Disc harrows and white horses

click photo to enlarge
The other day, as I looked at the rusty metal discs on the harrow shown in today's photograph, out of nowhere it seemed, a thought popped into my head: "What ever happened to the Ebbsfleet horse?" Anyone with a working knowledge of some of the more grandiose lunacies of modern British art will know that to which I refer. For the uninitiated the background is as follows. In 2009 Mark Wallinger's design was chosen as the winning submission in a competition for a large public sculpture at Ebbsfleet in Kent. The piece was intended to mark the area's redevelopment and the international railway station in particular. His work is a big - very big, 33X life size, 160 feet high - white horse made of concrete on a steel frame. It is a representational piece: imagine a child's play farm animal inflated to gigantic proportions. Why a white horse? Well, the county symbol for Kent is a white horse rampant with the word "Invicta". Moreover, the white chalk hills of the county feature white horses made by removing the turf.

As a sculpture it leaves everything to be desired. The photomontages showing how it will appear from afar illustrate what a blot on the landscape the white horse will be: every bit as bad as Damien Hurst's 65 feet tall sculpture of a half-flayed pregnant woman wielding a sword (called "Verity") at Ilfracombe. In fact, the latter has more to commend it because Hurst paid for it and it's on loan for a period of twenty years after which it will be gone. The money for the white horse hasn't been forthcoming, which is good of course. The concern must be that at some point public money is sought for the project and then Kent will be stuck with it for ever - or at least until it becomes a grubby eyesore and is wrestled to the ground like the statue of Saddam Hussein.

So what has a disc harrow to do with the white horse? Well, in December 2008, at a time when a short-list of three candidates was being considered for the Ebbsfleet sculpture I wrote a blog post proposing that a disc harrow might make a more appropriate subject and posted a shot to illustrate my point. Seeing the example above brought back memories of that. What I also liked about this particular harrow, as well as the repetition of shapes, was the mottled terracotta appearance of the rust. I thought then, and I still think, that a scaled up version of this above an agricultural landscape would have more beauty, interest and appropriateness than an inflated white horse.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Giving the wrong impression

click photo to enlarge

I've said elswhere in this blog that I think "the camera ALWAYS lies" is a truer statement than "the camera NEVER lies." I've also come to realise, over the years, that photographs often deceive unwittingly. In fact, "lies" is frequently too strong a word: "give a false impression" sums it up rather better.

This misleading comes about through the way that we compose images. Photographers are usually selective of the view before them, deciding what will be included in the shot and what will be left out. Sometimes they are less careful than that and are so fixed on what they want in the photograph they simply don't care or notice what is omitted. And, when this happens, the image can give a viewer who doesn't know the subject that we are presenting, a false impression.

Today's image is an example of this. It shows a tractor hauling a couple of disc harrows, one with tines, over a field that has been cleared of wheat. The scene is in Lincolnshire, a county that is considered by many English people to be sparsely populated, flat (or flattish), treeless, with few hedges, and devoted exclusively to arable agriculture. This photograph reinforces every one of those ideas which are, in fact, misconceptions. It was taken in a part of Lincolnshire where the Fens give way to low rolling hills (there are also higher rolling hills - the Lincolnshire Wolds). If I had not wanted the sparse composition that I did and had shown a wider view it would have included more of these hills and trees and hedges (just out of shot). Had I panned left I'd have photographed an old manor house surrounded by trees with adjacent pasture, paddocks for horses and small copses, with further away, some cattle. The stereotypical image that I have produced gives a false impression of the area in which it was taken.

For another (compositionally similar) example of this, and similar comments (in the last paragraph), see here.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 104mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Deere and turtle doves

click photo to enlarge

A while ago someone I know told me that her farmer son had taken delivery of a new combine harvester. "What colour is it?" I asked. When I heard it was green I said, "Tell him he bought the wrong colour!" I have no interest in the make of farm machinery, so my observation wasn't prompted by any loyalty to, say, Massey Ferguson over John Deere. It's simply that, as any photographer knows, a red combine harvester munching its way across a field of wheat makes a better photograph than a green one: red has more visual punch, and even a distant shot of a combine painted red has weight in a composition.

And, what goes for combine harvesters goes for tractors too. I took a few shots of this green tractor pulling its harrow of tines and discs across the stubble of a harvested Fenland wheat field, but only in those photographs with the machine relatively near the camera did the tractor have sufficent visual weight to give compositional balance for the dominant wind turbines.

That afternoon's photographic outing produced little of worth in terms of images, but did prove interesting ornithologically speaking. Driving along a dead straight drove road I came upon a wood pigeon and what appeared to be a couple of collared doves that were reluctant to take flight from the tarmac. As I got nearer the colours and markings of the smaller birds revealed them to be turtle doves (Streptopelia turtur). In the UK this species is the most rapidly declining farmland bird. Numbers have fallen by 70% since the mid-1990s. The intensification of farming and continental hunting are thought to be the cause of the reduction in numbers. Consequently I was thrilled to see this pair, quite late in the season in the intensively farmed Lincolnshire Fens just before they depart for warmer southern climes.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sculpture for our times

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The global recession and the decline in the UK's finances is likely to put paid to the plans for further gargantuan public sculptures. It's a brave (or foolhardy) government or local authority that lets itself be seen spending millions on big lumps of metal whilst people are selling the family silver to keep a roof over their heads or put food on the table. And on the whole I think I'll be pleased to see a halt called to these sculptures.

In May the newspapers were full of pictures and articles about the five short-listed sculptures for a proposed "Angel of the South" at Ebbsfleet, Kent. Developers decided that this rail terminal that is to be developed into a New Town needed to be put on the map, and a massive sculpture taller than the Statue of Liberty was the way to do it. The short-listed candidates were a steel latticework, a giant white horse 33X life size, 5 stacked cubes with a laser beam shining up at the sky, an artificial earth mount topped with a cast of the inside of a Victorian house, and a concrete disc and detached wing forming a sort of amphitheatre. In October the list was shortened to the first three, and the winner will be announced in January. Or not? Apparently the horse is the favourite because chalk white horses, made on hillsides by cutting off the turf, are "English" (this one is three-dimensional), and Kent's symbol is a rampant white horse (this one's just standing there looking bored). I hope sense and financial prudence will scotch the whole thing. I have nothing against public sculpture, and have on more than one occasion, in this blog, described it as a public good. But I prefer pieces that impress themselves on you through their art, not force themselves on you by their size.

Walking past a parked disc harrow the other day I took this shot of part of the machine that was folded into the vertical position. As I looked at it on my computer, and particularly when I converted it to black and white, it occurred to me that the stacked, scalloped discs would make a good sculpture at very little cost. Perhaps if the Ebbsfleet developers ditch the white horse and re-canvas for a cheaper option I'll enter the competition. After all, what could be more appropriate for the County of Kent, "The Garden of England", than an agricultural machine!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm (140mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On