Rainy days

click photo to enlarge
There are a number of reasons why I moved to eastern England. One of them is to experience the drier weather. I was born and raised in north-west England, a part of the country known for its regular and relatively high rainfall. I lived in Hull for a number of years and experienced there something of the drier weather that side of the country offers. But then I moved back to west Lancashire for about twenty years, once again subjecting myself to the wetness of the west. Now, however, living in Lincolnshire, I find that my love of the great outdoors is more easily sated and need not incur the drenchings that accompanied more than a few forays in the west. Moreover, I can usually plan to do something outdoors without needing to calculate whether or not it will be rained off - because it usually isn't.

Consequently, the recent days, most of which seem to have included a spell of rain at some point or another, have been something of a let-down. I've come to expect better! Or at least, different. It even poured down for much of our regular monthly trip north, over the Humber Bridge, into Yorkshire. So, with the expectation that I couldn't insert any photography based detours into our itinerary, we decided to do the weekly shopping a little earlier than was required, thereby making the most of the day that way instead. Today's photograph was taken after we'd parked in the supermarket car park, just before we scurried into the dry in search of groceries. The darkness of the afternoon, the rain-spattered windscreen,the glistening cars and tarmac, and the early lights necessitated by the murk of the day, offered one of only three photographs I took on the whole outing. Not my greatest shot, but not without some interest I think.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15.3mm (41mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec
ISO:800
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reviled buildings and illusions

click photo to enlarge

Are multi-storey car parks the most reviled type of building in our towns and cities? I think there's a strong case for saying that they are lower in the public's estimation than, say, public toilets, petrol stations or burger bars - buildings that are often castigated for their charmless functionality. In fact, it's that utilitarian character that makes multi-storey car parks so unappealing. All that unadorned concrete, oil-stained ramps, battered corners and echoing stairwells seem designed to get you out of the building as quickly as possible once the fat fee has been prised from your pocket.

The examples of awful multi-storeys are almost too numerous for me to mention, but I will cite one that I saw recently in Kingston upon Hull, part of a newish hotel by the river. The car park isn't helped by the architecture of the rest of the building, but the unnecessary curves and grotesque metal grilles are truly bad.

It was that car park (and one in Lincoln that has an exterior theme of pointed arches - a cathedral town, geddit?) that came to mind when I saw the example in the photographs that is in King's Lynn, Norfolk. Here, I thought, is what someone with vision can achieve when tackling a multi-storey car park. The overall shape is fine, but the detailing is excellent, and simple. Walls of terra-cotta like squares, punctured by tall, rectangular openings in groups of three are set against white foil-like vanes mounted at different angles that give a blurred, rippled effect, an illusion of movement and airy lightness. On some days they must seem to merge with the sky. What I especially liked was the sharp detail of the walls against the insubstantiality of the vanes when they were seen from an angle. In fact, bringing a light feel to something like a muti-storey is quite an achievement, and one you don't often see.

I took quite a few detail shots of the building, images that are largely semi-abstract in nature, and I regret not taking a couple of the whole structure. Perhaps next time I'm there I will.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 191mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On