King's Lynn street view

click photo to enlarge

Strolling through King's Lynn in Norfolk a short while ago I came upon the scene above after walking almost the length of Queen Street. The low, yellow tinged winter sun was creating deep shadows and strongly highlighted areas and the limestone of the twin towers of the medieval church of St Margaret positively glowed. So I composed my photograph with the Romanesque and Gothic church framed by the mainly newer, C17, C18 and C19 brick buildings of the street.

When you take a photograph you are, in general terms, aware of what it contains. But, on the whole, the photographer's mind is fixed on the main things he or she wants to include and those objects that need to be omitted: but the smaller details are sometimes overlooked. I knew I'd have to crop out a white door on the left that would detract from the main subject. And I had to accept the distracting presence of the clutter of cars parked in Saturday Market Place next to the church. What I hadn't noticed, however, was the triangular traffic warning signs in the centre of the shot. They are obviously designed to be seen and in the shaft of sunlight coming from College Lane, with the deep shadow behind them, they shouted their presence. What's a photographer to do? I'm not one for removing objects so I toned them down until they could be seen for what they are but are less intrusive.

I photograph a lot of architecture and I find street signs, lamp posts, telegraph poles and wires, roof and wall mounted aerials and dishes, and parked cars, the bane of my life. They are so common that it's virtually impossible to exclude them from shots. Often they are not so noticeable and I can cope with them, but sometimes they cause me to lower my camera and walk on. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive about these things. But, sometimes I wonder at the planners and conservation officers who allow such things as the grey, utilitarian street light seen above the cars in this photograph: if they can specify "sympathetic" bollards for conservation areas such as this, why not more sensitively designed street lights?

Anyone with an interest in English architecture will have noted the stone Gothic (C15) doorway in the brick building on the right. This is Thoresby College, a building built c.1500 for thirteen chantry priests attached to the Trinity Guild. The elevation to Queen Street has three such doors, one with its original wooden door still in use. The rebuilding of the two main storeys dates from the late C18, but, interestingly, the "Dutch" style dormers are earlier.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bats and brasses

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Anyone wanting to erect a lasting memorial to themselves could do worse than have one made in brass. Placed in an old building that will be looked after for centuries to come, such as a church, the worst that's likely to happen is the depredations of thieves as the price of metal inexorably rises on world markets, or steady corrosion by bat urine. Yes, bat urine (not to be confused with "Bat" Guano, the U.S. Army colonel played by Peter Sellers in the film, "Dr Strangelove"). Intrigued? Read on!

Today's photographs show two images of the brass memorial to Sir Simon de Felbrigg and his first wife, Margaret. It was commisioned by him in 1416, the year Margaret died, and his own dates are consequently left blank (he died in 1442 and is buried in Norwich). This brass is one of a number in Felbrigg church - two of the others are protected by the distant mats you can see in the nave, and we had to take a similar mat off this one to photograph it. Along with the other brasses in the church it was restored and relaid in 1987, but this large (5 feet 4 inches) and beautiful piece of work still shows signs of the damage it has received down the centuries. A couple of pieces, notably the top of the right "buttress", have broken off, probably due to routine wear or an accident. However, the drawn details in the brass and the edges of the shapes are almost as sharp as the day they were engraved and cut, and the text remains perfectly readable. If Sir Simon had chosen stone, marble, wood or any of the other commonly used materials it would have been considerably more worn. But, this brass has suffered both an indignity and damage that has been the fate of many such pieces in churches throughout the land. Bat urine, ejected by the nocturnal flying mammals as they circumnavigate the building during the hours of darkness searching for their prey, has caused spotting and slight etching of the surface due to the acidic nature of the liquid. In the UK all bat species are protected, and removing them from churches is not a course that church councils can easily pursue. Brasses fixed to walls are less prone to this kind of airborne damage, but those on floors can suffer badly. Consequently most are covered with a piece of natural felt on top of which is a rug. This combination minimises the scratching from any grit that gets on to the brass, as well as providing a protection from the bats' "emissions".

The first of my two photographs is a symmetrical, composed image, taken from a low viewpoint that shows the brass in the narrow nave flanked by eighteenth century box pews and lit by the distant west window seen through the tower arch. I took this shot for the lighting and mood. The second image is a record shot designed to illustrate more of the details of the brass itself.

Anyone interested in the problem of dealing with bats in ancient buildings can find out more information here.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo 2)
Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8 (2.0)
Shutter Speed: 1/125 (1/30)
ISO: 80 (125)
Exposure Compensation: -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Colour popping

click photo to enlarge
I'm not a fan of colour popping, the trick of converting a colour photograph to black and white and deliberately leaving an area of (usually bright) colour. It seems to be a technique of the digital era: I certainly don't remember seeing it in the days of film. Image editing software such as Photoshop make it a fairly straightforward thing to do, and boy, has it been done in recent years. In fact it's been done to death.

I see it regularly on photography websites. Clearly some people are very taken by the technique, however I'm not. It has always struck me as "gimmicky", and I can't recall a single image that was improved by having this done to it. That said, I imagine you're wondering why I've done it to today's photograph. The answer is, "because the subject suggested it."

I was passing Quadring church in the fog, and stopped to take a photograph of this fine medieval building. I've photographed it a few times - see here, and here - but lately I've avoided doing so because that scaffolding on the spire has been there for months, an abcess on a thing of beauty. During my visit the fog was giving the scene a drab grey look, and I thought it was sufficient reason to overcome my dislike of the enduring scaffolding. But as I walked to my favourite position for photographing this church I came upon a bunch of the brightest, pink roses that I've ever seen. My first thought was that they were artificial flowers made of silk or some such material, but they proved to be the genuine article. The roses had been placed near a newly dug grave (just out of shot), probably yesterday, and their fresh, bright, summery radiance looked very out of place on a cold, foggy, February day. "Colour popping!" I thought, and took this photograph which I then converted. My first essay in the style is likely to be my last.

Looking at my image, and digging deep for justification, I suppose I could say that the colour popping device emphasises the unseasonal incongruity of the bright, fresh roses in this dull, dank, setting. What do you think?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Prospecting for views

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Look through any art gallery showing paintings from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and you are bound to come across many "prospects". These are paintings or drawings that show a view of a town, city, harbour, building, or any place that the artist or illustrator wanted to describe pictorially. This engraving of "A Prospect of the University and City of Oxford", dating from 1705 and attributed to Johannes Kip, is typical of the genre.

The earliest recorded use of the word "prospect" to describe the pictorial representation of what we would now call a "view" dates from 1649 when John Evelyn (1620-1706) wrote in his diary, "I went to Putney and other places on the Thames to take prospects in crayon to carry with me to France, where I thought to have them engrav'd." Today "prospects" are rarely painted or drawn, but the making of such images is one of the most common uses of the camera. However, we now use the word "view", "landscape", "scene" or some such word, and "prospect" has pretty much dropped out of use. Which is a shame because the the verb form of the word links very nicely with the noun to describe how we search out the particular point from which to make a representation of the scene.

I did quite a bit of searching to find this "prospect" of the church at Quadring, Lincolnshire. I tramped back and forth through the rough grass of this field until I found a composition that made the building the focal point but still kept it quite small. I wanted to include some of the tall brown grasses, and decided to use the interesting but ragged hedge as mid-ground interest and as a means of reducing the expanse of boring blue sky!

Here is a closer look at this church in an earlier blog post.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On