Walkie Not Talkie

click photo to enlarge
I've never been a fan of the telephone. There's something about talking to a disembodied voice that doesn't appeal to me. Moreover, I spent too much time speaking to people on the phone during my working life. That's not to say I don't appreciate their utility, and of course, I do use phones. With that in mind you might think that the rise of the smartphone would be something I'd welcome because it offers communication without the necessity for speaking. In fact, I wonder if these days such devices aren't more used for texting (SMS), email, social media communication etc, than simply speaking to people. But the fact is, though I recognise their multiple uses, and though I use my wife's smartphone, I haven't succumbed to one myself because I have enough computers of one kind or another and the idea of having one to use on a regular basis when I'm out and about is simply too much to contemplate.

I sometimes wonder what smartphone users would do if they had their device surgically removed. What would they do with their hands, their eyes, their ears and their brains? Would they have to look about them, make their own entertainment, fret because they don't know what their friends and acquaintances are doing, organise their time and social interactions better because there was no phone to make last-minute adjustments? I do wonder whether smartphones will turn us into lobster people who carry massive smartphones as evolution causes us to develop massively over-sized thumbs from countless keypresses.

I recognise that my relative antipathy to smartphones isn't widely held. On reflection it probably comes from the deep enjoyment I get from looking at our world, finding out about it and reflecting on what I see. A smartphone would get in the way of that - and it would encourage me to use an inferior camera!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 63mm (126mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0
Image Stabilisation: On

Love locks

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The first I heard of "love locks" was when I read a newspaper report in 2010 that told of the Parisian authorities' request that people stop fixing locks to certain bridges over the River Seine. Such was the number and weight of these locks that there was a concern about safety and the effect on the city's architectural heritage. However, I read that the phenomenon dates back to the era of the First World War when "love padlocks" were fastened to a bridge in Serbia.

I spotted padlocks on the new St Botolph's Footbridge in Boston, Lincolnshire, several weeks ago. On a recent visit to the town I saw them again, not greatly increased in number, but noticeable nonetheless. They are there in all shapes, sizes and colours, some with messages written on in marker pen. I have mixed feelings about them. One part of me sympathises with the view of the authorities in Paris; they do detract from the architecture and heritage (or will do if they approach the numbers experienced by that city's bridges). But I also like the fact that people still value symbolism and symbolic acts openly expressed.

The centre of this new footbridge has a trefoil  on each side, the only overt ornament of its bowstring design. Perhaps they are a nod to the Gothic architecture that towers over it. It provides a useful frame for the church tower, currently carries a few of the locks, and offers an interesting shape to the composition.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  - 0.3EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Starters, finishers and contre jour

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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

Photography in the fog

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When I lived in Hull and the weather was foggy I often heard the sound of the ships' foghorns as they negotiated the River Humber into the port or went out into the North Sea. Living on the Lancashire coast I heard them occasionally: there were fewer ships, fog was infrequent, and technology had advanced compared with when I lived near the east coast. Now that I'm in Lincolnshire I experience more fog than in either of the other locations but I recall hearing a ship's foghorn only once. I suppose I'm too far from the sea and ships in The Wash are relatively few, smaller, and fairly quiet.

In common with much of eastern England we've recently had a few days of mist and fog and I've made a point of going out with my camera to see what I could snap. As I've said elsewhere in this blog, fog is one of those weather conditions - like snow - that transforms a landscape and allows the photographer to make very different images in very familiar surroundings. Unfortunately inspiration seemed to have deserted me on my forays into the gloom and I came back with very little that satisfies me. The two shots I post today are the best of my meagre pickings.

Certainly, to my mind, they don't compare with some of my earlier efforts such as this jetty and yacht, this tree, this cottage or this Fenland "view". The smaller of today's offerings shows a new footbridge over a dyke on a footpath near Donington. The main image is the west end of Donington church. This marvellous piece of medieval architecture has a very interesting west doorway. It dates from the fourteenth century and, unusually for a village church, has a projecting hood with an ogee arch that protects the inner arch and door. Time and weather have eroded the sharp details of this feature, but the sculpted leaves and other mouldings can still be discerned under its current generous covering of moss.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Conventional wisdom

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You may have read a couple of weeks ago, the claim by the University of York's Peter Thompson that, contrary to popular belief, horizontally striped clothes are better at disguising excess weight than those with vertical stripes. To reach his conclusion he took 200 pairs of photographs of women in vertically striped and horizontally banded clothes, and asked viewers to decide which looked slimmer. By a margin of 6%, those wearing horizontal stripes were judged to appear more slender. To underpin his findings Thompson pointed out that the more beneficial effect of horizontal lines in clothing was first noted by the German physiologist, Hermann von Hemholtz, nearly a century and a half ago in his "Handbook of Physiological Optics", published in 1867.

This snippet of recent news came to mind as I was processing my image of the reflection of a footbridge in the stretch of water known as the Sleaford Navigation. I had deliberately composed the shot with the strong band of the footbridge going diagonally across the frame. The conventional wisdom about composition is that horizontal lines are stable, calm, and give a sense of space, and diagonals are dynamic, and give a greater feeling of energy. However, looking at my shot I didn't think that the diagonal had that effect at all. Maybe it's a consequence of the strong vertical counteracting the diagonal. It could be the almost moire pattern of the wire mesh reflections. Or perhaps it's the effect of the ripples breaking up and softening the straight edges that negates those lively qualities. On the other hand, it could be that, as with verticals and horizontals in clothing, the accepted view is wrong and diagonals really don't impart the qualities claimed for them. What do you think?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 98mm (196mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On