Earworms and couplings

click photo to enlarge
Earworms are terrible things. I mean, of course, the snippet of a tune that keeps playing itself over and over in your head to the point where it drives you to distraction. I recently had the Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen song, "Love and Marriage", on replay in my head. It's a song I positively dislike, one I remember from my early childhood when it was popular through Frank Sinatra's recording.  "Love and marriage", Frank repeatedly tells us, "goes together like a horse and carriage", and what's more, "you can't have one without the other." That was never true when the song was current and it's even less so today.

But, it is true that there are many instances where "you can't have one without the other." One example is the coupling of trees and shrubs with twentieth century rectilinear architecture. Architects' drawings and builders constructions alike are incomplete without the waywardness of branches and leaves as a counterpoint to the rigid verticals and horizontals of windows, doors, roof lines, storey separators etc. I took today's photograph in the city of Peterborough. The exterior of these offices consists of the same concrete panel with its centrally placed window repeated across every facade. Nearby, to offer contrast and soften the hard lines, are large trees. So, I decided to co-operate with the architects and incorporate the two in my photographic composition.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Concrete Offices and Branches, Peterborough
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm (160mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

One from the vaults

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Recently I've been feeling, as a television advertisement of yesteryear used to say, "one degree under". It's nothing of great significance, but set against my usual healthy self, it's an unwelcome change that probably accounts for my recent photography being more sporadic than usual and somewhat uninspired. So I've done what I often do in these circumstances and trawled though the vaults for a few shots worthy of posting.

Today's was taken in February last year in the Wellhead Gardens at Bourne, Lincolnshire. It shows willow branches and their reflections in one of the stretches of water that run through the small public park. It's a shot that I like for the semi-abstract effect produced by the soft, water-colour, cloud reflections overlaid with the veil of dark, delicate, almost ink-like lines of the slender willow branches. The subtle range of colours and the difficulty of working out what is real and what is reflected also appeals to me. Reflections in water are a recurring theme in my photographs, one I never tire of, but which I suppose is an acquired taste.

If you do like this photograph you may wonder how it got overlooked or left behind. There are a few reasons. Sometimes the rate of my photography is such that I move on to the most recent crop of images before I've exhausted the previous one. On other occasions the time of year changes, and I do like to reflect the seasons in the shots I post. I also like to ring the changes over the course of a week or so, so sometimes I forsake a shot because it has too many characteristics of one I've recently used. And finally, I'm sometimes just plain careless and don't properly notice an image that I think is good enough to be posted. Today's falls into the latter category.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflected branches

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It's both a blessing and a curse that the human memory is so fallible. The multitude of events that we want and need to remember - about our early life, episodes when our children were growing up, or what we had for dinner yesterday - somehow get lost amongst the inconsequential things that are stored in our brains. Yet, our memory of an embarrassing incident that happened years ago can be as sharp as when it first happened and still retain the power to make us cringe. I remember someone saying that if the human body had a clear memory of pain women would never have more than one child. So yes, there are advantages and disadvantages in the way that we remember.

I don't know about you, but every year I forget how late it is before all the trees have lost their leaves. Not until the last days of November have most gone, and even then some are hanging on, defying the gales. The ash trees that I look at from my kitchen window are loath to lose their foliage, and bunches of "keys" are still visible in the new year. Willow trees, even though they are one of the first to show leaves in spring, seem particularly reluctant to part with them, and don't lose the last until December, by which time I find I can usually put the leaf rake away.

Today's photograph shows some trees, entirely bereft of leaves, overhanging water. The skeletal branches and spidery reflections that look like a delicate ink drawing, remind me that trees in winter have a different, more austere, but no less beautiful presence than when they are laden with leaves in summer.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On