developed" world, but much has not, and the time of plenty that was foretold is beginning to increasingly look like a transient period.

But memories are selective. Because what my friends and I had all forgotten - or perhaps repressed - was the other 1950s vision of the future that was no future at all. During that decade the possibility - likelihood even - of nuclear war was an ever-present subject in the newspapers, on television and in the cinema: the idea that the nuclear-armed nations of the world would destroy not only each other, but the rest of mankind, kept re-appearing. Novelists took up the theme too. Only after I'd given the title to today's photograph did I realise that it is also the title of the bleakest "post apocalypse" novel of the 1950s. "On the Beach" was written by the British-born Australian writer, Nevil Shute, in 1957. It imagines a group of people in Australia waiting for the radiation of the nuclear wars of the northern hemisphere to be carried on the wind to where they are waiting. When I read it in the late 1960s it seemed a grim, but not impossible, vision of the future. In the 1950s it must have appeared all too plausible.

So, if you want an antidote to the unrelenting Christmas jollities that will soon descend upon us you could do worse than dig out a copy of this novel, or find a DVD of the film. However, if the prospect of time spent reading or watching is just too much for your busy schedule Wikipedia can oblige with a helpful synopsis. Happy reading! :-)

The photograph above dates from early 2007, before my re-location to Lincolnshire. It shows the beach at Cleveleys, Lancashire, with Blackpool in the distance. I was reviewing my shots from that year recently, and I thought this was one worth posting for the brave dog walkers, the litter of gulls, and the nice way the spray and haze gives a blue cast to the scene and makes the distant Tower and cliffs almost disappear.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E500
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 118mm (236mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

districtnk and all that

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Driving through Lincolnshire a few weeks ago I noticed a new roadside sign. It welcomed me to an area known as "districtnk" - that font, that spacing, those colours! I looked around with some trepidation, thinking that I'd entered a gulag-ridden outpost of the the old USSR at co-ordinates n,k on the map held by the Supreme Soviet in Moscow. However, when I saw the sign again I realised that North Kesteven District Council had "re-branded" itself - whatever that means - and this was their new welcome sign. Furthermore, it proclaimed that the district comprised "100 flourishing communities" (not 98, 99 or 101, but 100 - what are the chances?), and, because they knew that the new title was so opaque that it couldn't stand alone they spelled out the council name in full at the bottom. Gone was the old coat of arms, replaced by a symbol that made it look like they were sponsored by BP. I hope they didn't pay very much to the consultants who came up with all this because if it's supposed to show the council as progressive, modern, go-ahead, etc, for those of a certain age it suggests just the opposite. Perhaps the next step in the re-branding is for districtnk to start re-naming some of those "flourishing communities" after Soviet leaders, after which they'll move on to giving the schools numbers instead of names.

Signs, as a couple of my recent posts have suggested can be puzzling and fun. One notice I remember, that I didn't photograph but wish I had, was in an area of waste ground and said simply, "Danger! Deep Active Sludge" - succinct, memorable, and to me, completely impenetrable. Today's third and final (for now) offering was taken a couple of years ago near Bleasdale Tower in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. It was presumably erected by concerned parents who wanted the farm vehicles to drive with consideration. The way they expressed themselves certainly caught the eye, but I wonder if, in the longer term, it had the opposite effect to what was intended. I say that because, though I must have passed it a dozen times as I walked the area over the years, my experience was of children and dogs nowhere! Not a one, just like on the day I took this shot.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E500
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21mm (42mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Watching the pink-foots

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When I lived on the Fyde Coast of Lancashire I would frequently be drawn out of my kitchen by the sound of skeins of pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) as they passed overhead. Their honking cries and the ragged lines and chevrons became a familiar sight from the time they appeared each autumn until their departure the following spring. The Fylde flock varied in size over the years, but was usually estimated at between 7,000 and 10,000 birds.

Pink-footed geese are creatures of habit, and return to the same feeding grounds each year. Such is their predictability that some individual pastures become known as "geese fields". The birds that frequented the Fylde fed on the extensive saltmarshes at Pilling or in the Ribble estuary, when the tide permitted, and at other times would disperse, in smaller groups of a few hundred, to favoured fields of grass or winter wheat. Unfortunately their regular appearance on their preferred sites made it quite easy for the wildfowlers, so-called "sportsmen", to indulge in their pastime of killing wildlife with shotguns for pleasure.

Since I've lived in Lincolnshire I've seen brent geese (Branta bernicla) and barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) on the saltmarshes of The Wash. However, the geese that fly over my new home are not these species, but the familiar pink-foots. This morning I turned my head skywards at the sound of their familiar cries, and saw a couple of dozen flying quite low, perhaps descending into fields beyond the village. Then, whilst out for a morning walk the group in today's photograph flew past, heading perhaps, towards the South Forty-Foot Drain or the fields beyond to the south of Heckington. I have yet to find any local "geese fields", but I live in hope. I quickly took this shot when I saw that the geese would fly over a nearby Fenland farmhouse, a quietly distinguished building dating from the 1700s, and I waited until they were on the left of the frame so that they could balance the building on the right.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 53mm (106mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Promenade silhouettes

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I once posted on a photography forum an image of the silhouette of a bicycle (The bait digger's bike) propped against some old seaside railings. All the details in the shot were black, and they were set against the orange and purple glow of dusk. The comments that followed were more numerous than I expected, and quite a few were about the details of the bike, speculation about its gearing, quality and so on. What I learned from this is that the reduction in detail that a silhouette entails focuses people's attention on the details that remain to a greater extent than would have been the case if the image had been well lit.

Today's photograph is a case in point. I took it a while ago at Lytham Green, an open space next to the where the River Ribble flows into the Irish Sea at Lytham in Lancashire. It shows my favourite photographic model (my wife), sitting on one of the ornate cast iron benches next to the footpath that overlooks the water. Next to her is a street light with an old style lantern top, from which hangs a life belt and the attached rope. Apart from the grass and the late afternoon sky of February that's it. It's a shot that I don't think would work if the light had been behind me and the scene had been fully lit. I don't claim that it's a great shot, but I do think that the silhouette I captured has more interest, and that the eye lingers over the details longer, than would have been the case with any other treatment of the subject.

Of course, the Victorians knew all this, as did the eponymous Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), Louis XV's miserly finance minister, who discovered the power and interest of silhouettes as he spent his retirement cutting them out of out of black paper. So too did John Miers (1756-1821), the English painter, whose portrait silhouettes on plaster and card were much sought after for the likeness (!) and detail of his depictions. Perhaps, in these straitened times, when money is tighter, and people are doing more for themselves, the inexpensive art and craft of silhouette cutting will make a comeback to while away those dark winter evenings!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E500
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 96mm (192mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

The end of the pier

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2008 was a bad year for Britain's piers. In July the end of the 104 year old Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare was devastated by fire. Then in September the landward buildings of the pier at Fleetwood, Lancashire, a slightly younger structure dating from 1910, was burnt out. Of the two piers Weston's older structure is a great loss that certainly warrants repairing and renovating. Fleetwood's pier, which I know very well, was not however, a thing of beauty, and the remains should be cleared away. The promontory on which it stands will be improved by its removal.

It seems ironic that structures resting on metal over boundless water should so often be consumed by fire, but it has been a reasonably regular occurrence down the years. When I was a child the Lancashire resort of Morecambe was my frequent seaside destination. The town had a pier at that time. In earlier times it had two, but the West End Pier had lost its pavilion to fire in 1915, and subsequent storms slowly destroyed the rest. The Central Pier, that I remember, had pavilions known as "The Taj Mahal of the North". They burned down in 1933, so when I saw it the structure was truncated and had newer, less grand buildings. However, these too succumbed to fire and storms and the pier is no more.

The story of St Anne's pier farther down the Lancashire coast is depressingly similar. When it opened in 1885 it was 914 feet long with a "Moorish" pavilion. However, fires of 1974 and 1982 resulted in the seaward end being demolished and its length reduced to the present 600 feet. Thankfully it still has its Tudor-style buildings at the landward end, and a stretch of new building extends seaward from that. Today's photograph shows part of the old wooden tip of the pier with ornate, openwork, tapering metal columns with balls on top. Were they lights I wonder? I photographed them on a December day with the low sun throwing shadows across the sand, and the sky a mixture of deep blue, turquoise and grey.

Here is another of my photographs of this structure.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19mm (38mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Queen's Terrace, Fleetwood, Lancashire

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John Wood the Elder (1704-1754) was the first English architect to bring to England the Renaissance idea of a terrace of houses designed in the form of a symmetrical facade composed to suggest a single, palatial building. His works at Queen's Square, Bath, were on a grand scale, and provided fine houses for the well-to-do of the city. Other architects in England took up the idea which continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Queen's Terrace at Fleetwood, Lancashire is an example that was completed in 1844. It was built by the architect, Decimus Burton (1800-1881) as part of the design for the newly created town. Along with the North Euston Hotel, other imposing buildings, impressive lighthouses, a radial street plan, public parks, a railway station and a docks estate, the Queen's Terrace was designed to add substance and style to the bold venture. It was to be the first building that visitors would see after disembarking from the train. However, the money ran out and only parts of the grand vision were built.

The three-storey, ashlar facade of Queen's Terrace has a projecting, pedimented centre with pedimented windows, and pavilion-style wings that are also pedimented, though here the windows are less emphasised. The ground floor is slightly elevated above a basement level, and is reached by steps that lead to the doors. Iron railings form a perimeter at pavement level, and ornate metal-work forms a balcony along the length of the first floor of the building. Money was spent to make the main elevation impressive, though interestingly no columns were used. Inferior materials were used elsewhere. The final result is a building that is undoubtedly impressive in terms of size and style. It has adapted to many uses over the years and currently houses flats and offices.

The scale of the building makes it a challenge to photograph. This is my best effort. It required quite a bit of work correcting converging verticals. I liked the way the raking morning light was illuminating the facade, and how the strong perspective was emphasised by the windows and metal-work of the building.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking for beauty

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Visitors to photography forums will have heard people bemoaning the fact that the area in which they live isn't photogenic, and that they have to travel miles to get good images. It's hard to have sympathy with this view, or the mindset of someone who wants to take photographs of conventionally beautiful places, but is unwilling to recognise, or look for, the different kind of beauty that will undoubtedly exist where they live.

When I lived in Lancashire I regularly walked along both banks of the River Wyre where it widens into an estuary that flows into the Irish Sea at Fleetwood. It's a flat location that, on one side, has the debris of 150 years spread along its banks - the rotting hulks of wooden ships, old sea walls and their newer replacements, industrial sites that have closed, the wrecked remains of a once thriving fishing industry, newer chemical manufacturing plants and a municipal dump. The other side is more rural, with saltmarsh, pastures, cereal fields, a golf course and nature reserve. As I walked the area I found plenty of subjects at which I could point my camera. Many weren't beautiful in the usual sense, but did offer a harder sort of attractiveness, as well as undoubted fascination. In this sometimes bleak area I usually got my best landscape shots when there was an interesting sky. A photography lesson that it took me a while to learn is that just as a sunset can make any subject look wonderful, a sky with cloud and light can add drama, beauty and contrast to the most unpromising scene, even an expanse of cold, flat winter water and a factory with a tall chimney.

This contre jour shot looking upstream from Knott End uses the factory on the left as balance for the sun on the right. The distant blocks of flats and Blackpool Tower add a few more details to the flat horizon.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 62mm (124mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Thinking about colours

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Photography, particularly the digital variety makes you much more sensitive to colour. The other day I was walking with my wife when I stopped and pointed out how improbably blue the sky looked directly above us. It was the sort of deep, strong blue that, if you saw it in a photograph, you would think had been enhanced in Photoshop. Indicating the sky nearer the horizon my wife remarked on its strong turquoise colour. That too would have looked quite unnatural in a photograph.

Why is it that, sometimes, we can't quite believe our eyes? It's perhaps because, since the second half of the twentieth century, we've been subjected to "colour photography overload". Moreover, most of the still and moving images we see have been processed and moderated by people who make the colour of images gravitate towards the sterotypical. So, a blue sky is summer blue, a tropical sea is blue-green, northern hemisphere grass is towards the yellow end of green, and snow is "snow-white". We've become used to advertisers turning up the colour saturation to give a hyper-real effect, and that's something we still notice. But when a "natural" scene is presented to us we don't see the more insidious tilt of colour towards a notional "norm". Consequently, we're sometimes surprised, as I was the other day, by the real colours of the world.

The photograph above presents colours pretty close to how I saw them as I descended the hills above Slaidburn, Lancashire, at the end of the day. I pointed a long focal length lens fairly close to the point where the sun was disappearing, and captured the graduated colours of the receding lines of hills, framing them between the blackness of the near wall and field below, and the dark, brooding clouds above. It all looks a bit improbable doesn't it!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Found poems and beech trees

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The idea of the "found" poem is intriguing. We are used to reading poetry where meaning has been forged over time, worked, re-worked, and built with tears, anguish and quiet desperation. So the idea that one can simply find a piece of writing, composed for a particular purpose, that unwittingly offers the poetic experience seems, at first glance, quite unlikely.

In his poetry workshops published in The Guardian newspaper earlier this year David Morley looks at the found poetry "lying asleep" in field guides and the prose of natural history. He discusses how it can be shaped so it "escapes its origin and finds a fresh tone." The examples he shows often don't depart at all from the words of the original, though in others the finder-poets add their own contributions. The example below is from the article quoted, and is offered to complement today's photograph of the beautiful autumn beech trees at the edge of Pedder's Wood, near Grize Dale, in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire.

Beech by Peter R White
Wilkinson, John and Mitchell, Alan (1978)
A Handguide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe
Treasure Press, London

Beech (Fagus sylvatica)
cannot make roots
in saturated soils but
drive them through
dry layers to
reach
moisture.
Hence although
a thirsty tree it is
not found in wet
hollows nor on clay soils.
Male flowers are little
balls of stamens
on slender stalks.
Female flowers are green
with white filaments and
are on
short stout stalks.

Beech
live for barely 250 years
then die
and
fall
to pieces
suddenly.

photograph & (some) text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Vicarious revenge!

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Just as big fish eat little fish and muscle-bound bullies kick sand in the face of the ten stone weakling, it's always the little guy that seems to come off worse. You're about to drive your tiny Fiat 500 on to a roundabout when a 4X4 the size of a truck, all shiny chrome bull-bars, bristling with external lights and plastered with decals announcing its name - Rampage, Pillager, Half-Wits 'R' Us, or somesuch - barges in front of you, its boorish action the very epitome of the "might is right" doctrine. It's the same at the seaside. You throw the crusts from your sandwiches to the black-headed gulls and they delicately flutter down to hesitatingly snatch a morsel. But before the first one alights in come the herring gulls, slicing heedlessly through the smaller birds like fighter bombers, not landing at all, but sweeping up the food, swallowing it in one gulp, and wheeling round for a second pass. What is a little gull to do? Well, there's no point taking on the big bullies because they'll just flatten you. But if, as is the case at Southport, Lancashire, there's a big bronze statue on the promenade of a proud and haughty herring gull, you can go and crap on its head and get safe, vicarious revenge!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E500
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Railings and sacrifice

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The casualties of the Second World War were many. Tens of millions of civilians died, as did millions serving in the armed forces. Cities, towns and villages were destroyed and damaged. Historic buildings, houses and workplaces fell to the indiscriminate blast of artillery shell and bomb. But for the populations under attack or occupation these were only some of the privations to be suffered. Food was in short supply. Every day the best and the worst of friends and neighbours was exposed by the stress of war. And unexpected small changes in routines, and in the appearance of surroundings, daily told of the struggle that was taking place across much of the world.

In Britain, from the outbreak of war, everyone carried a gas-mask. Sand bags were placed in locations that would be susceptible to blast damage, and lines of tape criss-crossed windows to counter the deadly flying shards that they would produce if a bomb burst nearby. If this didn't remind everyone that there was a war on, the arrival, in 1940, of gangs of men to cut down the iron railings that bordered house gardens, parks, public buildings and churches, certainly did. This measure was taken to increase the supply of the metal needed to make the weapons necessary to fight the war. It also had the psychological effect of making everyone believe that they, and their communities, were "doing their bit." However, one effect of this measure was to change the face of Britains towns and cities. Selected historic buildings were exempted from the order, but elsewhere the railings fell to the saw and blowtorch like wheat to the scythe. Towns and cities must have looked denuded. In the 1950s an urban myth went around that Winston Churchill had taken this action solely for the sake of morale, and that the railings had actually been dumped in the sea at Land's End. It was never true, but many believed it!

The church of St Peter, Fleetwood, Lancashire, a building by the noted architect, Decimus Burton, had its churchyard railings taken away during the war. Old photographs show them to be fine, sturdy shafts with foliate tops. For the six decades after the end of the war the church stood with only a low wall and the filled sockets of the old railings between its churchyard and the surrounding streets. Then, in 2005, as part of a wider refurbishment, new railings based on the original pattern, were installed. They look a fine sight, and give a visual "lift" to the building. I took this photograph of the church from one of the three corner entrances to the triangular churchyard. The remaining Victorian lantern holder seemed a good frame for the building, and I used a wide zoom lens at 22mm (35mm equivalent) to show the railings wrapping round the site. The camera was set to Aperture Priority (f8 at 1/160 second), ISO 100 and -0.7EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

The beech tree

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In the south of England pollen from beech trees can be detected in remains dating back to 6000BC. No longer restricted to its southern fastness, the beech is now widespread in Britain, introduced in the midlands and north for its beauty and its unique qualities.

The sturdy, tall beech tree has long been used as a windbreak around exposed farms. In Yorkshire, on the chalk Wolds, and in the limestone Dales, lines, "L" shapes and squares of trees can be seen serving this purpose. They mark the location of farms in the valleys, on the hillsides, and standing against the sky. As well as giving shelter the beech trees provide kindling, and add a background sound to the day's toil and the night's rest, as the wind rustles the leaves and moans in the branches. Throughout the country beech trees can be seen planted in copses on hilltops, in small groups or single specimens at crossroads, in churchyards, or in woodlands. Lowland areas often have carefully manicured beech hedges, thick, green and impenetrable in summer, their brown leaves of autumn clinging on deep into the winter. Country houses frequently planted avenues of the tree along roads and tracks, and grew plantations to provide wood for estate joiners and carpenters.

The iron industry of the Weald used beech trees, as did the furniture makers of Buckinghamshire, turning the wood for the legs and spindles of Windsor chairs. The largest group of beech trees in the world is to be found in this county, at Burnham Beeches. Pollarded examples here are known to be five hundred years old. Wildlife thrives in beech woods. The "mast" that the trees produce is eaten by mice, squirrels, and a variety of birds, and the massive trunks and long, spreading branches provide homes for creeping and flying creatures. I photographed these beech trees in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, on a sunny January day. The shallow soil and outcropping rock had been no impediment to the growth of the trees on this hillside. But it had meant that the root system was, of neccessity, near the surface. It is said that the spread of a tree's roots matches the spread of its branches, and, looking at these beech trees you could almost believe it. I took my photograph with a wide zoom lens at 22mm (35mm equivalent), with the camera set to Aperture Priority (f6.3 at 1/200 second), ISO 100, and -1.0EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Flying the flag

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An observant visitor to the UK is likely to notice the relatively small number of Union flags that are flown. Compared with, say, France or the United States, our flag is all but invisible. Every now and then UK writers comment on this, and periodically politicians and nationalists try to stimulate the flying of more flags. But without much success.

Why is this? It's probably something to do with the United Kingdom being a collective of four separate countries, each with its own distinctive history, language and culture. In Scotland the cross of St Andrew seems to be flown more than formerly, perhaps reflecting its growing nationalism, whilst in Wales that country's flag flies fairly widely. Northern Ireland goes its own way, and tends to display three flags - the Union flag, the flag of Northern Ireland, and the tricolour of the Irish Repubic - depending on political persuasion! And England is simple confused. It's forgivable that people from other countries confuse the Union flag with the flag of England, but it's unfortunate when native English people do the same. Many do fly the cross of St George, but it's done with markedly less fervour than the people of the other constituent countries of the UK fly theirs.

So, when a Union flag is flown it tends to be noticed. This flag on the 1930s Casino building on Blackpool's promenade grabbed my attention immediately, and I decided to make it the focal point of an image. I have photographed the architect Joseph Emberton's Modernist masterpiece before, but this time I decided to be selective and show some of its white reinforced concrete curves against the deep blue of the January sky, enlivened by the red of the decrative wheel and that high flying flag. A zoom lens at 48mm (35mm equivalent) was used, with the camera set to Aperture Priority (f8 at 1/400 second), with the ISO at 100 and -0.7EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Ferns

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Ferns came into being three hundred million years ago in the forests of the Carboniferous period. They pre-date flowering plants, and the examples that we find fossilized in rocks and coal seams look remarkably like those that we see around us today. Clearly ferns are a successful species that found their niche early in evolutionary terms.

Shady, damp places are where we see ferns. Bank sides, dark rock crevices, old walls and under the woodland canopy are typical habitats for the different species that are found across the world. Victorian gardeners favoured the fern: they collected them, cultivated them, and prized their arching fronds, indented leaves, and the way they uncurl in the spring, as if stretching from their winter sleep. However, like the laurel and the rhododendron, the fern fell out of favour and gardeners in the twentieth century saw them as "old-fashioned". The more open, brighter gardens that were created needed the particular qualities of this plant less. Today however, gardeners are re-discovering the value of the fern, particularly in smaller plots that are over-shadowed by buildings.

I found these ferns growing from the top of a wall near Scorton, Lancashire. The wall was beautifully constructed in the nineteenth century and looks like it has needed little attention since that time. Overhanging conifers shelter these ferns, and consequently the tempestuous winter weather has left them relatively unscathed. I photographed them on a cold, bright day, when shafts of sunlight were piercing the shade, illuminating the sharp, serrated fronds, and throwing their shadows across the wall. The contrast between the vegetation and the stonework seemed like a good subject for an image, and so I composed accordingly. I used a zoom lens at 110mm (35mm equivalent), with the camera set to Aperture Priority (f6.3 at 1/60 second), ISO 200 and -1.0EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen