Reflecting on cameras and capital cities

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A recent couple of days in London coincided with the two warmest days of the year so far and I returned to a cooler, windier, wetter Lincolnshire with a face turned ruddy by the sun. I'd gone to our capital city for a small family gathering. However, the visit also became an experiment with my recently acquired compact camera and I made it an opportunity to photograph some of the city's most recent buildings as well as those that have been around for a few years.

The best way to get to know a camera such as my Sony RX100 is to use it. So, I made it my sole camera for the trip and turned its one inch sensor and 28-100mm (35mm equiv.) lens to the sort of uses that I would usually apply my Canon 5D Mk2 and its 24-105mm, 17-40mm and Tamron 70-300mm lenses. What do I conclude? The Sony does a remarkable job. The screen coped in all but the brightest conditions and I could usually compose quite satisfactorily. Having 20.2 megapixels allows for  quite a bit of cropping without the file size becoming too small, consequently the effective focal length can be easily doubled. Unfortunately its not as easy to widen beyond 28mm. I like 24mm as my standard wide focal length, but all cameras are compromises of one sort or another and this is one I'll live with. I shot JPG only rather than RAW or RAW + JPG. It's less flexible, but less work too, and I found that satisfactory. The colours are good, quite "film-like". The biggest drawback was that a couple of times I inadvertently pressed the movie record button. It's all well and good making movie recording easy, but it's a touch too easy with this camera.

On our second day I walked ten miles round the city in search of shots. I was particularly keen to see how the 20 Fenchurch Street skyscraper (nicknamed "The Walkie Talkie") is coming on, and whether its appearance is improving as it starts to approach completion. The answer to that last question is a resounding "No". It seems to me that this building is the wrong shape and the wrong size for its location which is too detached from the main group of tall City towers and too close to the river. Moreover it intrudes far too much on the view of Tower Bridge from the south.

The other thought I had as I followed the course of the River Thames through the city is that London continues to hog far too much of the nation's spending on infrastructure. I got a real sense that the effects of the depression that are felt right across the rest of the country are barely impinging on the metropolis and that this can only lead to further regional and social divisions that will have bad consequences.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18.2mm (49mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Doves, pigeons and breeding seasons

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One of the things I remember from my younger days, a time when I pursued bird-watching with a deeper interest than I do now, is the length of the breeding season of doves and pigeons. To my knowledge it exceeded that of any of the other species of British birds. The rock dove, woodpigeon and others of the Family Columbidae, often begin nesting in February and sometimes don't complete the process until November, having had several broods in the intervening months. That may, in part, account for the very large numbers of woodpigeon that the country now supports.

The collared dove is also a member of this family of birds. When I lived in the Yorkshire Dales I never saw a single example. However, my move to eastern England in 1971 immediately remedied that, and I soon became familiar with their insistent and monotonous call from March through to October. Given that this relative newcomer to our shores (it arrived in numbers only in the middle of the last century) has quickly achieved the status of one of the least liked birds, it cannot be good news for many that it is a prolific breeder.

I don't know a great deal about the habits of feral pigeons, but the fact that they are, in the main, descended from the wild rock dove, suggests that they too will have a long breeding season. Consequently, when I saw this white dove and a second parti-coloured bird in the porch at Sutterton church recently, I assumed that they were reconnoitring it for a nest site rather than seeking any kind of shelter. The bird in the photograph allowed us to get quite close, and never left its perch. Only when I came to process my photograph did it occur to me that it was trying to give some symmetry to the carvings on the column capital by reflecting the stone bird on the left!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Buried column capitals

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What did the medieval builder do when the local population and congregation increased beyond the size that a small nave and chancel church could accommodate? Simple, he added an aisle. This was usually on the north side of the building because fewer burials were made there than on the sunny south side. How do you go about adding an aisle to a stone building? Well, you support the existing roof then punch holes in the external wall. You make these holes into an arcade of arches supported on columns so that the upper part of the old wall is secure. Then you build a new external wall with windows beyond the arcade, top it with a lean-to roof and finish off the interior. In a few short years you've added an aisle and increased the church's accommodation.

But what if the need arises to reduce the size of the church because the population declines due to, for example, the Black Death, rural depopulation, or the high cost of maintaining the old structure? Well, then you get rid of an aisle. You fill the arcade arches with stonework, thicken what now becomes the exterior wall, remove the lean-to roof and knock down the old external wall of the aisle. You can re-use the windows by placing them in the walling that fills the arcades (see small photograph).

Of course, you have to make these walls thick otherwise the old column capitals may still be visible. And even if they're not, a Victorian antiquarian may well reveal them and turn them into a feature demonstrating the longevity and building history of the church. Oh, and you might find that a future parishioner makes use of the crudely carved thirteenth century capital as a charming place to position a small vase of flowers to beautify that part of the nave. An example of this is the subject of today's photograph taken in St Andrew at Donington-on-Bain, Lincolnshire.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Romanesque capitals, Leominster

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It is customary for English Romanesque and Gothic churches to have a west door, which, though it is used much less than the south door (usually entered through a porch), is nonetheless bigger and more ornate. The west door was used much more in medieval times when processions figured larger in the ceremonial of the church. They are used occasionally today, but for the most part they remain closed except where they are still the main entrance, and then the large doors usually have a smaller one that is inset.

West doors are taller and wider than any other door in a church, and the columns, arches and capitals that surround them are often highly decorated. Today's photograph shows the capitals on the north side of the west door of the Priory of St Peter & St Paul at Leominster, Herefordshire. These were carved around 1140, and stylistically are Late Norman (Romanesque). The main carving is above a piece of rope moulding that encircles the column. They show a bird, a man who looks like he is tending plants, and a snake. Each figure is part of an elaborate interlace. The side of each capital that faces south, and which we can't see, has these motifs repeated and affronted. Above these remarkable carvings is an abacus decorated with bead, a sort of flat dogtooth and triangular leaves. The fertility of imagination and the crude liveliness of Norman carving has always held a fascination for me, and I couldn't let my visit to this fine building pass without securing this image.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 25mm (50mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Revisiting the OM1

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Today's photograph was taken on 11th May 1986 during a visit I made to Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire. It shows one of the remarkable carved capitals in the Chapter House, a part of the Minster built in the late 1200s as the Early English style of Gothic architecture was turning towards the Decorated.

The carved stonework of the Chapter House is some of the best to be found in Britain. It includes ten "green men", many label stop heads, a vaulted roof (the only example that isn't supported by a central pier), and numerous delicate capitals on slender columns. These beautifully sculpted pieces depict recognisable plants including the maple, oak, hawthorn, buttercup, potentilla, vine, ivy and hops. It's hard to imagine how the carvers went about creating such intricacy, and how the details have managed to survive relatively unscathed to the present day. The architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, notes that the creators achieved a synthesis of nature and style, not merely copying the leaves, but depicting them in a way that doesn't deny the stone of which they are made. The result is very moving.

I include this photograph as an example of the output of my Olympus OM1n with the Zuiko 50mm 1.8 lens. I'd been using it for over 10 years when I took this shot. The image is also a testament to the durability of an image shot on Fujichrome transparency film. The colour and clarity are, as far as I can see, just as good today as when I made the original exposure. I hope that the digital files I now create will be in as good shape twenty two years hence. In theory they should be, but changes in file formats and operating systems, as well as the fallibility of storage devices leads me to think I could be disappointed. The slide was scanned using a negative and transparency holder on a new flatbed scanner that came my way at Christmas. The quality produced in what is essentially a light-box add-on to a fairly standard and inexpensive scanner has amazed me. It's at least as good, perhaps better than I can achieve with a dedicated film scanner that I bought six or so years ago, and has the advantage of copying multiple images in one pass. I intend to compare it with a digital enlargement of a slide photographed with the E510 using the 35mm macro lens. If the results are acceptable I'll post that shot too.

One of my more recent images of Southwell Minster can be seen here.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus OM1n
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 50mm
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Film: Fujichrome
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A