Einstein on the beach (at Sheringham)

click photo to enlarge
My introduction to the music of Philip Glass was through Godfrey Reggio's film, "Koyaanisqatsi" (1983). This movie features footage from various locations in the United States presented with no actors or narration, simply a score by Glass. The only indication of the message of the film is in the film's subtitle "Life out of balance" -  a translation from the Hopi language of the film's main title. I loved the film and it quickly became a favourite of all the family.

The score of "Koyaanisqatsi" is in the minimalist style, a branch of modern classical music that seems to be either loved or reviled. It's an approach to music that I was familiar with before I heard Glass through Terry Riley's album, "A Rainbow in Curved Air" (1969), and I'm firmly in the camp that likes minimalism. We bought other music by Philip Glass in later years, but this piece that was written for the film, has remained a favourite.

On our recent visit to the Norfolk coast we came upon a series of paintings on the promenade that had been done by an artist as part of a project to involve children in drawing using chalk. The main "canvas" for this work was the sea wall. Towards the end of the series that showed deck chairs, boats, an ice-cream seller's van, etc., we came upon the example shown in today's photograph. Immediately we saw it my wife and I turned to each other and said, "Einstein on the Beach". Clearly the artist knew about Philip Glass. Why else would a seasonal, sea-front cafe be adorned with a picture of Albert Einstein drinking a mug of hot tea other than to reference the composer's first opera, a five hour piece from 1975, called "Einstein on the Beach"? It made us smile.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Aspect ratios and old stations

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When I used 35mm film cameras I never thought twice about the aspect ratio of the format: the fact that 36mm X 24mm is a ratio of 3:2 was something I just didn't consider. Processing my own black and white photographs I would sometimes crop the image (with a guillotine) to make a better composition, but doing this was very much the exception.

When I started to use a digital camera in 2000 it also had an aspect ratio of 3:2, and once again I thought little of it, perhaps because it was familiar to me. However, processing the images on a computer led me to crop many more images than I did when I used negatives and an enlarger. This may have been because it was so much easier. But, when I acquired an Olympus DSLR and found the aspect ratio was 3:4 then I did start to think more about these things. I find that I have a strong preference for 3:4 over 3:2 in landscape format, but occasionally prefer the latter in portrait format. It's purely a personal thing, and I don't believe there are any objective reasons (golden section included) to choose one over the other. The Panasonic LX3 offers an embarrassment of riches in this regard - 3:4, 3:2, 16:9 and 1:1 - all of which can be used at the time of composition. Looking back over my images made using this camera I find that I use 4:3 for about 75% of my shots, 16:9 for about 15%, 1:1 for almost all the others, and 3:2 rarely. I think I use 4:3 as the default because it is a rectangle that I prefer more than 3:2, and it suits many shots. 1:1 is a format I like to compose in (though I know many hate it), and I think it is perfect for some subjects. My reasonably heavy use of 16:9 is the one that surprises me. When I first got the camera I ignored it, but gradually I've come to use it quite a bit, especially for landscapes, but also for shots such as today's.

This image, taken at the preserved railway at Sheringham in Norfolk, reminds me of one of those Victorian paintings that shows an urban scene peopled by a group of contrasting characters: the sort of piece that the eye lingers over, searching out details. I looked at this scene with 3:4 selected, but immediately switched to 16:9 because it just seemed the obvious choice for filling the frame with interest.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 8.8mm (41mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

High tech in 1896

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A newspaper article I read the other day decribed how, when the journalist was standing on a gleaming new London station platform surrounded by shiny high-tech, high speed trains, the eyes of everyone were turned upon an old steam engine that was waiting to take passengers on a mainline pleasure trip. The engine in question was 70013 Oliver Cromwell, that was built in 1951 and holds the distinction of being one of the last four steam engines to be used by British Rail before diesel and electric took over entirely in 1968.

Given the relative newness of that particular engine it isn't surprising that it is still in use, hauling rail enthusiasts and the nostalgic on trips around the network. What is more surprising is the age of some of the other engines that undertake this work. The other week, during a few days in Norfolk, I dropped in on the preserved North Norfolk Railway at Sheringham. My introduction to this line was last year when I took this photograph of a C.B. Collett-designed engine of 1924, numbered 5224. On my recent visit I managed to snap the only surviving Class 27 of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, number 1300, that was built in 1896. It was on loan to the Norfolk line, and was busy taking people up and down their scenic route by the sea. This is by no means the oldest working steam engine to be seen in occasional use today, but looking at its functional shape, sturdy build, and gleaming paintwork, not to mention the evocative sound of its smoke and steam, there is no wonder that people retain (or acquire) an affection for these ancient leviathans. When I visited the station the following day a small diesel railcar of 1950s vintage, for all its smooth "modern" charm, was attracting considerably fewer admirers.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cherishing the past

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It's interesting how the "futurologists" get it wrong isn't it. As a callow youth I remember being told that when I was a man my working day would be shorter as machines removed the drudgery, that we'd all have flying cars, that colonies of people would be living on the moon and nearby planets, that my clothing would be a sort of all-in-one jump-suit, and my food would be a manufactured gloop that contained all the calories and nutrients essential for health. At the dawn of the computer age a sage was heard to pronounce that the UK would never need more than 3 of the machines. Then, when computers were becoming common we were told that offices would become "paperless". It's predictions of this sort that make me think I could be a futurologist.

One of the predictions that I never saw made was that the more we travelled into our future, the more we would cherish what was left of our past. This seems to be a fairly widely held view, at least in the UK. It's also a view that has positive and negative consequences. Let's start with a negative. Ask most people what kind of house they would really like and they'll tell you about some old, romantic looking building, wearing a patina of age, set in a rural idyll. The idea of an energy efficient, modern structure that effectively meets the needs of modern living is the dream of few. On the positive side, this affection for our past means that enough of it is preserved and remains for us to place ourselves in time, and so better understand where we are by where we've come from.

I was thinking about this when I visited the North Norfolk Railway at Sheringham recently. The Victorian station of this preserved railway has been restored and fitted out with original signs, advertisements, luggage, trolleys, weighing scales, etc. The volunteer staff wear old-style uniforms, and all this makes the perfect setting for the steam trains and early diesels that travel over its tracks. Standing on a platform I took this shot of the opposite platform and its adjoining buildings. The overhead glass and metal canopy was filtering the light that fell on the lovingly restored and preserved artefact and people. You'll notice that the two prominent, original, enamel advertisements are for cigarettes. Another thing I never saw predicted about my future was that cigarette smoking would be banned in public buildings, and that's a development that has pleased me mightily.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 48mm (96mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Soft light by the sea

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Where yesterday's image was all about strong, bold colour, hard edges and "in your face" impact, today's is just the opposite. It's a shot taken two days earlier, during my visit to the Norfolk coast, and is soft, with muted colours and more sublety, an image that sidles up to you rather than plants its feet in your way and won't be ignored.

I've said elsewhere in this blog that there's absolutely no chance of my photography moving to the point where I have a "style that is all my own", the point to which the great and good in photography urge us to travel. I've never believed that to be a goal that we have to seek, or that a photographer is necessarily a better practitioner if it happens. But, as I say, for me it's academic anyway because I like to point my camera at anything that comes my way.

Cycling west along the foreshore at Sheringham, the concrete promenade narrowed, then came to an end by a lifeboat building. I walked out onto the shingle to photograph this lonely looking boathouse. I was glad it was there because it gave a point of focus to my composition, a small but definite man-made structure, whose hard white edges contrasted with the cotton-wool clouds, and the earth colours and natural forms of the cliffs, beach and sea. It also gave some visual weight to the left of the image to counter the quite dominant cloud on the right.

The location looks deserted, and it was. However, just out of sight on the cliff tops people in bright checks, unlikely caps, and loud socks scurried about in twos and fours, trying to coax small white balls into tiny holes with "implements ill-adapted for the purpose." Yes, it's the location of Sheringham Golf Club!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

What we leave behind

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Every now and then, as my wife and I dig our garden, we turn up pieces of broken clay pipes - the sort with a very long, narrow stem that people filled with tobacco and smoked. So far we have gathered fourteen fragments, all but one being pieces of tubular stem. However, we do have a single bowl decorated with a star (or flower), and scallop shell (or honeysuckle petal) patterns. The design is very distinctive, and research leads me to be fairly sure that it dates from the period between 1790 and 1820.

Did the agricultural workers who threw away these inexpensive, disposable artefacts realise that a future inhabitant of that piece of land would see them as the most tangible connection with their time? Probably not, yet that is just what they are. I read about the history of this part of Lincolnshire, I look at the gravestones in the local church, I reflect on the old buildings, and ponder the landscape that man has moulded for millennia, yet none of these more substantial things touches me like these pieces of clay pipe. Some years ago I read that, should civilisation be swept away, archaeologists of the future will use the layer of cigarette filters thrown away in the second half of the twentieth century as markers for that period of time. On the basis of such insignificant things is our history written.

I reflected on this as I made a black and white conversion of my photograph of the remains of a boat on the beach at Sheringham, Norfolk. Perhaps it was the way it looked like the spine and ribs of a dead animal that drew my attention to it, but it led me to thinking about whose boat it was, why it had foundered there, and how long it had been subject to the twice daily attrition of the tides. Someone, somewhere will know, and will have written at great length about it. But, for as long as the remains lie there, something that we can gaze upon, recognisable for the small wooden boat that it was, it will be a daily, direct and palpable reminder of our past that words will struggle to equal.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Not so common sense

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"Common sense is the collection of predjudices acquired by the age eighteen".
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born theoretical physicist

Many would think Albert Einstein's view of what constitutes common sense somewhat jaundiced, but it clearly contains an element of truth. Perhaps the dictionary definition of "sound judgement not based on specialised knowledge" would receive more support. Common sense is a great quality, but it can often lead us astray, and is frequently enlisted by those wanting to cut through what they see as the obfuscation of deeper analysis.

In the debate over the environment, and in particular the production of greenhouse gases, common sense is used to support the growing of biofuels. It seems obvious that renewable sources must replace depleting oil, and will have less environmental impact. And yet, recent analysis by scientists from a range of disciplines suggest that the proposed cultivation of crops for fuel is often worse for the environment than fossil fuels. Similarly, the purchase by consumers of locally-sourced food is widely felt to be better for the environment, reducing the cost and pollution associated with transport. It just seems like common sense. Yet the production of green beans in Kenya, which are then flown to the UK, is found to be less environmentally damaging in all but the main months of the UK outdoor harvest. Apparently Kenyan beans are grown more organically, without the machinery and range of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that are used here. And, whereas the UK (and nearby mainland European growers) use heat to get early and late crops, in Kenya this isn't necessary. Research turns common-sense on its head.

I was thinking about these issues when I photographed this steam engine, 5224, a C.B. Collett design of 1924 on loan from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, here at the preserved North Norfolk Railway line at Sheringham. I reflected on whether improvements to the coal-burning steam engine would ever make this type of propulsion compete economically and environmentally with diesel and electricity. Common sense tells me that it is unlikely, but then common sense sometimes proves to be nonsense!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On