Wisbech port colours

click photo to enlarge
There has been a port at Wisbech since the medieval period. Of course, inland ports (Wisbech is over 10 miles from the sea) made a lot of sense when land transport was so limited by the size of carts and the speed at which they could travel. The town originally stood on the River Ouse but when the mouth of this river silted up and it was diverted to King's Lynn, the River Nene was made to serve the town.

The port became prosperous in the 19th century following the drainage of the Fens.  The area was noted for the  largest grain market outside London. Ships from Wisbech sailed down the Nene to The Wash, and from there took agricultural produce up and down the eastern coast of Britain and across the North Sea. Returning ships imported a variety of goods but notably coal and timber, the latter from the Baltic region. Trade with the Baltic continues today as does the import of timber, some of which can be seen in the photograph. A fortnightly service runs from Wisbech to Riga in Latvia.

As we walked past the docks the other day the bright blue of the sky was set against the red of a crane and the yellow warning triangles on the flood defence gates. This conjunction of primary colours seemed a good subject for a photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Primary Colours, Port of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wisbech's London plane tree

click photo to enlarge
More than half of central London's trees are the London plane (Platanus x acerifolia), a hybrid of the oriental plane and the American plane. The first of these trees was planted over three hundred years ago and the oldest are massive, providing not only the beauty of their leaves and bark, but also shade on hot summer days and fascinating silhouettes in winter. Some of the examples in Berkeley Square (where the nightingale sang) were planted in the 1720s and have very asymmetrical outlines with large, low hanging boughs.

Walking through the main park in the Cambridgeshire town of Wisbech recently I stopped under a large plane tree that I first noted several years ago. On the ground below the canopy were many brown leaves, the first to fall from the tree this autumn, but up above there were still plenty of green leaves clinging on and many hanging fruit balls. This tree has a large, low bough - you can see it on the right of the photograph, and in taking my wide-angle photograph I made sure to include it. The main trunk has lost its attractive pattern of old and new patches of bark, but you can still see this on the low bough. The bright sun piercing the foliage, and blue sky behind, make my photograph look like it was taken in spring. But this is an autumn sight and a fine one too.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: London Plane Tree, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 9mm (18mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Royal arms in churches

click photo to enlarge
When Henry VIII, as crown, replaced the Pope as the head of the church in England one of the steps that he had enacted, to remind people of the transfer of power, was to insist on the royal coat of arms being displayed in all churches.These were usually made of painted wood or in the form of a fabric hanging that was fixed to a wall or sometimes hung under an arch. Many royal coats of arms can still be seen today in churches up and down the country. The particular design of the arms, which has changed down the centuries, tell of the reign in which they were made. Few exist from the time of Henry and Elizabeth 1, and in the period of the Commonwealth during the C17 many were destroyed by zealous Puritans. After the Restoration the element of compulsion regarding display was removed but many churches continued to erect royal arms. Eighteenth and nineteenth century examples are common.

Today's photograph is a detail of the very large, wooden coat of arms that hangs below an arch at the west end of the parish church in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. It dates from the seventeenth century, and is much bigger and more showy than many examples.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.5
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:2000
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Former Empire Cinema, Wisbech

click photo to enlarge
The uses to which redundant cinemas have been put are various. I've seen them turned into supermarkets, carpet showrooms, nightclubs and bars. However, one use for these former picture palaces has been more prevalent than all the rest put together: I mean, of course the conversion into bingo halls.

That is the current use of the former Empire Cinema in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.This particular building was erected in 1932, the work of the architectural partnership, Ward and Woolnough. The style chosen, as for so many metropolitan and some regional cinemas was Art Deco of the Moderne variety. Reconstituted Ketton stone was chosen for the main facade where symmetry prevails left, right and above the main, entrance. The composition is stepped with a central "crest" and prominent oriel windows emphasising the middle. The glazing bars are quite unusual, eschewing the almost mandatory horizontal banding in favour of geometrical designs everywhere except for the sunburst of the main doors. Brick is used everywhere except at the front.

Most cinemas are, to my mind, interesting rather than beautiful, architecturally and socially noteworthy buildings that enliven the streetscape with their glitzy oddness. It's appropriate that they continue to be used as places of low-cost entertainment, not only because that continues by other means their raison d'etre, but also because it usually results in their exteriors and interiors remaining intact due to a lack of funds for refurbishment and "improvement".

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm - 27mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mock shop fronts

click photo to enlarge
One of the few growth industries in these depressed times is the mock shop front. These are either manufactured in printed form, ready to be applied to the protective boarding that is fixed to the empty property, or more often, hand-painted by a local artist/painter. I've noticed quite a few of these on my travels, and over the past few years the number has visibly increased.

The main reason for their appearance is the closure of town-centre businesses unable to continue trading due to the economic downturn, and the understandable unwillingness of local traders and councils to have their high streets blighted by too many obviously empty premises. Of course, the growth of out-of-town shopping centres with their plentiful, free parking closed high street shops well before the onset of the latest economic crisis. But, what was a managed decline has, since 2008, increased to the point where something had to be done. A mock shop front is clearly only a stop-gap measure, but longer-term solutions are slower to appear and so these representations are not entirely without value.

I've seen examples that are banal, amateurish and inventive. One or two have been obvious labours of love and quite admirable. Today's example, in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, falls somewhere in the middle of this range. It represents an old-style butcher's shop with a range of meats, pies, game etc. all priced using pre-decimal currency values. It's a facade I've wanted to photograph before, but only on my recent visit to the town was the view of it unimpeded by parked vehicles.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Winter trees

click photo to enlarge
Winter trees - at least the deciduous variety - are different from the trees of spring, summer and autumn. In the more benign seasons they appear genial, softer, friendlier, more welcoming, a complement to their location. In winter, however, these trees seem to have a split personality. Looked at on a cold, clear day, with blue sky above, or seen against the warm glow of a sunrise or sunset, the tracery of twigs, branches and boughs charm the eye with their beauty and invite us to look more closely at them and admire their delicacy. However, on a cold, damp, grey foggy day, the wet, black, skeletal silhouettes can assume a severe, malign, even depressing, appearance.

I was thinking about this as I pointed my camera across a piece of waste ground in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, framing some factory chimneys and the smoke or steam that was issuing from them. The billowing, white clouds were being distressed and dispersed by the wind as they climbed from the stack and trailed across the dark clouds above. Should I move to my left and exclude the trees from my composition, or should I include them? I briefly tossed those thoughts back and forth in my head and decided that the trees, on this occasion, added a desolate touch that intensified the slightly grim prospect before me, and I took my shot. In summer they would add a welcome greenness, softening the location, offering towers of natural beauty in this urban setting where housing abutted the towers of industry. But, on this late November day, despite the sun breaking through the cloud cover, that welcome verdure was only a memory and a promise.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Acers and architects

click photo to enlarge
I've written elsewhere in this blog about the way architects use trees and shrubs around buildings (see here and here). As far as trees go many appear to have a predilection for what I call "lollipop" trees, that is to say those trees that don't grow very tall and which can be easily pruned to produce a clear straight trunk topped with a pile of roughly spherical, elliptical or cone-shaped foliage. The species that lend themselves to this kind of treatment and which, therefore, abound around new buildings (at least in the UK) are: rowan, whitebeam, False acacia, bay laurel, crab apple, flowering cherry, acer, etc.

Recently, as I've travelled around, I've been struck by the number of new buildings that have been planted with acers of one kind or another, but especially those cultivars with leaves that turn a bright orange/yellow in autumn. I know from experience that though acers are hardy if sheltered they can be damaged by late spring frosts and cold winds. Consequently I'm a little puzzled at their apparent popularity in open, windy locations where they are frequently going to receive intermittent tending and are likely to be relatively dry in summer due to the hard surfaces around them. Perhaps landscape architects know something about these trees that I don't.

Today's main photograph shows the Boathouse Business Centre in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, a building that has featured before on this blog (click here, then scroll down). It has three of these trees giving bright splashes of colour that contrast with the white and muted tones of the building and paving. At this time of year it's easy to see the strong contribution that the trees make to the building and its location. Elsewhere in this development the alder - an interesting choice - is the main tree that has been used. The smaller photograph shows the decorative swan and part of the main facade of the former Fogarty Feather Factory in Boston, Lincolnshire, now converted to flats. I've also featured this building before. If you'd like to view the full facade or read of its history see here. In this instance the acer is not planted in connection with the old building but forms part of the landscaping of a car park in front of a fairly new "shed" i.e. a superstore selling computers and associated paraphernalia. I couldn't bring myself to photograph the tree in front of that awful building with its pink paintwork so I positioned myself to include the older facade and that very unlikely looking swan.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

More of the fence

click photo to enlarge
In a recent post I mentioned how, in common with most photographic enthusiasts, I make multiple exposures of a subject that I feel is going to produce a good photograph. But I also observed that, in the great majority of instances, the first or second shot that I take usually proves to be the best, and that the subsequent ones rarely improve on them in any way.

But, a subject that can produce one good photograph can often produce a couple more slightly different photographs, and I frequently find myself "working over" a subject, trying to find in it everything that it has to offer photographically speaking. In the past I've likened this to mining a photographic seam in the way that miners try to extract every last piece of coal before moving their machinery on to the next location. The fence I encountered the other day offered that kind of opportunity and today I've posted a couple of the other photographs I took of it.

The main one has a semi-abstract look that appeals to me, and I was pleased that the newly planted, alder trees still had enough leaves on them to add some shadows to the bottom of the image. The idea of the smaller photograph appealed for the same reasons that yesterday's did - the ambiguity of real sky juxtaposed with a photograph of sky. I was tempted to include the graffiti that was at the bottom of the sky photograph but it was just too coarse for family viewing! However, the scratch and and the odd mark add just enough to make it clear what is being viewed.

The other photographs on the fence were old, black and white shots of Wisbech. They were the work of Lilian Ream who ran a photographic studio in the town from 1909 to 1949. She did any work that came her way including portraits, events and news. I didn't manage to make a satisfactory image that included any of her displayed work, but I did buy a book of her photographs from the local museum.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reality and illusion

click photo to enlarge
In the days before the dark arts of digital manipulation through programmes such as Photoshop many people held the view that "the camera never lies". It was taken as self-evident that a photograph was a factual representation of a scene. Yes, if it was in black and white then clearly the colour had been drained from it, but if it retained colour then what you saw was, people believed, the truth. In fact, "the camera never lies" was never a particularly useful statement because the meaning carried by every photograph is, in some way, altered by both the photographer and the medium. And of course, even in the days of film, deliberate deception was possible in photography. Multiple images could be blended into one, tricks with people and objects near and far could be constructed, people could be erased from photographs, and much else could be done to deceive the viewer.

Today almost anything is possible and "Photoshopping" of one sort or another is widespread. Sometimes the viewer is aware of the alterations, at other times they are not. Yet many photographers - I count myself one of them - prefer to limit their manipulation to essentially those things that were possible with film: tricks such as dodging, burning, adjusting contrast, removing dust on the film/sensor etc. Such people also often prefer to find real scenes that have the ambiguity necessary to deceive the viewer, to make them scratch their head and wonder quite what is going on, rather than spend time altering a photograph using the computer to achieve that effect.

The other day I walked past some wooden fencing in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. It screened a site that is earmarked for development. The fencing has been there for a while, and the economic downturn seems to be extending the period that it is needed. There are painted patterns on the plywood boards and photographs of local scenes, devices that aim to make the utilitarian structure a little more palatable and a little less grim. When I stood and looked at different sections of the fencing the possibility of a few "deceptive" or ambiguous shots came to mind. The first photograph that I took is shown above. It doesn't take long to work out what is going on, but at first glance it is a little puzzling - rather like the bull in the lorry of a few days ago.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f7.1 Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wisteria doorways

click photo to enlarge

We recently had a day in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. It happened to coincide with some of the better weather that this generally wet and windy spring has brought, with pleasanter temperatures, some sun here and there, and a welcome absence of precipitation. So, we spent quite a while walking around, enjoying the plentiful historic buildings that are to be found in the Fenland town. One of the best sequence of buildings in Wisbech is to be found on the North Brink, a street near the centre that follows the course of the River Nene. The architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, called North Brink "one of the most perfect Georgian streets of England." In terms of brick-built streets I think it is possibly the very best, having quality and variety rarely seen elsewhere.

But, on the day of our visit it wasn't the totality of North Brink that caught our eye, nor was it the visual interest and delight to be found in individual buildings. Rather it was a group of doorways decorated by flowering wisteria. As we came upon, first one, then another, it seemed that an inspired owner, by planting wisteria in the small space between facade and pavement, had triggered other owners into doing the same. The main photograph shows the front of the grandest building on the street, Peckover House of c.1725. This three-storey town house of yellow brick dressed with red brick and stone had wisteria growing across most of the ground floor of the main facade, its wilful, sinuous forms contrasting with the precise control of the eighteenth century elevation.

Not too far away was No. 10, an early eighteenth century, three-storey house that was raised to four storeys in the nineteenth century, a time when the windows with their hood shades were added. Here the wisteria was squeezed into the space between a bay window and the late eighteenth century doorcase with its Roman fluted columns. Farther down the street was another fine wisteria, this time on a one of a pair of Jacobean-Gothic Revival houses of the 1850s, framing its pointed doorway and the Gothic-style panelled door.

Wisteria with its short-lived, lilac-coloured blossom and sturdy trunk and branches, is a popular choice for the adornment of the front of houses. I've posted photographs of other buildings that have made use of it - see, for example, this seventeenth century farmhouse door and facade. I've only used the plant once myself. The second house that we owned had a very unattractive garage and the wisteria that we grew up its wall helped to ameliorate its utilitarian ugliness.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 30mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fencing off spiral staircases

click photo to enlarge

I've eulogized the spiral staircase elsewhere in this blog, and I've included photographs of many of the examples, old and new, that I've come across on my travels. I've been especially pleased that architects today often choose steel versions for external entry and exit, and more particularly as fire escapes. However, with the increasing popularity of the latter a problem has arisen: how to keep the unwanted - robbers, vandals and kids - off them. The answer has an ugliness that all but destroys the functional beauty of the spiral staircase.

It usually involves erecting a circle of triple point palisade fencing around it at ground level, with entry through a lockable gate made of the same material. It's a sad indictment of our society that such a vicious thing exists, but it adds insult to injury to use it in this way. I acknowledge that there are circumstances in which it may be necessary, but I'm beginning to think that if one of these rings of steel is the answer then a spiral staircase shouldn't be the solution an architect adopts!

Today's photographs show two spiral staircases on the exterior of the Boathouse Business Centre at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, the subject of yesterday's post and this one in February 2010. Both have the offending circular fence at the base. I managed to exclude it on the main photograph that includes the helical wind turbine, and was quite pleased with the strong, dramatic shape that I captured. However, I deliberately included it in the other image as an illustration of the point I wished to make, but also because, combined with the shapes and colours of the rest of the composition it almost achieved a Russian Constructivist quality. Almost, but not quite!

If, after sampling these, somewhat disfigured spiral staircases, you'd like to see some more interesting examples, you might like to try this one in a Cambridge museum, this one on the back of some Blackpool offices, this one in South Stack Lighthouse, Anglesey, this reflection of one on Blackpool Casino, or this almost-spiral at Somerset House, London.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Building fashions and external louvres

click photos to enlarge

Building fashions come and go; they have always done so. During my lifetime I've experienced fads and fancies as diverse as concrete with the wood shuttering imprint deemed suitable for external walls, glass and aluminium cladding, external glass lifts, X-braces on skyscrapers, tensioned plastic awning roofs and much else. As the millennium approached it seemed that no superstore or industrial estate offices was complete without an entrance picked out with a partially glazed metalwork structure in blue or red. In recent years an increasing number of new flats, offices and other buildings have been sheathed with slats of hardwood that very quickly pick up stains from rainwater.

The dark cuboid block on the right of the building in today's main photograph of the Boathouse Business Centre is faced in just that kind of wood, and exhibits just that kind of problem. However, it's not the modern use of timber that I've been thinking about recently; rather, it's the proliferation of aluminium aerofoil fin louvres. If any one detail marks out a building as being constructed in the past dozen or so years its these high-tech slats fitted to manage solar gain. They are mounted on the outside of the wood-faced block above. You can see them on the building in the smaller photograph - the Red Lion Quarter in Spalding. There are further examples on my photograph of Hayes Wharf Tower, Lincoln, and even this car park in King's Lynn has a facade that mimics them. Are these louvres the only way that architects can deal with solar gain? Of course not, but they are fashionable, and clients surely like to feel that a building they commission is of its time. And it seems that, at the moment that means these aluminium fins.

Incidentally, when I was looking at the Red Lion Quarter building it occurred to me that, in coming up with the elevation that I've photographed, the architect looks like he's been influenced by 1930s cinema design. The small flight of steps leading to the glass doors, the slight overhang with columns, the bordered horizontal window band above, all say to me English "moderne", a variant of Art Deco beloved of pre-war cinema architects.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bokeh, OOF and glass

click photo to enlarge

Sometimes I think that we live in an increasingly casual world. Casual has its upside, certainly, but it can have disadvantages too. Written English is slowly (and in some circles rapidly) casting off the structures and formalities that the twentieth century inherited from the Victorian age. Spoken English is following a similar course. And where language goes dress by and large follows, though in some areas such as weddings the past twenty years has seen the re-appearance of garments last seen during the Edwardian era. But it's the changes in the technical language associated with photography that has exercised me of late.

I can live with the introduction of bokeh, a Japanese word meaning the way a lens renders the out of focus areas of a photograph. It's a single word that describes something that takes several words in English. What I can't manage though is the use of OOF for "out of focus". This word/abbreviation, one that is better kept for the sound of exhaled air that accompanies a punch in the stomach, makes frequent appearances in photography forums. It hasn't yet, as far as I know, made the leap into formal written texts, but it can only be a matter of time. Perhaps it is the pervasiveness of "text speak" that makes it seem acceptable. However, the modern usage that really stirs me up is the word "glass" instead of "lens" or "lenses". I think it's the cliquish familiarity that annoys me most. It shouldn't, I know, but it does!

Today's photograph of a distant Wisbech factory seen through a wire fence that had green netting fixed to it prompted today's reflection. When I looked at it on the compter screen I thought to myself, "I like the OOF bokeh that my choice of glass produced in this image." Or words to that effect.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/205
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cast iron and fountains

click photo to enlarge

Every now and then I get a flier through my letter-box soliciting unwanted metal items. They are delivered by a scrap metal dealer who collects anything that people want to throw away. These items go to UK recycling centres, or increasingly, for export to China which has an insatiable appetite for metal. When I lived in North-West England I often saw ships at Glasson Dock near Lancaster loading shredded waste metal for export. On a recent visit to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk I saw this again.

The Industrial Revolution brought a great increase in the amount of metal that Britain manufactured and used. It also saw the invention of different kinds of metal for specialist purposes, and iron and steel, in particular, started to usurp more traditional materials. Buildings started to employ structural steel in place of wood, stone and brick. In ship-building wood became confined to smaller craft as first iron, then steel took over. Even in everyday objects metal became the material of choice. Take ornamental and drinking fountains. These were traditionally made of stone, had very functional designs (except where marble was used) and lasted for centuries with regular, but basic, maintenance. However, the spread of cast-iron manufacture eventually changed this market, and every city and town, and many villages installed ornate fountains made of this relatively inexpensive and very malleable material. They continued being produced well into the twentieth century (see my earlier blog post about the Coronation Fountain at March, Cambridgeshire).

I recently came across another cast-iron fountain in The Circle garden at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. It is, very typically, located at the center of an axial path, an eyecatcher and a thing of beauty at a focal point. The bowl has very attractive leaves, serpentine tendrils and paterae embellishing its surface. Regrettably, however, it is currently detached (broken) from its stem. It lays at the base of some bushes, rusting and gathering the odd shrivelled leaf that falls on it during our present dry spell. I hope the bowl is only temporarily parted from its stem, and is awaiting a suitably skilled craftsman who will make the fountain whole again: its quality, age and location demand no less. It would be a small tragedy if the pieces were shipped off to China to be returned in pieces of inexpensive, ephemeral junk.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Showing, interpreting and explaining

click photo to enlarge
One of the things that every photograph says to a viewer is, "Look at this" because photography is a way of showing and interpreting the world. Many of the earliest photographs emphasised the medium's ability to bring accurate images from across the world into the eye and mind of people who had never ventured abroad. In November 1839, less than three months after Daguerre's invention became available, the painter Horace Vernet was using it to record scenes in the city of Alexandria in Egypt - a remarkable example of the quick implementation of new technology. The images Vernet made enabled European audiences to see what had previously been depicted only in words, engravings and paintings.

But, when the novelty of the photograph had worn off people began to see that cameras could do more than simply show the world; they could interpret it in something like the way that painters did. It was this important step that made some see photography as a medium capable of producing art. Today the field of photography is still divided up in this way, with amateurs and professionals producing images that either show or interpret.

Today's photograph is one that I took at the Boathouse Business Centre, a new and striking looking building at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire. It is a partner to the image I posted a couple of weeks ago. But, where that photograph was essentially "show", this one has an element of "interpret". How? Well, firstly I deliberately tilted the camera for the shot, and in such a way that the central column of the spiral staircase (and the vertical wind turbine) form a diagonal across the square frame. In doing that I could use the treads of the stairs as a curving diagonal across the square in the opposite direction, making a balanced, dynamic composition. And, in emphasizing the pattern of the segments of the underside of the stair treads I'm inviting the viewer to not only look at a possibly overlooked part of the building, I'm also saying look at it the way I saw it. My image, therefore, is as much about form and composition as it is about the subject.

Describing my photograph in this way makes it sound a rather fine and grand image: it's not. But that's always a danger when you describe the how and why of a photograph or painting. I think my shot's O.K., but no more than that. The act of putting into words the how and why of image making is something that photographers (and painters for that matter) are reluctant to do. Perhaps they think it robs their work of some of its magic and mystery, and makes it too accessible! Whatever the reason, it shouldn't be only critics and academics doing this sort of thing, and I try to offer a little explanation every now and then.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The "Boathouse", Wisbech

click photo to enlarge
The Cambridgeshire settlement of Wisbech still retains much of its character as a Georgian market town. Many of its historic buildings have escaped the attentions of the improvers and developers, and it has a very high number of listed buildings - about 270 - for such a comparatively small place. However, this relative bounty in terms of eighteenth century architecture seems only partly the result of conscious conservation: the decline of the town from its glory years, with the attendant lack of development, is also an important factor.

However, Fenland District Council and the people of this part of Cambridgeshire are clearly taking steps to revitalise the area, and I came across one such example on my recent visit. The "Boathouse" Business Centre is a landmark office and services building next to the River Nene, the latest development in an area that already includes a marina, and promises more commercial space and riverside flats. The idea of "landmark" buildings as the focus of development seems widespread in Britain today, with museums (Manchester, Bradford), galleries (Salford, Liverpool, Gateshead), aquaria (Hull), and many other iconic, often cultural, structures being pressed into service. It seems to work: the failures - such as Manchester's Urbis (many say it didn't fail) which is to become the National Museum of Football - seem to be few.

This modest example in Wisbech has a shape that seems a little too obvious for its location: the pointed ends that echo a bow and stern, the white paint, the "bridge" balcony and the mast-like vertical wind turbine and street light all seem to proclaim too loudly, "I'm next to a marina - geddit!" That criticism notwithstanding, it is a good addition to the area, an interesting subject for a visiting photographer, and I hope it succeeds in bringing jobs and life back to this part of the town's riverside.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Colour or black and white?

Click photos to enlarge
Many people question the relevance of black and white photographs in our world of colour. "What's the point?" they say. "We see in colour, we can print and view in colour, why do we continue with this limited palette that derives from old technology and the need for inexpensive reproduction?" It's not just the man in the street that holds this view, but many amateur photographers and quite a few enthusiasts and professionals. Of course, within photography we also have the contrarians who use nothing but black and white, seeing it as a "purer" form, untainted by the glitz of colour, and seduced by its association with "art photography" and some of the medium's masters.

I started my photography in the late 1960s when colour processing for home-produced snaps was widespread but black and white was still readily available as an option. I usually had my prints processed in black and white and when I wanted colour chose transparencies (slides). By the 1970s I was having mainly colour prints when I paid for processing, but I developed my own black and white shots and my own transparencies. Of all the images that I have from those years the black and white prints are the ones that have lasted best, followed by the transparencies (there's no difference between those that were commercially developed and the ones I did myself), with the colour prints a poor third. In fact, so concerned was I by the deterioration of the latter that I scanned them all several years ago in an attempt to keep something of their original qualities.

However, digital files in colour and black and white have equal longevity - and who knows how long that will be? - so that's not a reason for me continuing to convert shots to black and white. Why then do people do it? Well, some see it as the classic form of photography and others like its elegance. Some prefer its simplicity, and there's no denying that there are compositions that work in black and white that wouldn't in colour - often because a patch of a bright hue throws the shot out of balance, or clashes with another colour. Then there's the evocative nature of the medium; the way it can be used to cast the viewers mind back into a recent (or fairly remote) past. Many like the way it changes the emphasis of an image, concentrating our minds on the essentials of a portrait or an urban landscape. Then there's the drama that can be more easily realised through a monochrome photograph.

I often do a quick conversion of a colour shot that looks like it might have more potential in black and white. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong, and other times I just can't make up my mind, which was the case with this image. It shows some houses in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire that date from about 1800. The terrace - called Union Place - forms one segment of part of a circular arrangement of houses that is bigger than a crescent but not quite a circus (both those words being used in the architectural sense). The shadows falling on the buildings from the circular garden that all the houses face adds drama to a shot that I thought would benefit from a black and white conversion (with the addition of the digital equivalent of a yellow filter). But, the complementary nature of the blue sky and orange/brown brickwork also has its attractions. So, as a departure from my usual practice I include both versions for your consideration. Which do you prefer?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On