Photography, fishing boats and the sea

click photo to enlarge

I've lived near the coast and spent quite a bit of my time photographing it for a fair chunk of my life. That's not unusual, of course, when you live on a relatively small island. However, one of the characteristics of the British Isles, England in particular, is that it is densely populated and and its landscape can change quite markedly over short distances. A consequence of this is that some people don't visit the coast much because it requires a journey on heavily used roads or public transport. Others forsake regular visits because there are competing attractions in the form of mountains, lakes, moors, woodland etc.

I've always enjoyed the coast, not least because of the sense of space that you find there and the quality of the light that positively invites photography. Then there's the distinctive sights that are also manna to the photographer. Whether it is shingle or sand, salt marsh or sea cliffs, harbours, bays, promenades or whatever, the coast is a great place for photography. It's also, I find, a location that encourages you to slow down and contemplate as you gaze out over the flickering water. Small wonder that people often retire to a seaside location.

One of the things I often reflect upon by the coast is the fishermen that I see in small, inshore boats. Their life is, I know, dangerous and not without its travails, both physical and financial. And yet, on a sunny, summer day with the wind a benign zephyr and the water quiescent it appears to have its attractions. Perhaps without such days people wouldn't continue in the occupation: stormy weather and the icy blasts of winter must have their compensations. My photograph shows an Aldeburgh fisherman attending to his catch accompanied by gulls feeding on his scraps. His was the sole craft on the sparkling water that morning, an image of easy tranquillity as the tide reached its maximum height. For my shot I positioned the boat off centre and used the coiled rope on the beach as a visual counterweight. Black and white seemed to suit this fairly minimalist composition better than the original colour.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Social climbing and The Old Custom House

click photo to enlarge

When Margaret "there is no such thing as society" Thatcher was prime minister the Conservative Party came up with a wheeze to increase the number of people who voted for them. The idea was to sell off local authority housing at a very generous discount to the tenants who currently rented them. The theory was that once such people became property owners they would transfer their political allegiance from Labour to the Conservatives and, if they didn't currently vote, they would begin doing so, favouring the Conservatives out of gratitude and because they now saw themselves as one of "our people". Forgetting the political ramifications for now, the policy had  a number of unintended consequences, one of which was to change the visual appearance of local authority housing.

Britain's local councils were given permission to build housing for rent in the early part of the twentieth century because the low cost housing erected by the private sector was so indaequate in almost every respect. Councils often hired socially aware architects and built some of the better properties in this sector of the market. They were, for their time, well designed and relatively spacious. The building density was reasonable and the layout was well considered. A downside that some people saw was that individual developments tended to be quite uniform in appearance. Others thought this often gave areas a better appearance than if deliberate differences had been incorporated. However, when from the 1980s onwards, they were sold to tenants one of the first steps some new home owners took was to replace the front door with something different that signified their possession of the property. It seemed that intuitively people knew of the importance of the front door in making a statement about a building, and a proclamation of the change of ownership was needed. Over the years windows were replaced, porches and extensions - all different - were added, as were fences, hedges and much else. The result was that the modest but agreeable style of the individual house was usually lost, and so too was the visually satisfying homogeneity of the area. In an attempt to elevate the building, quite often the reverse resulted produced by a jarring heterogeneity.

I was thinking about this after I'd photographed The Old Custom House in Aldeburgh recently. This building from the early nineteenth century is essentially the same as many of the other small, gault brick and pantiled residential houses that line the town's older roads. However, in order to make it imposing and more distinctive, to stress its status as an office of the government's Customs, and to impress upon the seamen visitors that they are dealing with an institution and people of importance, the main door and offices were located on the first floor and reached by a really quite ridiculous, overblown, flight of stone faced stairs. One wonders if, on seeing it for the first time, a ship's skipper smiled at the pretentiousness of it, as I did. Today it is a residential building, probably quite an interesting dwelling to inhabit, and one that poses a few questions to an observer of its exterior. For example: when was the ground floor door to the right of the steps inserted, at what level is the ground floor ceiling/first floor floor, and what happens behind that main door? Is it a narrow corridor, are there further steps? I can't imagine.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Back yard or back garden?

click photo to enlarge

"England and America are two countries separated by a common  language".
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, critic and activist

The above quotation has been attributed, with subtle variations, to many people including Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde. However, it seems more likely that Shaw originated it. The point of the quotation being, of course, that although English is spoken in the United States and the United Kingdom, there are slight variations in usage, spelling and pronunciation that render it subtly different and make it obvious from which side of the Atlantic the speaker (or writer) hails.

One such linguistic nonconformity is apparent in the words "back yard". In the UK it generally refers to the small area immediately behind an urban or suburban house, that is the property of that house, that is usually enclosed and which has a wholly or predominantly hard surface. In the United States the words are used to mean any open space behind a house that forms part of the house's property. The UK uses the words "back garden" to describe a mainly lawned or planted area behind the house. In the United States this distinction, as far as I know (please tell me if I'm wrong), is not observed: whether paved, gravelled, grassed or planted, or a combination of any or all of these, it remains the back yard. Does it matter? Not really, because in each country the meaning is understood. Such things merely serve as cultural signifiers and are a small and welcome difference in a world that is slowly gravitating towards uniformity.

Today's photograph shows a back yard in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. The narrow strip behind the blue painted terraced house may once have been a back garden with a path to the rear door. Today it is block-paved with raised beds made of brick, and so has become what I would call a back yard though some may insist it is still a back garden. Regardless of nomenclature the multi-coloured flowers against the painted walls looked bright and cheery in the morning sunshine and so I photographed them.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 58mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Southwold and the weather

click photo to enlarge

"The English winter - ending in July, to recommence in August"
Lord Byron (1788-1824), English poet

Given that he devoted so much of his life to his poetry, his love affairs, travel in the Mediterranean region and revolutionary activities, it's a wonder that Byron noticed the English weather. Perhaps the poet in him drew his attention to it and his experience of hot, sunny climes caused him to lament its relative coolness. As a summary of England's weather, however, he was woefully inaccurate, though today's photograph might seem to suggest otherwise.

It shows the Suffolk coastal town of Southwold, renowned as a watering hole of the English middle classes. I took the shot on August 2nd on a day that was dull, cool, windy, showery, warm (in spells) and sunny. English days often involve multiple kinds of weather and this early August day was one such. What it wasn't was wintry. In fact, I don't imagine that Byron's words were meant to be taken literally. Rather, the intention would have been humorous, making a joke of England's weather as so many do. It reminds me of the remark by Michael Flanders, the late English actor and singer: "It's spring in England. I missed it last year. I was in the bathroom."Many have seen the weather as an influence on the character of the English. The Victorian writer, Charles Kingsley, said in his poem "Ode to the North-East Wind" (1858), " 'Tis the hard grey weather breeds hard English men." Whether that be true or not, shortly after I'd taken this photograph I noted several men and women swimming in the dark grey sea, to be joined by quite a few more as the clouds were whisked away on the wind to be be replaced by more prolonged sun.

I took my shot from Southwold's pier. This is one of the few around our coast that are not Victorian or Edwardian constructions. Consequently it has less of the ornate, decorative metal work characteristic of the older structures, little by way of brash colour, and is altogether a more tasteful, sedate sort of pier, eminently suitable for its location. Some of the town's beach huts can be seen lining the promenade. The uniformly white and blue row to the right are available for hire: The multicoloured collection nearer the centre are some of the many privately owned examples, each loudly (though sometimes subtly) asserting its individuality

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Aldeburgh, keyboards and dead letters

click photo to enlarge

Several years ago I received a couple of old Dell computer keyboards (Model AT102W). They were mushroom coloured, large, robust and a dream to type on. They have never matched the computer cases that I've bought and assembled, or the screens that I've used, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Why? Well, unlike most contemporary computer keyboards they use mechanical linkages beneath each key rather than a plastic membrane. Consequently typing on them is bliss and reminds me of the pleasures of using an electronic typewriter rather than the experience of typing in porridge offered by today's cheap keyboards. But, nothing lasts forever, and for the past few years I've been typing happily on the last remaining AT102W, all the while fearing the day when it too will give up the ghost.

There have been a few false alarms as individual keys have stopped working. However, I would simply take the keyboard apart (just six screws to remove), indulge in some vigorous brushing and vacuuming, the recalcitrant keys would dutifully return to life and off we'd go again. Until today. This morning the "w" key refused to work. On previous occasions it had been the "b" and the "9". I completed my cleaning cycle, re-connected it and it appeared to be working fine. But when I came to write this blog post about the Suffolk coastal town of Aldeburgh the "w" had packed in again. I only realised this when I looked up from the keyboard and noticed I'd written a couple of sentences that were even worse (or should that be "orse") gibberish than usual. So, I'm going to try more cleaning. But I'm also going to buy a second hand keyboard (same model) off eBay, and hope that between my faulty one and a newer (to me) old one I'll continue to experience pleasurable typing.

Today's photograph shows a small boat that is also past its best. It stands at the southern edge of the area of beach that is used by the local fishermen and appears to have been abandoned. It looked just the sort of foreground interest that I could use in my composition of the shingle beach and the sea-front buildings.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Do mermaids wear makeup?

click photo to enlarge

A few years ago, when I went to see the famous angel roof in the church of St Wendreda at March in Cambridgeshire, I read in a leaflet that the carved wooden angels were "half life size". It was a description that made me smile and caused me to wonder who it was that first measured an angel and how they did it. But then I thought, perhaps no measurements were taken and there was simply an assumption, based on the descriptions of those who claim to have seen one, that they are the same size as the average person. Thoughts not too dissimilar to these came to mind the other day when I gazed up at a ship's figurehead in the shape of a mermaid that is fixed to the "Golden Galleon" fish and chip shop in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.

Now you may wonder at the suitability of a mermaid, a creature that is half woman and half fish, being used to attract diners to a shop that sells a variety of species of fried fish for consumption by whole women and men. However, it wasn't that which initially taxed my brain. No, my first thought was, "Do mermaids wear make-up?" Is red lipstick, I wondered, suitable in a pelagic environment? Just how long can it reasonably last? Is all that sitting about on rocks that we associate with mermaids nothing to do with luring sailors to their doom but actually time spent fixing their make-up?  And what about the camisole top? Surely that is a touch impractical, not to say flimsy in a world of storm-tossed waves, currents, spray, undertow and the rest. One plunge in at the deep end and it would be gone.

But on further reflection I wondered if the figurehead had always been a mermaid. In Britain they are usually seen as sources of bad luck that frequently provoke disaster, and though figurehead mermaids are not unknown, voluptuous maidens seem more common. Change the fish scales for the fabric of a dress and this lady fits the more commonly seen template.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking and seeing No. 2

click photo to enlarge

In 2008 I wrote a blog post called "Looking and Seeing" in which I briefly attempted to articulate something of the distinction between those two words. It's a topic I find interesting and I want to return to it today.

When people ask me what my interests are my stock response is "everything". That's not true, of course: no one can or should be interested in everything. However, it's easier to say that than to recite an extremely long list of subjects, and it succinctly makes the point that in learning and education I have always valued width over depth (or narrow-mindedness as I have been known to call it). The reason for this is that I long ago realised that I rejoice in what I see, that the visual is very important to me, and that my life is immeasurably enriched by looking, and by thinking about what I see.

It took me many years to appreciate that a walk down a street or a stroll in the countryside can be a source of interest, pleasure and education for some and an empty experience for others. That where some see, for example, fragments of our past that interlock to create meaning, planned vistas that invite our judgement on their success or otherwise, modelled forms with colour, shape and line, wildlife characteristic (or not) of a location, or landforms that reveal something of the genesis and use of the locality down the ages, others see urban or rural monotony, a place "like any other" that is "boring". Those widely differing experiences sum up another difference between looking and seeing. A person sees only when their eyes work in tandem with a brain that is inquisitive and knowledgeable, that is open to sensation as well as enquiry. Otherwise they just look and they see very little.

I've neglected my blogging of late. PhotoReflect has been on autopilot while I have been enjoying my family and some time away in Suffolk. The other day, walking along the beach at Aldeburgh, my eye was drawn to the small fragment of the landscape in my photograph above. It wasn't the crab pots (or are they lobster pots?) themselves, a fairly hackneyed photographic subject, but the juxtaposition of the three strong colours - red/brown, blue and yellow (plus the black of the shed). I've always enjoyed combinations of these colours in this range, and it was that alone that prompted me to take my shot. Photography is a great aid to seeing rather than just looking, and I find that many of my images, as well as those of photographers whose work I like, stem from this facility.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 82mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Adnams Store, Southwold

 click photo to enlarge

I'm always pleased to see new and "different" architecture appearing in our towns. It's not unusual to come across it in cities, but towns (and villages) tend to be more conservative, and you find fewer buildings built in a determinedly modern style: too often they are a pastiche of an old or local vernacular style. Sometimes it can be absolutely right to make a new building fit in with its venerable neighbours. But all too frequently these "old modern" structures are safe, staid and completely forgettable.

Consequently I was glad to come across this gleaming shed-cum-Nissen hut in Southwold on my recent visit to the town. It houses a store selling wines and beers as well as items for the kitchen. Adnams are local brewers with something of a reputation for modern, green buildings as well as old public houses (pubs), so it comes as no surprise to see that they have built something that is quite different to anything else in this sedate seaside town.

On the whole I like it. It is simple, bright, stylish and seems to do its job well. I like the absence of gutters and drainpipes, and the way the roof becomes the walls with little overlap or intervening fixtures. When I looked at that I thought I'd like to see it in heavy rain! In fact, I'd like to see the building on an overcast day with featureless stratus above: it must look quite different from how it appears under a flawless blue sky. The bit I'm not so keen on is the area around it. Those randomly placed pieces of wood set into the gritted tarmac are clearly meant to be quirky counterpoints to the ordered pieces on the facade and side windows (I think). I'd have preferred a something little more rectilinear, without the timber.

When it came to photographing the building the semi-abstraction of the side appealed to me most, though if I go back I'll try a shot from very low down with verticals that converge more than they do in the smaller image.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

(Main photo)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Silly brand names and pier views

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The other day I was idly thinking of silly brand names for ranges of clothing and I came up with two short lists. The first group of names are deliberately brief and not so sweet - DIVOT, THUNK, GAWK, CRUD, and SWAT. The second set are quirky - SYNONYM, OFF THE WALL, LEFT FIELD, HIGH HEAVEN and FIG LEAF. I think some of these names could definitely make it out there in the market place: they're certainly no worse than some of the ludicrous examples I've seen printed across the bosoms, backs and rear ends of shoppers on the local high streets.

My current holder of the silliest clothing brand name is, I think, BENCH, although I'm no expert on this subject and there are doubtless dafter ones to be found. It took me a while to work out that this was a brand name at all, so large were the letters on some of the items of clothing, and initially I thought the wearers were employed by a company of that name. And in a way they were - to advertise on their behalf, but for zero wages, for which they're likely to have paid a price premium! It wasn't always like this. Brand names used to be discreet or completely invisible, and drew their inspiration from the manufacturer's name(s), the place they were made, or latterly by the use of a simple proper noun. Today names are "designed" by companies that specialise in branding, though ultimately they do little more than I did and simply pluck a few words from a thesaurus. Moreover, we've moved on from nouns into other parts of speech. In fact it was this that prompted today's reflection. I was wondering what title to give to this post and the phrase "view from" popped into my head. Then I remembered that I've seen sports wear (or at least sporty leisure wear) with that brand name. Who on earth thought up "VIEW FROM" as a brand name? And why did it get any farther than that person's first utterance of it? Perhaps because in a world where a book store can be called Amazon, a bank can be called Egg, a new video-on-demand platform can be called Qriocity (it deserves to fail for its name alone), and a re-arranged expletive (F.C.U.K.) can be used as a brand name to sell clothes, then clearly anything goes.

Today's photographs show Southwold Pier viewed from the beach, and Southwold and the area of beach from which I took the first shot, seen from the pier. The first photograph was taken around midday, and the second at about 10.00a.m. Piers are good vantage points for shots of seaside towns, and of course, make good subjects in themselves. Here, to illustrate that point, and for comparison, are two "views from" featuring Blackpool's Victorian North Pier - the Tower seen from the pier, and the pier seen from the promenade.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo 2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.) (36mm (72mm/35mm equiv.))
F No: f5.6 (5.3)
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100 (100)
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 (-1.0) EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Walling and windows, Aldeburgh Moot Hall

click photo to enlarge

A book I was reading recently offered a reason I'd not come across before to explain the jettying out of the upper storeys of timber-built houses of the 1500s and 1600s. When architectural historians discuss this subject it is usually in terms of increasing the floor space of the storeys above ground level without impinging on the width of the street at ground level. However, the author of my book, an architect specialising in restoration rather than an academic, described it as a way of giving rigidity to the floors in the upper storeys. He noted that most floor joists were laid with their widest dimension fixed to the floorboards, rather than as is the case today, the narrowest dimensions at the top and bottom. As a consequence of this the floors were springy, and flexed downwards towards the middle. Making the joists project beyond the top of the ground floor walls and building the upper floor wall at the end of them, beyond the line of the lower wall, counteracted this and gave rigidity to the floor. Is this so? I don't know, but it does sound plausible.

Shortly after I'd read this, and while I was still cogitating on the matter, I visited the Moot Hall in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, a structure that illustrates the principle. Pevsner says this building "stands as incongruously as if it were an exhibit. It must once have been in a little town centre, before the sea pushed its relative position back." The Moot Hall was built c.1520-1540 as a meeting place for the town's council. It still serves that purpose, though today it also hosts a charming little museum. The upper floor is an addition of 1654, reached by some external steps. Presumably the brick noggin infill between the timbers is a later addition. In fact the Hall has been repaired and restored on a number of occasions down the centuries, though particularly in 1854 when the ornate chimneys were added.

I'd like to have taken a decent photograph of the whole of the building, but the weather and parked vehicles conspired against me. However, this section of the walling and windows appealed to me for its decorative value and the lovely mixture of materials so I grabbed a shot. I've always had a soft spot for a good section of wall and windows, and this image is just the latest in a steadily growing sequence on my blog - see here, here, here and here for further examples

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

All Saints, Crowfield, Suffolk

click photo to enlarge

As I've travelled about England I've periodically come across a medieval church with walls that are wholly or partly constructed of wood. Usually this has been in the west midlands, southern and south east England. Churches such as Greensted (Essex), Pembridge (Herefordshire), Melverley (Shropshire), Brookland (Kent), and Besford (Worcestershire), reflect a local tradition and skills in timber construction as well as an absence or paucity of good building stone. The furthest north I've found such construction is the church of Lower Peover in Cheshire, where a sixteenth century stone tower rises above a building that is entirely "black and white". There was a time when most churches displayed regional characteristics - Suffolk flushwork, Norfolk flint, Yorkshire gritstone, Lincolnshire oolitic limestone, etc. But, it has always been the case that materials and styles have been copied from areas where they didn't originate, ever since the Normans began importing Caen stone. As late as 1902-4 the architects Bucknall & Comper decided that half-timbering would be right for their church at Gosberton Clough, Lincolnshire, and Victorians examples of this method of construction are not too hard to find.

Why then was I surprised to come across the half-timbered chancel of All Saints at Crowfield in Suffolk? Perhaps because all the other medieval Suffolk churches that I've come across are stone-built (this is the only Suffolk example of this building style in a church). In this county stone is usually imported and mixed with the local flint, "clunch", "crag", or with the small amount of freestone that can be dug locally. There was probably a time (pre-Norman) when timber was much more widespread in Suffolk church construction, but then that is true for much of central and southern England.

The chancel at Crowfield is a fifteenth century addition to the fourteenth century nave. It looks quite "domestic", probably by association with the much more common half-timbered houses and farms: only the tracery of the wooden window frames hint at the religious nature of the building. The graveyard of the church has been rationalised with an eye to ease of grass cutting, an "avenue" of gravestones being arranged as a pathway to the priest's door in the chancel, and others largely re-positioned around the periphery of the site. This gives the building a neat, park-like setting that isn't altogether to my taste.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/320 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A kaleidoscope of beach huts

click photos to enlarge
"Beach huts have become something of a photographic cliche for UK-based snappers." Or so I said in April 2009 when I posted a photograph of these brightly painted seaside cabins at Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk. Mind you, when I wrote that sentence I'd already posted photographs of beach huts at Fleetwood, Lancashire, and Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire. And I subsequently posted one from Cromer, Norfolk, and a different shot from Wells-next-the-Sea. Today I've got three shots of beach huts from Southwold, so I guess you could say that if they are a photographic cliche then it's one I'm happy to indulge in.

As I walked past these immaculate daytime residences in Suffolk (there are 300) I idly wondered whether there is a collective noun for them. I can't find one so I suggest "a spectrum of beach huts", "a variegation of beach huts", or better still perhaps, a kaleidoscope of beach huts". We came upon these long lines on promenade and sand fairly early in the day, so people weren't very numerous. Moreover the sky was bluer than we had any right to expect in mid-September, and these two facts together made my photography easier.

As well as being painted in each owners' chosen colour scheme most of the beach huts have names. Often they are humorous (Pete's Palace, Aunty Bong Bong, Jabba the Hut, OOZUTIZIT, ShoreThing), frequently they have a touch of the idyllic (Shangri-La, Sunny Retreat), and some just make you wonder (why "Shepherdess Rest")? However, the rightmost part of the group that are shown in the top and bottom images (the same set taken from different angles) were unusual in having names that follow a theme. In these collective action had triumphed over the rampant individualism that usually characterises these small dwellings. Here are some of the names - can you work out the theme? Victoria, Albert, Elizabeth, Queenie, Margaret Rose. It wasn't difficult was it!?

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

(Image 1)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Contre jour pier

click photo to enlarge

Contre jour means, literally, "against the day", but a better English translation is "against the light". Today's photograph is another of this kind of shot taken around the same time as yesterday's, further down the pier at Southwold. At one time in my photography of recent years I seemed to be taking these almost daily, perhaps seduced by the drama that is injected into an image when your lens moves near to the sun (see examples here, here, here and here). Today's photograph, however, whilst it has more impact than the same shot with the sun behind me would have had, is rather more subdued than the photographs I used to regularly turn out. Perhaps that's down to the clear sky, sharp details and shadows, calm sea and relatively few people.

Black and white is often used as a means of emphasising the powerful qualities of contre jour. Nineteenth century photographers noticed this effect almost immediately, and early cinema exploited it too, although in motion pictures it was the German Expressionists, such as Fritz Lang, and the Hollywood "film noir" of the 1940s and 1950s who took it to its heights. It's something I mean to do more of as autumn progresses and the sun is lower in the sky.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/2500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Southwold Pier

click photo to enlarge

As you point your camera nearer to the sun the dramatic quality of your image increases - and the colour drains away. That thought ocurred to me when I reviewed this photograph on my computer. But then I thought, hang on a moment, Southwold Pier is pretty devoid of colour anyway, so this image doesn't make that point very well.

I used to take more contre jour shots than I do now. I think it is my change of location to rural Lincolnshire: the subjects that work with this approach are now harder to find. However, on a recent visit to Suffolk I did take a few against the light, of which this is one. I kept the sun's brightness out of the shot - you can just see the edge of it at the top right of the frame.

I chose this shot for today because it happens to illustrate a few of the compositional devices I listed yesterday. Framing, using the posts and pier name; contrast by shooting contre jour; leading lines (the railings and pier itself); repetition of forms; balanced asymmetry (the sweep of the near pier to the left, the thrust of the main pier and pier name to the right); and a single subject. But, as I say above, it doesn't make my point about colours dying away as you point the lens closer to a strong light source.

Southwold Pier opened for business in 1900. That being the case you'd expect it to have large, ornate pavilions, substantial benches, decorative railings, and lashings of bright paint to emphasise that a pier is all about FUN. However there are a couple of reasons why the pier is a sober and studied essay in white, black and grey (the primrose yellow landward building excepted). The first is because, as with most piers, it has been knocked about a bit and very little remains from the early days. In 1934 a storm swept away the T-shaped landing stage at the end of its 810 feet (245m) length. Then, during the Second World War, like many east and south coast piers it was cut to prevent it being used by invasion ships. A further indignity was visited on it when it was struck by a drifting mine that exploded taking down another section. Repairs in 1948 proved to be insufficiently robust to prevent a 1955 storm cutting it in half, and in a storm of 1979 it was reduced to a stump a mere 150 feet (45.4m) long. However, in 1999 a fund raising campaign secured enough money to rebuild it, and in 2001 it was re-opened in the form we see today. That brings me to the second reason for its sober colours and undemonstrative architecture. Southwold is one of the English seaside towns without an "amusement" area. The place has a reputation as a middle-class playground, and I imagine that this is not unconnected with the pier's appearance and its difference from most other English piers.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic composition - some thoughts and ideas

click photo to enlarge

There is a craving amongst photographers to "learn the rules of composition". This is quite understandable because composition is crucial to constructing a good image. However, composition isn't a list of tricks, it is a way of seeing. John Ruskin has a couple of memorable lines on the teaching of composition. He was speaking in relation to architecture and painting, but what he said clearly applies to photography too. His first remark that I recall is, "If a man can compose at all, he can compose at once, or rather he must compose in spite of himself." In other words, a trained eye or a someone who is driven to create art does it without thinking. He added, "It is impossible to give you rules that will enable you to compose. If it were possible to compose pictures by rule Titian and Veronese would be ordinary men." Alexander Pope, in his poem "Windsor Forest", described landscape composition most succinctly and what he said applies to photography too: "Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree."

Desirable though it may be, it is unrealistic to expect the average photographer to immerse himself in Venetian painting, art theory, and poetry in order to master composition. Consequently writers on photography frequently list compositional "dos and donts". Here are a few that I have come across over the years. Most of them are helpful, especially to someone starting out in photography. They are in no particular order, and clearly there is no suggestion that a composition should include all of these devices. Rather the list is an aide-memoire, or a menu from which to select.

• The rule of thirds (the only compositional tip that many photographers remember!), whereby the subject is "best" placed at an intersection of two vertical and two horizontal lines, that divide the picture into thirds.
• Give the image visual balance about an imaginary centre line, always remembering that it is not the size of an object that determines its visual weight. In a landscape, for example, a person can be as "heavy" as a tree, a red object invariably has more weight than one that is brown, etc.
• Choose a rigidly symmetrical composition only when the subject suggests it or is itself symmetrical.
• Balanced asymmetry should be the usual aim because it offers the viewer more interest.
• Have a single main subject, thereby telling only one story in the photograph.
• Introduce contrast (dark/light, rough/smooth, near/far, in focus/blurred etc.) to give variety and interest.
• Introduce repetition of forms to give a rhythm (a line of columns, a row of trees, fence posts etc.), and consider breaking it with a person or some other intervening device.
• Give the composition a focal point in the sense of a principal area or climax...
• ... towards which leading lines (for example a road, railway track, fence, buiding facade etc.) will sometimes point.
• Look for cohesion in the composition so that every part relates to each other and supports the narrative that you are illustrating. 
• Introduce calm and stability with horizontals and verticals, dynamism with diagonals.
• Some say avoid horizontals, such as the horizon, at the centre of the composition because of the tendency for it to split the image into two parts. 
• Avoid large, empty areas in an image unless it is a device to emphasise an object.
• Avoid distractingly bright or strongly coloured areas away from the main subject.
• Consider framing the main subject with a naturally occurring object such as a tree branch, an arch, etc.
• Separate subject and background by, for example, lighting, colour, focus, etc.
• As well as left/right balance aim to have the bottom of the image heavier than the top: this feels more "right" to most people.
• People facing or moving into the frame usually works better than people "leaving" it.
• Objects and people usually need "breathing room" around them in the frame otherwise they look constricted.
• Many find an odd number of objects in a photograph works better than an even number (when the number is below 7 or thereabouts)
• Linked to the above, some say that a third element can make a simple composition more satisfying e.g. a vase of flowers (two elements) plus a few fallen petals (third element).

I suppose I could add to this list, or illustrate it, but that will have to do for now. The most important thing to remember about any advice concerning composition is it is just that - advice - and can be ignored to very good effect. There are fine photographs that flout each of the suggestions above, and many are equally good because they, knowingly or unknowingly, include them. The best advice about composition is this - if it looks right to you then it is right, because it's your photograph.

I was prompted to venture into this subject because I (unconsciously) included a third element in today's photograph. The distant boat is the one on the right of yesterday's photograph (which also has three elements!) I moved my position to include it in this image because it seemed to make it work better. Put your finger over it to decide whether you agree or not!

To prove my final point about rules being made to be ignored, here's a photograph that has compositional similarities to today's but has only two elements.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Soft sky at Aldeburgh

click photo to enlarge

When, many years ago, I first started to take a deeper interest in photography I began to think more about the weather, and particularly about the sky. Until I put more thought and effort into my pictures the importance of these two things hadn't really struck me. I'd read about light being the key to good images, and had seen how light can transform the mundane into something special. But, in every example that illustrated this point in magazines and books (no web then) it was either sunlight or flash that was the light source working its magic. Contre jour lighting, a low sun, flash pointed at the camera, deliberate flare, deep shadows contrasted with illuminated areas, and other techniques were very alluring, and fixed in my mind the value of a bright light source as a way of achieving drama.

What was never said, or at least I never read, was that soft, natural light, the sort of light that is spread evenly across a scene by a thick covering of cloud, can also lend a scene a delightful quality that has an appealing, understated beauty. But, over the years, I came to appreciate this kind of light and the weather that produces it. However, not just any old clouds will do. Low, uniform, stratus offers little to the photographer: the clouds have to have shape and shadows or include thinner, brighter areas. When this happens the colours on the land below are muted and highlights are few; the landscape can appear to have been drawn on dark paper with pastel crayons. A couple of days ago I had one of these skies as I was photographing on the beach at Aldeburgh in Suffolk. The shot I secured could never be described as dramatic, but it does have that calm, subdued softness that I like.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19mm (38mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Post windmill, Saxtead Green

click photo to enlarge

Records show that there has been a windmill at Saxtead Green in Suffolk since 1796. The Listed Building details for the present weatherboarded structure suggest that parts of it date back to that time. However, what is visible today is mainly the work of the nineteenth century, there having been at least three re-buildings during its lifetime.

Saxtead Green's mill is a post mill. That is to say the whole body of the mill and its machinery is mounted on a central vertical post. This is the earliest design of European windmill. There are quite a few remaining in Britain, but they are outnumbered by tower mills. Post mills are often turned to face the wind by manpower. This one has a fantail. Over the years the design of the post mill was improved. Here at Saxtead Green the base of the trestle (the brackets at the base of the post) is surrounded by a roundhouse that provides storage and protects the wooden post and trestle from the weather.The mill continued to work until 1947. In 1951 it passed into state care, and in 1957-60 was completely restored. Today it is managed by English Heritage and is open to the public.

The white woodwork, black and white buildings and overcast sky suggested at the point of taking the photograph that the final outcome for this shot might be a black and white image. It seems to work quite well.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On