The chimneys at Melton Ross

click photo to enlarge
We periodically travel from our Lincolnshire home to north of the Humber on family business. Our route to the Humber Bridge, the crossing that takes us over the river from Lincolnshire into Yorkshire, is always the same, though our route home is frequently varied to include the opportunity for shopping, a walk and photography.

Travelling north we always drive past the chalk quarries at Melton Ross. Chalk has been dug in this location for nearly two hundred years and chimneys of one kind or another must have been a feature here since whiting first began to be produced.Today a variety of lime products and services keep four large chimneys and assorted smaller ones sending very visible plumes into the north Lincolnshire sky. I've photographed part of the works (click photo for extra large image)before - also on a damp, overcast day - but this time I went to the summit of the road bridge that goes over the nearby railway to get my shot

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title:Chalk Quarry Chimneys, Melton Ross, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 56mm (112mm - 35mm equiv.) cropped
F No: f5.5
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Winter trees

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Winter trees - at least the deciduous variety - are different from the trees of spring, summer and autumn. In the more benign seasons they appear genial, softer, friendlier, more welcoming, a complement to their location. In winter, however, these trees seem to have a split personality. Looked at on a cold, clear day, with blue sky above, or seen against the warm glow of a sunrise or sunset, the tracery of twigs, branches and boughs charm the eye with their beauty and invite us to look more closely at them and admire their delicacy. However, on a cold, damp, grey foggy day, the wet, black, skeletal silhouettes can assume a severe, malign, even depressing, appearance.

I was thinking about this as I pointed my camera across a piece of waste ground in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, framing some factory chimneys and the smoke or steam that was issuing from them. The billowing, white clouds were being distressed and dispersed by the wind as they climbed from the stack and trailed across the dark clouds above. Should I move to my left and exclude the trees from my composition, or should I include them? I briefly tossed those thoughts back and forth in my head and decided that the trees, on this occasion, added a desolate touch that intensified the slightly grim prospect before me, and I took my shot. In summer they would add a welcome greenness, softening the location, offering towers of natural beauty in this urban setting where housing abutted the towers of industry. But, on this late November day, despite the sun breaking through the cloud cover, that welcome verdure was only a memory and a promise.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Spalding station silhouettes

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Silhouettes are a reasonably regular feature of my photographic output. This year I've posted silhouettes of pollarded poplars, electricity pylons, rooks and lights, the disembarking Lynn ferry, and the Observatory Cafe at "The Deep" aquarium, Hull. Quite a few other images, whilst not as obviously featuring silhouettes as strongly the examples cited, nevertheless leaned heavily on dark shapes against a lighter background: shots such as this fishing boat and these shoppers for shoes.

In fact, when I look back at my "Best of..." silhouettes figure quite prominently in most of the photographic categories. For anyone who hasn't dipped into my back catalogue here are a few examples: St Anne's pier, roller coaster repair, street lights, ducks and water, Mount Pavilion, Fleetwood, dead tree, promenade seat, and one of my personal favourites, the bait digger's bike.

I find silhouettes appealing for a number of reasons. They are strikingly bold, dramatic takes on reality, a way of instantly turning the mundane into something visually arresting. Their positive/negative qualities, whereby the outline of the subject creates both the flat dark shape and the light shape that intersect like jigsaw pieces, endows images with a semi-abstract quality that I like. Then there's the counter-intuitive fact that a silhouette of an object often leads your eye to linger longer and often results in you taking in more detail than you would from a well lit photograph of the same thing. Don't believe that? Look at the photograph of the bait digger's bike again and consider whether you'd have explored it as much if the sun had been behind the camera.

Today's photograph was taken on a shopping expedition to Spalding, Lincolnshire. It was taken from a supermarket car park and shows the prominent chimneys of the railway station, a subject I've featured before. Interestingly, as I was writing this piece I remembered that today's photograph is not the first one I've taken featuring silhouetted chimneys, the end of the day and birds flying to roost. This one was taken in Fleetwood, Lancashire, in 2006.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Peterscourt, Peterborough

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As I've said elsewhere in this blog much of my photography is incidental. By that I mean the subjects that I photograph are the ones that present themselves to me as I go about my immediate locality and the wider world. So, when I set off on a pleasurable walk somewhere I take my camera and usually return home with some shots. If I go to explore a village, town or city my camera is pointed at anything that looks to be a suitable subject. It is unusual for me not to carry a camera when I'm out and about, and consequently the majority of the images in this blog were taken almost as a by-product of another activity.

However, every now and then I set my mind to photographing a specific subject. Or I shoot a subject and make a mental note to do so again in better or different light, weather or season. Today's photograph is an example of the latter. I've photographed Peterscourt before but only ever produced one shot (in September of this year) that I thought worthy of posting. It's a large brick building in Peterborough dating from 1856-64, the work of the eminent Victorian architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott. Peterscourt isn't a spectacular building, nor is it sufficiently feted to appear in many books about architectural history. Rather, it's one of those quietly competent,visually interesting, well-made buildings that can be found in most cities and which in their own undemonstrative way, grace our streets and make our passage through them a pleasanter experience.

I've struggled in the past to get a shot that shows the whole of the building. Parked vehicles, roadworks, the position of the sun and much else has conspired to get in the way. But, on a recent visit to Peterborough to do some Christmas shopping I took this shot in more favourable circumstances. It shows the asymmetrical nature of Peterscourt, the prominence given to the chimneys and dormers, the unassuming and functionally positioned main entrance and the dark brick detailing. Anyone interested in English architectural history will have noted the awkwardness of the white painted Georgian doorway within the Gothic, pointed arch of the entrance. Scott did not design the building this way. The doorcase was brought to the city from the London Guildhall when it was damaged during the second world war. Its prominent placement here detracts from Scott's overall conception but at least conserves an interesting piece of history.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Chimneys and the picturesque

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This derelict Lincolnshire cottage has four chimney stacks, some of them leaning quite alarmingly. Four! That probably equates to an open fire in every room. It looks like a nineteenth century structure, so for much of its life coal and wood would have burned merrily in its fireplaces, offering the inhabitants visual cheer and limited warmth.

The earliest houses had a hole in the ceiling for smoke to exit, but as building skills developed a chimney to confine the smoke and make it leave the building in a controlled way became firstly desirable, then mandatory. Houses made of wood frequently had a chimney made of bricks or stone for safety reasons, and these can still be seen on such houses built during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Fireplace and chimney breasts were often a focus for decoration - arches, pilasters, brackets and mythical figures are common, as are mantelpieces for the display of family artefacts. The chimney stack above the roofline was also often embellished too: a clay pot on a stepped brick cornice for the humble dwelling; spirals, castellation, and more for the well-to-do residence.

Today, ever fewer buildings have chimneys. Indeed the day is coming when new buildings will not require, or be permitted, a source of heat that requires combustion. Consequently chimneys will probably, in time, disappear and with them the focal point of the fireplace and the finial-like finish to the top of houses. Am I alone in thinking that the photograph above would be much less interesting, less picturesque, without the chimneys? Perhaps it's an age thing - maybe younger folk don't see things that way? However, I certainly wouldn't have photographed this scene had there been no chimneys on this building, regardless of the allure of the sun breaking through the cold, foggy, autumn morning.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On