Wet weather photography

click photo to enlarge
I'm not really an all-weather photographer. Some of my equipment is weather-sealed but by no means everything. Moreover, many of the subjects I choose don't particularly lend themselves to rainy days. However, I do like to take photographs in wet weather as this blog shows. I appreciate the reflections that these days bring, especially when the light levels fall in heavy showers and during the evening. My umbrella comes in handy at these times and so does my photographic assistant a.k.a. my wife.

But, I also like to take photographs from the car in wet weather. My fondness for blur and semi-abstract images is frequently rewarded by shots through the car windscreen. Today's photograph was taken after we'd dashed back to the car as a heavy shower enveloped us. The raindrops on the windscreen, the condensation from our wet hair and clothes, and the almost monochromatic world on view all appealed. Even more visually enticing was the fact that some drivers turned their lights on in the temporary gloom and added points and bands of strong colour that acted as highlights to the scene.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: In The Rain Through The Windscreen
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:320
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blurred Blackwall Tunnel, London

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Though image stabilisation and improved high ISO performance has greatly improved the low-light and night-time capabilities of cameras, these conditions can still produce shots with motion blur. Low shutter speeds may result in blur caused by camera movement, and this is not usually an effect that a photographer wants (though it can be, and it can be deliberately induced to good effect). On my recent trips through London's Blackwall Tunnel several of my shots taken there exhibited this kind of blur, and it prompted me to try for photographs with the other kind of blur - focus blur - as an alternative to the sharp shots I'd been seeking. I've made quite a few exposures in recent years with the camera deliberately out of focus, and I knew that the night-time points of light against a dark background had the potential to be interesting and perhaps beautiful.

The image above is the one I took that I like best. If you didn't know what the subject was you might not guess it, so you'd judge it solely for its abstract qualities - colour, shapes, composition etc, and here, I think, the convergence on the cluster of bright points of light works well in this regard.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Blurred Blackwall Tunnel, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:1250
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Eagles, doves and aquilegias

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Sitting in an audience at a lecture about gardening the other evening I heard the speaker describe, aquilegias as "promiscuous". He wasn't, of course, referring to their morals, but to their habit of freely seeding and hybridising, producing offspring of many colours and tints.

I really prefer the name columbines for this plant. However, when talking to other gardeners about it you usually have to add "I mean aquilegias", and so I've come to use the Latin name. This derives from aquila meaning eagle and comes from the shape of the flower petals which were thought to resemble that bird's claw. Columbine comes from the Latin columba, meaning dove. This name is based on the resemblance of the hanging flower head to five doves with their bills touching at the top. It's interesting to note that the two most popular names for this plant relate to the polar opposites of the bird world, the war-like eagle and the peaceful dove. It doesn't end there, of course, because a common, colloquial English name for the plant is "Granny's Bonnet". But that's not something I'm going to delve into.

May is the month for this plant in England and I recently took the opportunity to photograph some of the examples that flower in our garden. When I came to look at my results on the computer I particularly liked the out of focus areas and decided to enhancing these with a blurred, lightened vignette. It's not my usual style but I'm not entirely displeased by the outcome.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 66mm (132mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:800
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Earrings and bokeh

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My first SLR, bought around 1972 was a 35mm Zenith E with a 58mm f2 lens, a Russian-made camera, all an impecunious student could afford. But, compared with the pocket camera that I had been using up to that point, it offered me so much more. The low-light abilities were streets ahead of cheaper cameras, and the shallow depth of field that the lens allowed opened up greater creative possibilities.When I bought a 135mm lens I felt that most of the subjects I wanted to photograph were within my grasp.

In those days I favoured black and white, and in time did quite a bit of my own printing. When it came to portraits I really made use to the out-of-focus capabilities of the camera and its lenses. At that time the word "bokeh" to describe this blur wasn't used in English-speaking photographic circles. In fact, I didn't hear it until about ten years ago, though I read that it was first used outside Japan several years earlier. This ability to blur the background is one of the things that anyone transferring from a digital compact camera with a small sensor to a DSLR with a larger sensor notices and appreciates. Some people make the transition simply to achieve this quality that they have seen and want to emulate. But the fact is many small sensor cameras are capable of producing out-of-focus blur (or bokeh). Models with wide or normal focal length lenses can often do it when set to macro, and so-called "bridge" cameras with their very long telephotos can do it at longer focal lengths  as well as in macro mode.

Today's photograph is a case in point. It was taken using my LX3 in macro mode with the lens at its widest (24mm/35mm equiv.) very close to the subject. The f2 lens and the 43 sq.mm sensor produce an extremely shallow depth of field in these circumstances, which for some subjects produces interesting and pleasing effects. My image shows a pair of my wife's earrings. They are made from the "eyes" of a couple of moulted peacock tail  feathers with beads fixed to the barbs. I placed them on a sheet of black vinyl for the photograph, and was pleased by the detail the lens revealed and the pleasant bokeh, particularly in the curves of beads of the more distant of the two earrings.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On