Late autumn trees

click photo to enlarge
We have reached the time of year when, due to the low sun, for much of the day the daylight is tinged with yellow. Sometimes this can be a little disconcerting, giving buildings for example, what appears to be a colour cast. But, if you are photographing the last colours of autumn that yellow tinge adds to the palette that nature provides.

On a recent walk through the extensive grounds of Belton House in Lincolnshire we walked through a an area of parkland dotted with trees of many varieties. This particular section of "nature improved", as the early English Landscape Garden theorists and pioneers called such places, was not so densely planted with trees that the low morning sun could not penetrate: in fact in some spots it was flooding in and offering me the opportunity for a shot with colour and contrast.

The two photographs on offer today show much of the same contre jour scene, but differ in their approach to contrast. The main photograph has more, the smaller one less. Consequently the main shot is more muscular, the subsidiary shot, more delicate. The increased contrast comes from the composition, particularly the tree hiding the sun (and its shadow), but also by the increased negative EV.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title (1): Parkland Trees, Belton House, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Flying the Union flag

click photo to enlarge
I get the impression that the Union flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the UK) is being flown more in recent years than was formerly the case. In January of 2007 I posted a piece about just this subject, noting that it appeared less often than some of the flags of the constituent countries of the UK. Perhaps the referendum on Scotland's independence, that narrowly voted for that country's continuance as part of the UK, has concentrated political minds and a more concerted effort to promote the benefits of unity is under way. One can only hope so.

During my lifetime some nation states, for example West and East Germany, have merged. However, fragmentation has been much more common, and in, for example, eastern Europe, it has at times been very difficult to keep up with the number and names of newly appearing countries. This year the UK's lamentable government, that exercises total power on the back of a mere 36.9% of those who voted, is to invite us to vote on whether to accept a package of changes relating to our membership of the European Community, or to exit from that political grouping. This is being done largely in a (futile) attempt to resolve the ambivalent view of the Conservative Party about being part of Europe. I shall vote for continuing membership for economic and social reasons. I will also be mindful of the fact that wars in Europe are not uncommon, that they usually begin with disputes between near neighbours, and that the people of countries that work together and share common values and aspirations don't, as a rule, try and kill one another.

Today's photograph shows the Union flag flying on the City Hall in Peterborough. My first shot was from the side that was fully lit by the sun. It was fine but relatively uninteresting. I liked this contre jour shot better. It was taken when the sun was behind a cloud. The shadows of the building were much more dramatic and the composition gave greater prominence to the colours of the translucent flag.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Union Flag, Peterborough City Hall
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bicycles and pedestrians contre jour

click photo to enlarge
One of the advantages of winter sun (in the northern hemisphere) is that it is relatively low in the sky. Consequently contre jour silhouettes and deep, elongated shadows are available during the day and not just early and late as at other times of year.

I saw these bicycles in a pedestrianised street in Peterborough when shopping the other day and liked the bold shapes they made. After I'd taken my shots I seemed to remember photographing bicycles against the light in similar circumstances before. A quick search of the blog turned up the image and proved my memory still works reasonably well despite my advancing years. The main differences between the shots is that I used a much wider angle on the earlier photograph and above I used a longer focal length to minimise the elements I wanted in the composition.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Bicycles and Pedestrians, Peterborough
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 56mm (112mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Poppies and contre jour

click photo to enlarge
Light through petals is a beautiful sight. During the summer months I frequently make use of the low sun of morning and evening as it slants across our gardens, lighting up the petals of the flowers. A those times of day there are also pools of deep shadow and the combination of illuminated flowers and shade makes a striking contrast.

However, there is one problem with photographing contre jour flowers - the best effect is seen from behind the blooms because the flower heads are always turned to face the strongest source of light. Consequently, if you are a purist about such things (and I don't think I am) then every photograph of this kind has an unsatisfactory element to it.

Today's shot illustrates this up to a point. To achieve the striking red points that make this photograph work I had to be in a position where all the flower heads were facing away from me. In fact, it matters less in this example because the flowers are working as points of colour in a larger composition rather than being the sole subject. I took the photograph on an evening walk as we passed a field of oilseed rape.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 36mm (72mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Starters, finishers and contre jour

click photo to enlarge
One of the lessons I've learned in life is that many people are good starters but significantly fewer are good finishers. Consequently,if you want to succeed it helps to be a finisher. What do I mean by that? Well, you've doubtless seen people who will begin a grand re-design of their garden, or begin to build an extension to their house, or start renovating an old car, or set off with great gusto on a work-related project only to slow then come to a halt before it is complete. Sometimes they get under way again, but all too often they once again give up and the task they began languishes in an unfinished state for months or years, and frequently is never accomplished. Though that doesn't stop some beginning another abortive undertaking!

Finishers have vision, determination and perseverance. Starters have vision, but lack those extra qualities necessary to see things through to a conclusion. As I took today's photograph I wondered if the builders of the new "bowstring" footbridge over the River Witham, near St Botolph's church in Boston, Lincolnshire, were finishers. The bridge has been open since February 2014, yet every time I've crossed it since that time there has been security fencing, "men at work" signs, piles of paving material etc all indicating that the finishing touches still haven't been completed. You can see some of those wretched movable barrier fences on the right of the photograph.

Purists might bridle at today's image with its flare, vignetting and blown highlights. I don't mind such things. In fact, every now and then, usually in winter, I actively seek them out with a contre jour shot, as was the case with this photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  - 0.3EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Into the light at Cley and Sheringham

click photo to enlarge
A camera never reproduces exactly what your eye sees but in some circumstances the results are way off. Shooting into the light often has unexpected outcomes. Sometimes the shot has high contrast and is very dramatic. At other times the light meter makes a wrong guess and either exposes the sky correctly but leaves the land unnaturally dark, or it exposes the land properly but the nicely figured sky and clouds are blown out to pure white. Cameras can't yet show the range of gradations between black and white that the eye can see though techniques such as multiple exposures and shadow boosting are making inroads into the deficit. Photographers are, by and large, able to work with this inaccuracy and sometimes welcome the camera's results because they "improve" on what the eye saw. At other times extensive digital manipulation is required to bring a better balance and greater verisimilitude to, say, a landscape where the photographer was forced to shoot against the light.

I found myself in that situation a couple of weeks ago. We were passing through Cley next the Sea in Norfolk, the location of one of the most photographed windmills in England, and I thought I'd try for a shot of it in its setting. However, it was half an hour past noon in mid-August, not the best time for landscape photography. Moreover, the view I wanted required me to shoot into the light. The result was a series of images with good sky but dark buildings, marsh and woodland. That's not what my eye saw; the scene was quite brightly lit. So, when I got home I sat down for half and hour or so with the image on the computer and tried to convert my badly exposed shot into something closer to what I saw.

Was I successful? How do you judge success? It's very hard to remember exactly how the scene looked and the relative brightness of all the elements. I suppose one measure of success is that the shot looks natural to someone who wasn't there with me. And yet, I fear that we are sufficiently far down the road in digital photography and manipulation that many people and even more photographers no longer have a secure grasp of  what looks "real" in photographs. I find myself questioning some of the shots that my newspaper presents as a record of an event, and some of the images I see on forums, in photography magazines and in competitions appear to have been taken on a planet other than earth, such is the level of saturation and the balance of tones. Another measure of success is that it looks right to me. This one isn't quite right. Nor is the smaller photograph of the beach huts at Sheringham. But they are both closer to what I saw than the images the camera recorded.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 67mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A good year for poppies?

click photo to enlarge
One of the good things about the internet is that it's quite easy to find someone who thinks like you do. One of the bad things about the internet is that it's quite easy to find someone who thinks like you do. Consequently, creating an organisation or movement for beneficent change and progress is easier than ever before. But, mobilising a group of people who share the same bigotry, hatred and intolerance is not difficult either. In fact, such is the breadth of opinions to be found expressed on websites, blogs, forums, social media etc, it is possible to find written support for just about any proposition you care to make, no matter how extreme, ludicrous or unhinged it may seem to most people. The days of misunderstood youth or paranoid misanthropes languishing in the conviction that no one feels the same as they do must surely be long gone: a quick search will quickly throw up fellow loners who share their misery and delusions.

On a lighter note, the internet is also a place where you can take soundings. I tried this the other day in connection with my impression that 2013 has been a particularly good year for poppies in the United Kingdom. Sure enough, I found several pieces written by individuals who expressed the same thought. So I'm right. Or am I? Just because, out of the millions of people who have looked at poppies in the fields, roadsides and gardens of our country, a handful have expressed the same opinion as me doesn't mean we are correct. Perhaps the silent majority who haven't expressed a view publicly feel the number of poppies is no more, or maybe fewer, than usual. As a means of arriving at a reliable judgement simply looking for people with similar views is not a very sound method. Helpful though it undoubtedly can be, the internet has the capacity to very easily reinforce wrong thinking.

Today's photograph was taken in my garden. I posted a shot of "wayward" poppies earlier this month. I see the contre jour image above as one that shows them growing more typically.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 168mm
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wayward red poppies

click photo to enlarge
The flowers that, I think, feature most on this blog are the tulip and the poppy. I haven't actually counted the number of occurrences of each type but my feeling is that these two will predominate. That isn't surprising because they are two of my favourite flowers and we have many examples of each in our garden.

In some ways the tulip and the poppy are similar: both feature large and small varieties; both have single, large, striking blooms held high on a stem; both tend to flower in clusters; and both are very eye-catching. However, there are differences. Where the tulip is prim, tidy, firmly upright, everything properly in place, the poppy is much more wayward. Often they straggle, the stems bend and dip, the petals flop about and flutter in the breeze, and some varieties produce a tangled accumulation of foliage and blooms. Given those contrasting characteristics it's perhaps surprising that I like both plants. But I do, and it is the root of this antithesis - the somewhat bedraggled versus the orderly - that appeals to me. I think there is a place for both these qualities in a garden.

Today's photograph was taken contre jour in the morning when the sun was still comparatively low. The way it emphasised the tissue paper-like translucence of the petals and edged the stems with highlighted hairs appealed to me. I took a few shots of the subject but this one, with the dark shadow of a shed behind, seemed to emphasise these attractive qualities best.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mist and contre jour

click photo to enlarge
It occurred to me when I was reviewing my recent photographs that Keats' "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" is also, for this photographer, the season of getting back into contre jour shots, a time when I once again become a "close bosom-friend of the maturing sun". In high summer I tend to see the sun as something to work around. Its position, high in the sky and its floodlighting of the landscape make it something to be avoided across the middle of the day. Only very early and very late does it offer itself for inclusion in the frame, and only before 11.00am and after 3.00pm does it produce the kind of shadows that I like for modelling a landscape or building.

However, from September onwards the sun becomes much more co-operative. Its position in the sky when I am out and about with my camera means that I can often choose to include it if I wish. Moreover, early and late that low position adds drama to contre jour shots. The third of my "misty" photographs from the Yorkshire Dales exemplifies this. As we continued our walk the mist thinned then, unexpectedly, swirled back in again. The small group of trees ahead of us started to be enveloped and the clouds that had rolled in began to be obscured. And, as we climbed the hill towards them the sun broke through behind the foliage sending out the odd light ray: perfect for a contre jour shot, so I framed a composition and pressed the shutter.

I suppose for the benefit of doubters (you know who you are!), and in the light (pun intended) of my recent posting, I must add that no artificial photographic aids were used in the production of either the mist or the light rays. All is as was laid out before us on that October morning.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ruskin, weather and contre jour

click photo to enlarge

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic and author


Though an active supporter of the Pre-Raphaelites and a firm believer in the primacy of painting over all other visual arts, John Ruskin took a keen interest in photography and used a camera. He was one of the subscribers to Eadweard Muybridge's 1887 publication, "Animal Locomotion, an Electro-Photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements." In 1856 he made daguerrotypes of the towers of the Swiss Fribourg, also drawing them freehand, then comparing the results. His view was that the photograph was "more right" but that the sketch "nevertheless conveys, in some respects, a truer idea of Fribourg than the other, and has, therefore, a certain use." Though he was thinking in artistic terms I am sure Ruskin would not have been slow to spot the continuing use today of technical drawing rather than photographs to illustrate car, camera and many other instruction manuals, and to use this as further proof of the value of drawing over photography.


His views on weather are ones I share, particularly from a photographic point of view, though our recent extended wet spell is testing me. Extremes of weather offer "different" kinds of images to the photographer. Snow, fog, rain and the rest, though presenting certain difficulties that fair weather doesn't, nonetheless give the opportunity for photographic drama, simplicity, contrast and much else. The recent wall-to-wall rain that has beset the British spring and summer briefly cleared one recent afternoon and we took the opportunity to venture out for a walk. The roads were lined with deep puddles that hadn't drained away, the tarmac glistened, reflecting the sun, and the ragged clouds offered every shade of grey. I caught my wife with this contre jour shot as she wended her way between the pools of water. When I looked at it on the computer screen I liked the deep contrast and almost moonlight feel to the image that appeared when I converted it to black and white. It was, I reflected, a photograph that could only have been taken in this kind of Ruskinian good weather.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.9mm (37mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Jolly Fisherman, Skegness

click photo to enlarge

In the middle ages the Lincolnshire town of Skegness suffered from the depredations of the sea. Buildings were lost, and its continuance was precarious. But, it survived and its medieval church can still be seen. In the early nineteenth century the town gained some standing as a desirable resort for the well-to-do. However, most of Skegness's growth came after the arrival of the railway in 1876 when a conscious decision was made to develop the town as a seaside resort.

Under the direction of the major landowner, the Earl of Scarborough, the expansion of Skegness was planned on a grid and developed quite slowly, with wide avenues, tree planting and monuments. Only when the area fronting the sea was bought by the town council in 1921 did the brash resort that we see today begin to appear. Not that there hadn't been a concerted effort in the earlier years of the twentieth century to attract visitors.

In 1908 the London and North Eastern Railway company commissioned the illustrator, John Hassall, to produce a poster to advertise Skegness. His creation, for which he was paid twelve guineas, has become one of the best known seaside advertising posters in Britain. The "jolly fisherman" character that it features, as well as the slogan, "Skegness is so bracing", became so closely associated with the town they that have been used in the original form and in several updated-versions almost without interruption over the past century. Hassall's first, hand-painted poster is now displayed in Skegness Town Hall. The jolly fisherman continues to be used on many souvenirs and advertisements for the town, and in recent years has been made the centrepiece of a fountain in one of the sea-front gardens.I took this contre-jour photograph of the prancing figure on top of the cascading water, positioning myself so that the aircraft vapour trails framed the silhouetted fisherman like Hollywood searchlights. It's hard to predict the outcome with photographs that include the sun in the frame, but I've shot enough of this kind of image to know that even the big white orb and lens flare don't detract from the impact and drama that can be achieved by photographing against the light.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm
 F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hoar frost and forecasters

click photo to enlarge

After the cold winter of 2009-2010 people expected that the winter of 2010-2011 would be milder. When those hopes were dashed and the January proved to be every bit as cold, the expectation then became that, after two successive harsh winters, the winter of 2011-2012 was almost bound to be better. And, for a while it looked as though it might be. However, late January and February have put paid to that theory, with last night being the coldest of the year, and Lincolnshire recording the lowest temperature (-16 Celsius) anywhere in the country.

In fact, there is no rational reason to suppose that a bad winter presages the next being milder, nor that a succession of cold winters increases the likelihood of the subsequent one being more equable. What we can expect, however, is that if the weather forecasters suggest that the minimum overnight temperature will be -5 Celsius, then we have no reason to suppose it will be anywhere near -16 Celsius. Last night the Meteorological Office got their predictions drastically wrong. For many that can be a major problem because they wouldn't necessarily have taken the precautions that they otherwise might. From my perspective as a photographer it was O.K. Why? Because we had a wonderful, unexpected hoar frost on top of the previous night's fall of snow!

We had a few of these frosts in the cold weather at the end of December 2010 and in early January 2011. I was thrilled to see another one this year and made a couple of morning forays with the camera to gather a few shots of the dramatic trees. Today's photograph was taken in the village cemetery. The white covering of the hoar frost combined with a shot against the light made a rather banal subject into something a little more interesting.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

The sun and The Deep

click photo to enlarge

Each winter I try to take a few photographs that include the sun. I don't mean sunrise and sunset shots, though these are easier to acquire at that time of year - you don't have to be out and about early or late! No, I'm thinking more of when the sun is fully above the horizon though low in the sky: early afternoon is a good time.

What appeals to me about such images is the drama conferred by the big glowing white ball, the contrast that results from the deep shadows thrown by objects in the foreground, the flare that the lens often produces, and the sheer unpredictability of the outcome. On a recent day visit to the city of Hull I had little time for photography. However, I did manage to spend a short time around the point where the River Hull meets the River Humber. When I lived in the city I often cycled and photographed in this area so it's always a pleasure to return. On my visit I took a few shots that include the sun on the old High Street and then again from the new footbridge over the River Hull, upstream from the big, futuristic looking aquarium called "The Deep". Regular readers of this blog may remember images taken last year in this location (see this sequence). I was prompted to take today's photograph as much by the glistening mud revealed by low tide as anything else, but I was careful to use the sun as a visual counterweight to the building in my composition. The overall effect is a touch other-worldly but not, I think, unappealing.

For other winter images including the bright sun see this one with a gate and snow, this one also with snow, or perhaps this one with vapour trails.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Early morning light

click photo to enlarge

As I said in one of my early posts on this blog, I'm a morning person. Of all the times of day the morning is the one that I value most. It seems to hold in its grasp the promise of the day to come, to have a freshness that afternoon and evening cannot match, and the first light of the day is incomparable. It has been said that if you want to take photographs that catch the viewer's eye, then go out with your camera in the early morning. If the sun is present, with or without clouds in attendance, its low angle allows you to make silhouettes, add drama, and simplify your images. Those three things are important in making your photographs noticeable. Often when you include the sun in the image the results are not quite what your eyes see, and can be quite unpredictable, but that's part of the fun!

The other day I strode out into the snowy morning just as the sun was rising. The temperature was -8.5 Celsius but there was no wind, and the crispness of the air was matched by the sharpness of the light. I set off down a lane that I don't use very much, largely because it holds less visual interest than others that I favour. However, at this time of day it allowed me to walk towards the rising sun. Hares scattered as I walked along, their feet throwing up powdered snow as they dashed away, and I stopped periodically to frame trees against the ever brightening sun. The photograph above is one of the best I took. It's not much of a subject, but for me (though maybe not for everyone!) it demonstrates the power of light to transform the ordinary into the interesting or extraordinary. I liked this one because as I progressed down the lane a bank of fog made an appearance, and it added a diffuse quality to the image that contrasts with the the harder outlines of the branches.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Contre jour pier

click photo to enlarge

Contre jour means, literally, "against the day", but a better English translation is "against the light". Today's photograph is another of this kind of shot taken around the same time as yesterday's, further down the pier at Southwold. At one time in my photography of recent years I seemed to be taking these almost daily, perhaps seduced by the drama that is injected into an image when your lens moves near to the sun (see examples here, here, here and here). Today's photograph, however, whilst it has more impact than the same shot with the sun behind me would have had, is rather more subdued than the photographs I used to regularly turn out. Perhaps that's down to the clear sky, sharp details and shadows, calm sea and relatively few people.

Black and white is often used as a means of emphasising the powerful qualities of contre jour. Nineteenth century photographers noticed this effect almost immediately, and early cinema exploited it too, although in motion pictures it was the German Expressionists, such as Fritz Lang, and the Hollywood "film noir" of the 1940s and 1950s who took it to its heights. It's something I mean to do more of as autumn progresses and the sun is lower in the sky.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/2500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Southwold Pier

click photo to enlarge

As you point your camera nearer to the sun the dramatic quality of your image increases - and the colour drains away. That thought ocurred to me when I reviewed this photograph on my computer. But then I thought, hang on a moment, Southwold Pier is pretty devoid of colour anyway, so this image doesn't make that point very well.

I used to take more contre jour shots than I do now. I think it is my change of location to rural Lincolnshire: the subjects that work with this approach are now harder to find. However, on a recent visit to Suffolk I did take a few against the light, of which this is one. I kept the sun's brightness out of the shot - you can just see the edge of it at the top right of the frame.

I chose this shot for today because it happens to illustrate a few of the compositional devices I listed yesterday. Framing, using the posts and pier name; contrast by shooting contre jour; leading lines (the railings and pier itself); repetition of forms; balanced asymmetry (the sweep of the near pier to the left, the thrust of the main pier and pier name to the right); and a single subject. But, as I say above, it doesn't make my point about colours dying away as you point the lens closer to a strong light source.

Southwold Pier opened for business in 1900. That being the case you'd expect it to have large, ornate pavilions, substantial benches, decorative railings, and lashings of bright paint to emphasise that a pier is all about FUN. However there are a couple of reasons why the pier is a sober and studied essay in white, black and grey (the primrose yellow landward building excepted). The first is because, as with most piers, it has been knocked about a bit and very little remains from the early days. In 1934 a storm swept away the T-shaped landing stage at the end of its 810 feet (245m) length. Then, during the Second World War, like many east and south coast piers it was cut to prevent it being used by invasion ships. A further indignity was visited on it when it was struck by a drifting mine that exploded taking down another section. Repairs in 1948 proved to be insufficiently robust to prevent a 1955 storm cutting it in half, and in a storm of 1979 it was reduced to a stump a mere 150 feet (45.4m) long. However, in 1999 a fund raising campaign secured enough money to rebuild it, and in 2001 it was re-opened in the form we see today. That brings me to the second reason for its sober colours and undemonstrative architecture. Southwold is one of the English seaside towns without an "amusement" area. The place has a reputation as a middle-class playground, and I imagine that this is not unconnected with the pier's appearance and its difference from most other English piers.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Yellow - again

click photo to enlarge
The other day I wrote about my liking for the sight of oilseed rape fields in the spring, and noted that many didn't share my view. I ascribed this to the transformation they have brought about in our very green landscape. On reflection, however, it occurs to me that another factor may be at work, namely the relative unpopularity of the colour yellow.

When people are asked to describe this colour they invariably choose words that have positive connotations: happy, warm, bright, etc. Yet, yellow is a colour whose popularity declines with age, to the extent that it usually has only black, brown, grey, and orange placed below it. There are deep-seated, often cultural reasons why this is so, and these may be factors that weigh more heavily with those who dislike both the colour and the increasing acreage of yellow oil-seed rape. On the other hand such people may all be hay-fever and asthma sufferers who resent the discomfort that the pollen brings each spring!

Today's photograph of the crop was taken into the sun - contre jour, as it is sometimes called. The effect that this kind of light has on clouds can be quite attractive, and I like it here. Of course, the almost-complementary of the blue sky also enhances the yellow of the flowers. I tried to make something of a composition with this shot and moved my position so that the line of the track through the yellow entered the frame near the right corner and led the eye across the scene, first to the lone, leafless tree, then on to the horizon.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Snowy fields and contre jour

click photo to enlarge
For the past two days we have had snow. Not an unusual occurrence in winter, but these falls come at the end of a particularly mild and rather wet autumn, are heavier than is usual in this part of the world, and are accompanied by temperatures that are at or below freezing by day and night.

Snow is like manna from heaven for photographers, and so I've been making the most of it. One of its virtues, photographically speaking, is that it so changes the subjects that you've photographed before that you feel motivated to snap them again. Furthermore, contre jour shots take on a special quality when snow is on the ground, so I feel driven to take rather more of these than usual.

Today's shot was taken during a morning walk around fields near our village. The snow was criss-crossed with hare tracks, the sky above with the vapour trails of airliners, and the snow had long shadows thrown by the low sun. I chose this piece of relatively smooth snow for the foreground because you are never quite sure what kind of flare you're going to get when you shoot into the sun - it varies with the camera/lens combination - and a smooth surface allows any lens artefacts to show up properly. On this one I got a a small "rainbow" towards the bottom of the frame. This shot is just what came from the camera, with no filter or post processing, except for a little noise suppression in the sky.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Shooting the sun

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"Always take photographs with your back to the sun." That's the first piece of photographic advice I remember reading as a teenager. And useless advice it was too! Follow that rule when photographing people and you end up with an image of people squinting at the camera. Other subjects look floodlit, flat and boring. I soon learned that much better photographs result when you have the sun falling on your subject from the left or right giving shadows that model whatever it is that you are shooting. Later still in my photographic development I appreciated the value of getting the camera pointing quite close to the sun, and producing contre jour and silhouette effects.

In recent years, since the advent of digital photography, I've found myself deliberately including the sun in shots for the striking and slightly unpredictable effects that ensue. The sun in the image acts as a very strong compositional element, and can be a useful counterweight to a more tangible subject elsewhere in the frame, as here and here. I tried it again the other day as I walked through the Lincolnshire countryside below a cold sky filled with the graffiti of passenger jets. I tried a few different exposures, and settled on this one taken with a shutter speed of 1/4000 second, as the best of the bunch. It has quite a strong "starburst" around the sun, a couple of aberrations produced by light interacting with the glass, and an interesting mix of colours ranging from almost black at the top, through blues, whites and orange. It's not a shot that I can say I carefully organised before pressing the shutter, but its unpredicted qualities make for an image that I find quite pleasing.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/4000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking for beauty

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Visitors to photography forums will have heard people bemoaning the fact that the area in which they live isn't photogenic, and that they have to travel miles to get good images. It's hard to have sympathy with this view, or the mindset of someone who wants to take photographs of conventionally beautiful places, but is unwilling to recognise, or look for, the different kind of beauty that will undoubtedly exist where they live.

When I lived in Lancashire I regularly walked along both banks of the River Wyre where it widens into an estuary that flows into the Irish Sea at Fleetwood. It's a flat location that, on one side, has the debris of 150 years spread along its banks - the rotting hulks of wooden ships, old sea walls and their newer replacements, industrial sites that have closed, the wrecked remains of a once thriving fishing industry, newer chemical manufacturing plants and a municipal dump. The other side is more rural, with saltmarsh, pastures, cereal fields, a golf course and nature reserve. As I walked the area I found plenty of subjects at which I could point my camera. Many weren't beautiful in the usual sense, but did offer a harder sort of attractiveness, as well as undoubted fascination. In this sometimes bleak area I usually got my best landscape shots when there was an interesting sky. A photography lesson that it took me a while to learn is that just as a sunset can make any subject look wonderful, a sky with cloud and light can add drama, beauty and contrast to the most unpromising scene, even an expanse of cold, flat winter water and a factory with a tall chimney.

This contre jour shot looking upstream from Knott End uses the factory on the left as balance for the sun on the right. The distant blocks of flats and Blackpool Tower add a few more details to the flat horizon.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 62mm (124mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On