Photographing the horizon

click photo to enlarge
I grew up in a valley on one side of which were, nearby, high, rugged hills and on the other lower hills with a more distant prospect. As a child I called the very tops of the higher side of the valley the "skyline" and summits of the most distant part of lower hills the "horizon". Nobody told me to make this kind of distinction - it simply seemed natural that the skyline was near and clearly above you whereas the horizon was the distant point where earth and sky appear to meet. I still feel that is a reasonable viewpoint.

Perhaps it was growing up in a valley that gave me an interest in the horizon - observing its peculiarities, noting how it changed as I moved, wondering what was beyond it. Quite a few of my photographs feature the horizon (or skyline) and in some, as is the case with today's photograph, most of the detail is clustered there. What I like about scenes and photographs like this one is the way that man's massive achievements - cooling towers, cranes, chimneys, ferries become as nothing when seen against a great river and the vastness of the sky.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: River Humber Seen From Hull Pier
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A River Humber skyline

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In the 1970s I moved from a relatively small settlement in the upland area of the Yorkshire Dales to the Yorkshire city of over a quarter of a million people called Kingston upon Hull. I was a country boy who, unlike most of my contemporaries, enjoyed living in the country, and I found, to my surprise, that I also liked living in a city. I relished the anonymity, enjoyed the visible history, and my photographic eye fed on the ever changing images that were daily before me.

Hull is a port built on a river and alongside a large estuary. It is a flat area, the nearest hills being the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds several miles away. One of the new things I discovered in my new home was that flat landscapes have beautiful and impressive skies that are ever changing and that make a fine substitute for hills. I also realised that just like hills and mountains, big skies have the capacity to make man, his works and habitations seem insignificant.

On a recent visit to Hull I was reminded of this when I took today's photograph. I was standing on the pier of the long-gone Humber ferry that juts out into the River Humber. Looking over the water downstream I could see on the skyline the ships, cranes, chimneys, cooling towers etc of the city's port and petrochemical site silhouetted against a sliver of pale yellow sky below dark, brooding clouds. Having walked and cycled near these industrial structures I was aware of their imposing size yet here, in this context they looked quite insignificant.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 75mm (112mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1 Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:110
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The bridge over the Humber

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Today's photograph shows what was once the longest single span suspension bridge in the world, the Humber Bridge. It crosses the River Humber linking Lincolnshire on the south bank with East Yorkshire on the north. A few decades ago I lived in East Yorkshire not many miles from where the bridge would be built. I was familiar with the politics behind the decision to construct it, the enormous cost, and the way that the toll charges were insufficient to prevent the price of the bridge (including interest charges) from constantly rising. And yet, I welcomed the bridge as a structure that would link two areas that were otherwise only connected by a ferry (the "Lincoln Castle" paddle steamer) or a sixty or so miles journey by road or rail.

At the time (the 1980s) I had an interest in the bridge's construction and in the technological solutions that were deployed by this wonderful feat of engineering. I took part in the agitation for a free footpath and cycle route to be incorporated which, I'm glad to say, was conceded. Today, I still get a thrill when I see the tall towers, the slender-looking (though actually quite large) cables, and the arc of the deck as it gracefully spans the water. It has always looked a relatively insubstantial structure to perform the task that it does. And yet, it continues to function as intended, regular maintenance ensuring that it is rarely closed.

It makes a good photographic subject and I've taken quite a few shots as we've paused after one of our fairly regular crossings. Different light, different weather, changing seasons and a number of possible viewpoints, as well as the ability to walk across it, all make that job easier than it is with many such structures. Today's shot was taken in the afternoon in December light that has that yellow tinge from the sun being low in the sky.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11.8mm (32mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blots on the landscape

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Mankind is responsible for many blots on the landscape. Limestone and other quarries take some beating. They are often found in areas of scenic interest and beauty and invariably produce the ugliest of scars that are not usually healed even decades after they've shut down. Then there are the so-called retail parks. Anywhere less park-like it's hard to imagine. Yes, they usually have a sprinkling of lollipop trees and a few shrubberies that are mechanically savaged yearly, usually at the wrong time, but they are basically a collection of ugly steel and glass sheds surrounded by acres of tarmac. I once opined that, had Breughel and Bosch been living today, they would have set their visions of hell in somewhere like Manchester's Trafford Centre.

Then there are the oil refineries. Mostly located on estuaries to enable the convenient supply of the raw material, and often incorporating other industries and processes based on oil, they are usually particularly bleak places. The forest of towers and pylons, some belching steam or smoke, are visible for miles. They are even, or perhaps especially, a night-time blot on the landscape. Because they are twenty four hour operations, when darkness falls thousands of lights appear and a sulphurous glow that reflects off low clouds marks their location.

And, yet, and yet. Even the darkest, most dismal of these blots, when seen in the right light, by someone in the right mood, can offer a fearsome grandeur. And, in much the same way that Philip James de Loutherburg found a subject for his paintbrush in the mighty furnaces of Coalbrookdale at the start of the industrial revolution, the photographer too can find something today in these places that offers a spectacle worth capturing on film. On my recent visit to Hull, when I was casting around for a subject, it was the distant refinery and power station at Killingholme that offered a detail to place between the darkening sky and the cold River Humber.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 218mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.00 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The sun and The Deep

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Each winter I try to take a few photographs that include the sun. I don't mean sunrise and sunset shots, though these are easier to acquire at that time of year - you don't have to be out and about early or late! No, I'm thinking more of when the sun is fully above the horizon though low in the sky: early afternoon is a good time.

What appeals to me about such images is the drama conferred by the big glowing white ball, the contrast that results from the deep shadows thrown by objects in the foreground, the flare that the lens often produces, and the sheer unpredictability of the outcome. On a recent day visit to the city of Hull I had little time for photography. However, I did manage to spend a short time around the point where the River Hull meets the River Humber. When I lived in the city I often cycled and photographed in this area so it's always a pleasure to return. On my visit I took a few shots that include the sun on the old High Street and then again from the new footbridge over the River Hull, upstream from the big, futuristic looking aquarium called "The Deep". Regular readers of this blog may remember images taken last year in this location (see this sequence). I was prompted to take today's photograph as much by the glistening mud revealed by low tide as anything else, but I was careful to use the sun as a visual counterweight to the building in my composition. The overall effect is a touch other-worldly but not, I think, unappealing.

For other winter images including the bright sun see this one with a gate and snow, this one also with snow, or perhaps this one with vapour trails.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hull and Humber

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I lived in Kingston upon Hull for several years in the 1970s and 1980s. Having been raised in the Yorkshire Dales I found moving from the hills and the drizzle to a port city in drier, brighter Eastern England quite a contrast. Hull has a range of industries along the two rivers on whose banks it stands, and I found a lot of interest and good photographic opportunities in them, as well as in its historic "old town" and docks.

Residents of this Yorkshire city invariably call it by the name that derives from the narrow river on which it was built - the River Hull. The grander version of the name bequeathed in 1299 by King Edward 1, in preference to Wyke or Wyke upon Hull, is favoured by official bodies but eschewed by the locals. On a brief, recent visit to the city I walked around the area at the confluence of the River Hull and the mighty River Humber into which the lesser river flows. The old pier head remains, but the Humber Bridge did for the "Lincoln Castle" paddle steamer that used to be the means of crossing the Humber from Yorkshire to Lincolnshire. At the junction of the rivers, on a point that once was empty of buildings, a large, futuristic looking new aquarium sits. New crossings span the River Hull, and it was as I stood on the pedestrian bridge over the water that the "Rix Eagle", a fuel bunkering lighter, passed under the tidal barrier, then beneath me, and headed out past "The Deep" into the Humber and downstream towards the commercial docks.

I photographed the long, barge-like ship as it passed below the tidal barrier, then turning, took another shot as it headed into the Humber. The latter photograph, with a very bright sky, works better in black and white, but the first shot benefits much more from colour.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On