Photographing the ordinary and familiar

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Every now and then I include a quotation in my blog posts. I like quotations for the way they frequently condense, pithily, an important truth in a small number of words. Several years ago, when moving house prevented me from maintaining PhotoReflect at its then current level, I created for a few months, a less labour intensive blog that I called PhotoQuoto. It gave me the opportunity to make use of some of the quotations I'd collected and savoured down the years and it was an exercise that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Recently, one of my blog posts from the first month of PhotoReflect's existence (January 18th 2006), as well as its attendant quotation, came to mind. We were doing a familiar walk past a collection of rather ordinary old barns. These seem to have grown up organically as needed, the oldest nearest the road, newer ones added on ever further away. Next to what was probably the oldest structure a relatively young ash tree stood, its "keys" still hanging in heavy bunches despite the weeks of strong winds that we experienced at the turn of the year. The buildings and tree, together with the puddles from recent rain, and the sky that looked like it might clear or could bring further precipitation, was suddenly enlivened by a fleeting glimmer of brighter light. The words that came to mind as I framed my shot were those that I'd used eight years ago, from the American director, artist and writer, Aaron Rose (1969 - ): "In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary." In those few moments the familiar, mundane buildings came alive, photographically speaking, and seemed a much better prospect for a photograph than they usually do. Looking at the shot a couple of days later I still hold that opinion. However, I do wonder whether a photograph of some barns that I took last year might also have been a factor in making me look anew at this group.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ancient field systems, Langcliffe

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The derelict field barn in today's main photograph can be seen on the first ot the smaller photographs. It is at a position on a line approximately ten o'clock from the centre of the image. It's one of the more recent features of the fields on this section of hillside between Langcliffe and the old Craven Quarry. How old is it? Probably nineteenth century judging by the style and the stone main roof, though it could be earlier. An extension with a slate roof is newer.

I've often looked across the valley at these fields, especially when the sun is low, because then the shadows reveal the work of farmers over hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. The most obvious remains are several cultivation terraces or lynchets. These appear to be deliberate constructions rather than those that passively arise due to ploughing across the slope. The west-facing aspect of the valley side would mean that terraces enabled farmers to make easier use of the land and maximise the warmth of the sun. Celtic field systems often exhibit such features, and they continued to be used into the medieval period. There are also a number of close parallel ridges that go down the hillside. These are long medieval fields that appear to have had earth or perhaps stone boundary walls, probably to separate them from neighbouring plots. Some are not unlike the Gaelic "lazy beds", cultivated banks separated by channels, an agricultural system not unknown in England, though some here must surely have been simply narrow holdings (see the photograph taken from nearby with the floodwater). Small, square fields can also be detected that are probably Romano-British in origin.

The narrowness of the Ribble valley at this point leaves only one or two field widths available in the valley bottom. These would benefit from silt deposition when the river flooded but during such times they would be unusable. Consequently early farmers would have had to clear stone and trees from the inundation-free lower slopes to make fields suitable for planting or for improving to make hay and pasture. Grass is the main crop today. It feeds both sheep and cattle, beef and dairy, both as it grows and in the form of silage or hay. The fields that are deeper green, showing less brown, indicate where herbicides and fertiliser have been used to improve the grass. Farmers long ago, as today, must have carefully weighed the costs against the benefits of improving the ground on the higher slopes. Often the answer will have been to run fewer sheep on the unimproved grass of the rougher ground and "tops" and bring them down into the valley for the winter.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.6mm (39mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tractor work

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The other day I watched a tractor as it began to break up the surface of a field that had given up its wheat crop a few weeks ago. As the driver began his work I watched with incredulity as the vehicle reared up, stallion-like, on its large rear wheels, the front pair resting on nothing but several feet of fresh air. Clearly the weight that had been fixed to the front of the tractor was insufficient for the job in hand. After a few moments the tractor set off again and once more its front wheels went high in the air. The driver's tinkering with the front counter-balance weight was followed by a couple more less spectacular "take offs", and then, after a final adjustment that seemed to bring it under control, it settled down to slowly working up and down the field. As it got nearer to me I noticed that the weight had been moved well forward from the front wheels so that it offered a greater counter-force. Presumably the driver had miscalculated when making his original setting.

As I returned to my own work I reflected that it was only a few days ago that the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) was abolished by our incompetent and divisive coalition government. This organisation had the power to set the minimum pay rate and conditions for agricultural workers. It had done so successfully for many years, but this was not good enough for our deregulating government. From 1st October 2013 the national minimum wage and general employment law applies to agricultural work. The AWB was originally established because of the distinctive conditions of employment that apply to agricultural workers - for example, tied housing, the need for irregular hours and seasonal work. Watching the tractor driver I was reminded that statistics usually show agricultural employment (after fishing) at the top of any list of the most hazardous areas of work. Part of the reason for this is that people are often working alone with big, powerful machinery - such as tractors - or managing large, unco-operative animals. In many of the occupations that are placed lower on these lists, such as policing, the rate of remuneration reflects the danger of the job. As of this month that's very unlikely to be the case for farm workers, if indeed it ever was.

The tractor in today's photograph is resting after its days work. Presumably it wouldn't fit in the barn and the farmer seems to be using it as a barrier to prevent the theft of whatever else he's got in there.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/4
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Barns in the landscape

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Barns are a class of building that has had a longer life than many. Where buildings such as castles, windmills, oast houses or forges have usually dropped out of use or been converted to other roles, barns long continued to offer their original purpose to farmers. It's true that today many contain tractors rather than hay, wheat or barley, but the basic enclosed, dry and secure space that a barn offers has been an enduring need on most farms. This must account, in part, for the survival of the great monastic barns such as that built around 1300 by the Cistercians at Great Coxwell in Oxfordshire or the Knights Templars' barns of the 1200s at Cressing Temple in Essex. I say "in part" because these buildings are a cut above the utilitarian, having an almost architectural quality, and that will also hve influenced their retention.

I was considering this recently as I walked passed a small barn near Settle in North Yorkshire. I've known this stone building - and the many barns like it in the area - since childhood. I've watched some continue to be used for agricultural purposes, seen others converted into houses of questionable design and despaired as yet more have been allowed to slowly crumble and fall down. The field barns of the Yorkshire Dales are usually smaller than those found near the farms. Often they had a hay loft and space for cattle below, but generally had a number of uses. They frequently have names: this one is called Far Thornber Barn and you can see another photograph of it here. I stopped and photographed the barn once more and as I did so my attention was caught by the shaft of sunlight that was shining down inside its entrance arch. There was clearly a hole in the roof and I could see some of its ridge stones were missing. On past experience, particularly that of the nearby Fish Copy Barn, the roof will collapse in a few years unless it is renovated. That would be a shame because, though it isn't a particularly grand or unique barn, it does have a modest charm and is a welcome and characteristic addition to the local landscape. Looking back at my photograph of the same barn taken in 2011 I notice that the roof damage was there then though I hadn't noticed it.

Fearing I may not see it in quite this condition again I took several shots of the building in its setting. For this photograph, the best of the crop, I placed the barn to the right of my composition so that the place of my upbringing, the market town of Settle, with the distant peak of Penyghent on the horizon, filled the left.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28.8mm (78mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Lincolnshire barns

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I recently put variations around the words "Lincolnshire barns" into the Google search box and was disappointed to be swamped with results concerning the hire of converted barns for holidays: it has always seemed to me one of life's mysteries why people want to holiday in a converted barn. In fact, I was looking for information about the different designs that I see as I travel about. Growing up in the Yorkshire Dales I became familiar with that region's variations in barn design and I was keen to increase my knowledge of Lincolnshire's barns.

I didn't find anything of interest - perhaps the subject isn't very widely studied or reported - but I did come across a few companies advertising new barns. These are big portal structures based on steel frames with uninterrupted space below the large, spreading roof. Coated steel, brick, concrete block and timber seem to be the favoured materials for walls. Most of the old barns in Lincolnshire, those dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are constructed of brick. Probably the most interesting are found on the "model" farms of the nineteenth century; buildings with well-made brick arches, steel columns, sometimes the owner's coat of arms, all topped with locally made pantiles. I've seen a few of these badly converted into holiday accommodation, though many have escaped that fate due to being Listed for their historical and architectural interest.

However it was the barns of the twentieth century that I was particularly wanting information about: barns such as the big one in today's photograph. It is characteristic of the middle of that century with its asbestos roof, brick side walls, corrugated steel gable wall and its wooden sliding doors. A feature often seen in this part of the world is also present in the barn, namely the gabled "turret" that projects upwards from the main roof. This appears to have a ventilation function though that's just my guess. Until I find the source of information about Lincolnshire barns that I sought but couldn't find it remains only a working hypothesis.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fost and frog...

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...is what sometimes comes out of the weather forecaster's mouth when delivering his or her predictions in front of the TV camera or radio microphone. This spoonerism of "frost and fog" is as much of a verbal trap for such people as "It is customary to kiss the bride" coming out as "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride" is for a clergyman. Though the latter has got to be apocryphal, hasn't it?

The cold weather that has affected much of Europe in the past week has been felt in Britain, though thankfully to a lesser extent. Night time temperatures have been well below normal for early February and these have been followed by first a light and then a heavy and widespread fall of snow. It doesn't take much of the white stuff to get me out and about with my camera. However, mist and fog accompanied the first morning and my photographs reflect this.

Today's shot shows a derelict barn surrounded by a few trees out in the ploughed fields. The fog has done its usual trick of isolating the foreground and mid-ground from the background. This shot on a clear day would have the houses, trees and church spire of a distant village breaking up the horizon and detracting from my subject. As it is, there is no horizon to speak of and only the hint of what long ago ceased to be a useful agricultural building.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 249mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Yorkshire Dales barns

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A recent few days in the Yorkshire Dales re-acquainted me with some stone barns that I've known all my life. Some continue in use much as they always have, others have fallen further into a state of dilapidation, and some are in the process of being converted to new uses.

Todays's photograph shows a modest barn near Settle called Far Thornber Barn. Most Dales barns  that are out in the fields have names. Often these relate to the first owner, to the location or have a name whose origins are lost in the mists of time. Sometimes the last part of the name is "Laithe" rather than "Barn", a word that derives from the Old Norse (ON) word "hlatha" meaning barn. This reflects the influx from predominantly Ireland and Norway of Norse settlers in the years after 800 AD. In this area, a mile or so south of Settle, there is a cluster of barns that I know well. The oldest is Brigholme Barn near Giggleswick, by the River Ribble, which apparently dates from the seventeenth century. The last part of its name comes from the ON "holmr" meaning a dry, raised place in wet land - a suitable location for a barn -  and the first may derive from either the Old English "brycg" or the ON "bryggja", both meaning bridge. In my childhood it was piled high with bales of hay. It's now surrounded by newer structures that serve modern farming better, but is still used, cared for and maintained with traditional methods (lime mortar etc) as befits a listed building.

A few hundred yards from the barn in the photograph is the oddly named Fish Copy Barn. A more "architectural" structure than many it has a "porch", carved stone decoration and a late nineteenth century date stone with the owner's initials. For many years it was roofed, and the upper part of the porch was notable for a pile of song thrush nests about six feet high, the work of successive generations of birds each building on the nest below. Now it stands forlorn, unwanted and roofless amid a patch of waste land. By the A65 road the cluster of Cleatop Barns (named after the nearby house and wood) are in the process of being transformed into offices, retail space and a restaurant: a sad end for these distinctive buildings.

I visited Settle in a period of unseasonally hot weather with clear blue skies - not ideal for walking on the limestone and millstone grit uplands or for photography. This shot, however, was taken on the first morning of my stay when some low cloud pierced by patches of sunlight made photography much easier.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fenland barns

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Fenland barns are not like the barns I grew up with. In fact some of them appear to be not so much barns as aircraft hangers, each successive generation of buildings bigger than the previous. The stone-built barns of the Yorkshire Dales are smaller, more domestic in character, with architectural ornaments - finials, datestones and the like - and seem a natural part the landscape. Those of the wide open spaces look strictly utilitarian, industrial even. But, where the Dales barns are largely redundant in terms of modern farming but find alternate use converted into picturesque homes, those of the Fens are still heavily used for machinery storage, as crop stores, etc.

I came upon this group of barns near Spalding in Lincolnshire. I don't imagine they were all erected at the same time. Probably they are sequence put up over the years as the farmer's requirement for space increased. I liked the strong shape that their shadowed shapes presented against the finely figured sky.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: 7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Ripe for redevelopment?

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Each time my wife and I pass a tumbledown barn or an uninhabited and dilapidated cottage or farm, one of us says, "Ripe for redevelopment?" and the other smiles. We are referring to an estate agent's advertising copy next to a photograph of an absolute wreck of a building that we'd once read incredulously. In those distant days such buildings were regularly being rebuilt and turned into dwellings, often because planning permission was easier to acquire, especially in rural areas, when there was a "building" already on the site.

However, the recent credit crunch is likely to put a brake on such redevelopments, and picturesque piles will crumble for a few more years until the housing market picks up again. My post of the other day talked about rural depopulation, and across many areas of the country famhouses that were abandoned when farmers left the land and holdings were amalgamated, now stand empty: in Lincolnshire they are a reasonably common sight. Changes in farming practices mean that many barns no longer have a use, and these too are left to slowly decay. In places like the Yorkshire Dales, North Lancashire and Cumbria the barns are stone-built and much sought after for conversion into houses, to the point where planning permission is now difficult to secure. In Lincolnshire, they are usually made of brick, and conversions are quite commonly seen.

Today's photograph shows a barn that is part of an abandoned farm near the seventeenth century South Forty Foot Drain. The buildings look like they date from the nineteenth century, and the signs are that they fell out of use in the 1970s. Most of the structures are roofed, and the walls still stand, but the windows are all gone, and gutters and drainpipes hang at crazy angles. The fruit trees, once so carefully tended are growing wild, and former hedges are tangled masses of vegetation. Walking amongst the buildings I thought about the people who lived here; how hard it must have been to give up their home and their life's work, and wondered how they made the transition to fresh jobs, retirement, or whatever the next phase of their lives brought.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 64mm (128mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old barn

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Anyone journeying through England will notice that old farm buildings invariably use local materials. So, in Eastern counties warm reddish brick walls and roofs of orange (or sometimes yellow/buff) clay pantiles are frequently seen. Move to the North and dour stone walls predominate, with stone or split slate roofing the buildings. In South East England and the West Midlands timber-framing is seen with infill of brick or mud closing the walls, though some areas favour tile-hanging or boarding. In these areas roofs would have been thatched with straw or reeds, and many still are, though tiles and corrugated metal have often replaced the natural materials.

These styles derive from what was locally available and from the skills of the local people. So, for example, an absence of suitable building stone often led to the use of timber and infill, or brick, and geographical areas can be plotted on the basis of this kind of building characteristic. However, places that border two adjacent areas with distinctive vernacular traditions often feature more "mongrel" styles. The other day I stopped to photograph a couple of old, dilapidated barns at Bridge End near the edge of the Fens in Lincolnshire. The Fenland landscape is characterised by old farm buildings made of brick and roofed with pantiles. However, Bridge End is close to the nearby uplands where limestone was quarried. This found its way into domestic buildings as well as the churches, and down on to the adjacent flatlands.

The barn in the photograph probably dates from the early nineteenth century, though it may be older. Its pleasingly irregular pantile roof has had sections of glass tiles inserted to let in light. At some point the building has been extended without the new part being locked into the old. It's anyone's guess which came first - the left side or the right. However, I'm wondering whether the builder re-used stone from an older structure, and employed bricks to make the doorway because it's easier and that's what he was used to doing. Perhaps the former Gilbertine priory that was at Bridge End is the source of the stone?

I took this shot for the interesting mixture of textures on this part of the old building. I was pleased to see the rusting cross of the end of a tie beam filling the space on the right and giving some balance to the old door and ivy on the left.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 43mm (86mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On