Gravestones, Langcliffe church

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After a long walk from Settle taking in Watery lane, Lodge Lane, Lambert Lane, Stockdale Lane, Attermire, Clay Pits Plantation and Langcliffe Brow we stopped off at Langcliffe church, as we often do, and sat on a bench in the churchyard to eat our packed lunch. A couple of motorcyclists were doing the same on the green near the church, but apart from them our only companion was a young rabbit that showed far less fear of humans than was good for it. If it should meet anyone less benignly disposed towards rabbits than us it may not reach old age.

After we had finished eating my wife went to look at the books for sale in the church and I walked round the churchyard to look at the gravestones. Having been brought up in the area I recognised quite a few surnames carved on them. This churchyard is well kept, with areas nicely mowed and planted and other areas deliberately left wilder. The pair of brown gravestones above are near the path that leads to the south porch, and both their distinctive shapes and the leafy surroundings of ferns, ivy and hostas lit by the dappled light piercing the trees above, made for a nice contrast between the man-made and the natural.

As I processed the photograph I noticed, for the first time, the low wire round the flowers in front of the right-most gravestone and reflected that those responsible for maintaining the churchyard must be very familiar with our rabbit.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Gravestones, Langcliffe Church, North Yorkshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm (94mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:1000
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ferns, fanatics and abstruse names

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It's common to find jobs and professions using technical and abstruse language to exclude the lay person and as an attempt to increase the mystique, status and hence income associated with their activity. It's a subject I've touched on before on this blog. What I don't understand, however, is why hobbyists also fall victim to this malady.

I suppose there are some who seek to maintain a level of exclusivity, or wish to elevate their past-time into something grander than it might appear. But it's also true that hobbyists join together in clubs and societies, and that many of these struggle to achieve the numbers required to make them vibrant and effective. Obscure names don't help with this. Why, for example, do some people call themselves campanologists rather than bell-ringers (which others are quite happy to use)? What benefit arises from the more obscure name? Or what about the numismatists and philatelists? What's wrong with coin and stamp collectors that they need to label themselves with names that many will not connect with their  hobby? And then there are the pteridologists of the British Pteridological Society. "What and who?" I hear you say. Or perhaps not, because today's photograph is a heavy clue to what pteridology might involve. It is, of course, the study of ferns. Quite why the English word needs to be supplanted by a word of Greek origin in the name of this society I'm not sure but it's a common feature of many such groups.

Today's photograph shows a fern, and I'm sure that any British pteridologists could give it its proper name. I can't. I simply photographed it for the way the light was falling on its very regular fronds and how I thought it might look when converted to black and white.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/2500 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fern frost

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Those of us who grew up in 1950s and 1960s Britain will remember frost patterns on the windows of the houses in which we lived. Sometimes they were on the outside but often we'd wake up in winter to find them on the inside. Double glazing and central heating have banished frosted windows for most people, but the absence of those two conveniences will result in the phenomenon even today.

They occur inside when there is air below freezing point outside and moist air inside that condenses on the cold glass as ice crystals. What has always fascinated me - and everyone I've spoken to about this kind of frost - is the form of the patterns that are produced. The most common type seem to be a shape similar to leaves or fern fronds. Quite how and why this shape results is a mystery to me, and a quick search doesn't produce a clear or detailed answer. It seems that the composition of the surface of the glass, particularly its imperfections, are contributory factors, but a fuller explanation is not easily found.

Today's photograph was taken on a recent early morning after a cold night. The icy patterns, commonly called fern frost, were on the outside of the windscreen of a parked car. The low sun that was obscured by trees was strong enough to produce a directional light that emphasised the details of the delicate "leaves".

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Micro and macro

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Do children ask their parents for microscopes these days? At one time in my life it was all I wanted. Perhaps if I were a child today it would be a games console or a replica soccer kit that I craved. But I like to think not! My desire to see the world that only a microscope can reveal was stirred by school biology lessons. The cellular structure of a plant, the teeming life of pond water, and the delicate framework of an insect's wing were unimaginable discoveries, and I wanted to know more.

When a microscope did come my way it was a small, inexpensive model, made mainly of plastic, with a relatively low magnification, probably a maximum of about 50X. But, despite being less impressive looking than those at school, it served me well. And though I longed for higher magnification, I appreciated my good fortune. I realise now that what I had was much more usable. Whether my parents appreciated the way the potted geranium decreased in size as I used a razor blade to take sections of its stem to view the cell structure, I don't know! But, I turned its gaze on anything and everything, and marvelled at the beauty that is beyond our casual gaze. The camera's macro lens doesn't take us quite into the microscopic world, but it does reveal the interest that lays within our wider field of view, and that is, for me, its main attraction.

I remember being told at school about the distinctiveness of of ferns, and looked through my microscope at the spores on the underside of the plentiful Yorkshire Dales bracken . This plant is a known carcinogen, often being implicated in the deaths of farm animals, and responsible for the relatively high incidence of stomach cancer in Japan and Korea where the young stems are eaten as a vegetable. My image of a winter-brown bracken frond from my garden was taken against the light of a window to reveal the detail of the interesting leaves.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 0.5
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Ferns

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Ferns came into being three hundred million years ago in the forests of the Carboniferous period. They pre-date flowering plants, and the examples that we find fossilized in rocks and coal seams look remarkably like those that we see around us today. Clearly ferns are a successful species that found their niche early in evolutionary terms.

Shady, damp places are where we see ferns. Bank sides, dark rock crevices, old walls and under the woodland canopy are typical habitats for the different species that are found across the world. Victorian gardeners favoured the fern: they collected them, cultivated them, and prized their arching fronds, indented leaves, and the way they uncurl in the spring, as if stretching from their winter sleep. However, like the laurel and the rhododendron, the fern fell out of favour and gardeners in the twentieth century saw them as "old-fashioned". The more open, brighter gardens that were created needed the particular qualities of this plant less. Today however, gardeners are re-discovering the value of the fern, particularly in smaller plots that are over-shadowed by buildings.

I found these ferns growing from the top of a wall near Scorton, Lancashire. The wall was beautifully constructed in the nineteenth century and looks like it has needed little attention since that time. Overhanging conifers shelter these ferns, and consequently the tempestuous winter weather has left them relatively unscathed. I photographed them on a cold, bright day, when shafts of sunlight were piercing the shade, illuminating the sharp, serrated fronds, and throwing their shadows across the wall. The contrast between the vegetation and the stonework seemed like a good subject for an image, and so I composed accordingly. I used a zoom lens at 110mm (35mm equivalent), with the camera set to Aperture Priority (f6.3 at 1/60 second), ISO 200 and -1.0EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen