Crocuses and collecting

click photo to enlarge

Obsessive collecting seems to feature in many people's (especially men's) lives, firstly between the ages of seven and twelve, and later when they are in their forties. Psychologists see the amassing of groups of similar objects as a way of the individual both identifying him or herself and establishing a kind of control over their environment. The French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007), describes the urge to collect as the  the desire for "a mental realm over which I hold sway, a thing whose meaning is governed by myself alone."

All collectors have a liking for the individual things that they collect, be they thimbles, tractors, guitars, old tools, maps, Star Wars toys, or whatever. However, for the obsessive collector each particular object eventually becomes much less important than the idea of the complete set, and the totality of the collection becomes the focus. Of course, completing a collection  leads to a kind of ennui because the point of the exercise disappears. That's why it is unusual for a true collector to buy a complete collection of anything; to do so would deprive him of the the thrill of the chase.

What has this got to do with my photograph of a clump of purple crocuses? Well, unusually for a man, I acquired an interest in flowers, particularly wild flowers, as a young boy, and it has stayed with me throughout my life. My primary school teachers lit the fire of my interest, but Brooke Bond tea was the fuel that caused it to burn brightly. More specifically the card collections of wild flowers that they produced and included with their tea packets in the 1950s and early 1960s. There were three or four series and I collected them, swapped them and tried to complete a collection. I failed, but in the process learnt how to identify many of the native species, quite a few of which could be found in my area of the Yorkshire Dales. Moreover, the cards also fed my pre-adolescent urge to collect things. As a consequence, all these years later, I find myself taking an interest in the flowers we plant in the garden as well as the wild species that we see during our walks. And, as you can see if you come here often, I regularly take photographs of them.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Crocuses

click photo to enlarge

A computer component failure has descended on me again, and though it hasn't severed my connection with the wider electronic world - I'm using my older machine - it does require some attention and a little time. Consequently I'm likely to be somewhat quieter than usual, as far as photographs and reflections go, until I have dealt with the problem. I do have a queue of photographs in waiting so I may post those but without much in the way of accompanying ramblings.

Today's photograph shows a group of crocuses that my wife planted under a cherry tree in the part of our garden that we sometimes call "the jungle". They looked so magnificent in their thrusting brightness that I had to get the macro lens and tripod out, get down on my knees and grab this shot. It is presented just as it came out of the camera with only resizing and sharpening for the web.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 250
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Thoughts from a churchyard

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"Nowhere probably is there more true feeling, and nowhere worse taste, than in a churchyard", Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), Master of Balliol College, Oxford, and theologian

Sometimes it seems that Victorian churchyards are all anguished angels, mournful maidens, painful prose, columns, urns, railings and pediments, with the occasional oddity like a downcast dog thrown in for good measure. It's perhaps this aspect of funerary sculpture that Jowett had in mind when he penned the words above. Visit a church of the second half of the nineteenth century in East Lancashire or West Yorkshire, and it often seems that taste, gravitas and discretion were unknown to the memorial masons and their patrons. The visual experience is by turns, opulent, muscular and cloying, local stone vying for attention with imported marbles. But it isn't always so.

Go to a graveyard of a century earlier, and the Georgian tombs speak of a combination of elegance and earthiness. On stones made almost exclusively of local materials, cherubs, garlands and cartouches rub shoulders with cadavers, skulls and bones. The verse is sometimes just as sentimental, but the lettering has sinuous flicks and flourishes that please the eye far more than the boldly incised, almost mechanical regularity that the Victorians prized. Perhaps too, the Georgian churchyard benefits from the patina of the extra century, and the greater spacing of the tombs. Today's photograph shows the surroundings of St Chad's, Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire. The church is an ancient building reflecting the construction of generations. A late medieval tower has a Georgian nave attached, with a semi-circular Victorian chancel and apse at the east end. The graveyard has tombs from the last four hundred years, and in the twentieth century had many of the later ones cleared. Each spring the church is surrounded by a multitude of crocuses. This draws admiring townsfolk, visitors and, inevitably, photographers. In the twenty years I have lived here I have never photographed this locally famous spring scene. This year I did! I have a feeling that Benjamin Jowett would have approved of this interesting approach to churchyard management. My image was captured with a wide zoom lens at 38mm (35mm equivalent), with the camera set to Aperture Priority (f7.1 at 1/320 second), ISO 100, with -1.0 EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen