Shadows, light and a font

click photo to enlarge

As fonts go the example at Swineshead church in Lincolnshire is very plain. So plain that it is impossible to date it from any stylistic details. It has an octagonal bowl on an octagonal stem with a base the same shape, like the great majority of fonts. It is mounted on an octagonal plinth with a raised step for the vicar, again, like many others. Where it differs from most other fonts with steps is in having two rather than three. The church has always seen great significance in the number three and the three steps of a font are thought to be in recognition of the Trinity. Given that the font offers little of interest or beauty, you must be wondering why I've bothered photographing it, and if you have visited this blog for a while, why I've photographed for a second time (the first attempt is here).

The answer is - the placing of the font and the light, especially the light. Many church fonts are found by the south porch door: next to the main entry door into the church was deemed suitable for the instrument that delivered a person into the Church through baptism. Often that means the font is squeezed up against pews, or is in a corner surrounded by tables, stacks of hymn books or even fire extinguishers. At Swineshead, however, the south porch door is no longer used, entry is by a small door embedded in the west door, and consequently the font has lots of space around it. The Victorian restoration provided a wonderful tiled floor with a pattern centred on the font. Combine all that with the position of the windows, and it makes a good photographic opportunity.

In my first attempt, referenced above, I went in quite close, excluded the windows, but used the strong light and shadows from the window and its tracery as part of the composition and interest. With this shot I thought I'd include the reticulated window, give greater emphasis to the space and darkness, and make the softly illuminated font and striking tile floor the visual focus.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

New and old tiles

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I'm currently debating whether or not to tile the floors of a couple of our downstairs rooms. I've laid floor tiles in the past and found it a relatively straightforward task: the hardest part, I recall, was deciding which tiles to buy! On that occasion I settled on some terracotta coloured quarry tiles. They were of a type that had been manufactured for more than a century, weren't especially fashionable, but were durable and looked good. Those were all qualities that appealed to me because I sometimes get quite exercised by the modern habit of furnishing with highly durable materials capable of lasting a couple of centuries which are then discarded in less than ten years because they have become unfashionable.

I've recently taken a couple of photographs of some tiles in two very different locations, and I thought I'd post them today. One image is a detail of a round outdoor table at a park cafe. Here the tiles - blue squares and triangles - were arranged by hand in concentric circles. The tables have the potential to last quite a few years, and the rain shouldn't be too much of a problem for the tiles or grout. But I have a feeling that I won't see them if I go for a cup of coffee five years from now. They'll probably stand the knocks that the public give them, but not the vagaries of fashion. I took the photograph for the bold shapes, strong contrast, and the way the reflected colours of the nearby building enlivened the surface.

The second image shows a detail of the tilework on the chancel walls of the church of St Mary at Sutterton, Lincolnshire. Much of this building dates from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. However, these tiles are High Victorian i.e. from about 1880. They are unusual for that period because each tile is a single shade, with none of the decorative details or impressed shapes that were favoured at the time, and because the force of the design comes solely from the arrangement of the limited number of colours. I can imagine that many would see these tiles as inappropriate in this setting - perhaps more suited to a municipal baths - but I like them a lot. The colour is quite rich, but the simple, repetitive design doesn't overpower the focus that is rightly on the altar. They've been there for 130 years or so, and there's no reason why they shouldn't double or triple that and still look as good as they do today.

photographs & 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 (f2.0)
Shutter Speed: 1/160 (1/30)
ISO: 80 (320)
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tiles and styles

click photo to enlarge

It's nothing short of criminal that tiles, a wall and floor covering that is made to last, should be subject to the capricious fancies of fashion, and that people should feel pressured to regularly change the perfectly sound surfaces of their kitchens, bathrooms and showers. Anyone who has lived through the last fifty years can very easily assign a tile to the decade in which it was manufactured. From the mottled beige of 1950s fireplace tiles, through the "cracked ice" tiles in sage, turquoise and pink of the 1970s, to the small fabric-backed mosaics of the turn of the millennium and the elongated "stone" of today, the pernicious march of fashion seems, ridiculously, to affect durable tiles just as much as more flimsy housewares, clothing and vehicles.

Was it always so? Not really. The Romans introduced tiles to Britain in the form of mosaic flooring, and many examples of their figurative and decorative designs can be seen in museums. But it was not until the monasteries of the middle ages wanted to floor their buildings with something better than trodden earth, rushes and stone, that floor tiles became common again. Their pattern-impressed and slip-decorated designs using symmetrical crosses, circles, part circles, birds, shields, etc remained, to the untutored eye, much the same for a few hundred years. And, the beauty of what they produced so appealed to the Gothic Revival architects of the nineteenth century that they faithfully copied many of these earlier designs.

Today's photograph shows the font and some of these Victorian tiles in the medieval church of St Mary, Swineshead, Lincolnshire. The fact that the designs of such tiles derive directly from medieval examples, or from catalogues of drawings of early tiles such as Parker's "Glossary of Architecture" (1840), and from original designs that often re-worked the motifs of the middle ages, makes identifying the manufacturer quite difficult to anyone but an enthusiast. As in many British churches those at Swineshead are probably made by Minton, but could well be by Campbell, Maw, Godwin or one of the smaller makers. Victorian tiles are commonly found in the chancel, the most sumptuously decorated part of a church. Here at Swineshead they were also deemed suitable for the area around the font, reflecting its importance as the place where a Christian is received into the the church through baptism. I was attracted to this shot by the sunlight streaming through a clear glass window, illuminating the font and its surrounds, throwing a lattice of shadows over everything, and leaving the background in relative gloom.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -3.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On