Garden photography in dull weather

click photo to enlarge

It's well known that in the UK the main topic of conversation isn't the state of the economy, the royal family, politics, the achievements of a football team or the goings on in whatever happens to be the favourite soap opera of the day. Not one of these matters of great importance do people dwell on overly long, rather it's the everyday subject of - the weather. In a country such as ours where latitude, the Gulf Stream, the surrounding sea and the proximity of a large land mass - "the continent" - produce a temperate climate with plentiful cloud and, often though not always, several kinds of weather in a single day, the weather is always going to be more of a talking point than it would be in a Mediterranean region, the centre of a continent, or almost anywhere else. And when the changeable weather pattern departs from its normal fluctuations and produces a period of unseasonally low temperatures, persistent cloud cover and very regular precipitation, as it has this spring, then you can be sure that the regular chatter about the weather becomes a grumbling storm of comment, cogitation and complaint.

I've found that this spring's weather has definitely impinged on my photography. Dull days, with little shadow and low contrast give what is often called "flat lighting", something that is often difficult to work with. I say "often" because it seems that this kind of weather also affects your memory. I know full well that there are circumstances and subjects that respond well to overcast skies, but occasionally I forget, and fail to search them out and take advantage of them. I described some of the positives of this kind of light a couple of years ago when I posted a photograph of boats on the shingle beach at Aldeburgh, Suffolk. On my recent trip to Herefordshire I came upon another such subject that worked well on a dull day. It was in Hampton Court Gardens near Leominster. The bright splash of red of the tulips in front of the attractive, timber and brick pavilion, provided the burst of colour that was needed for this overcast scene of greens, greys, brick and dark water. The saturated colours, the absence of contrasting highlights and shadows, and the lack of modelling that the latter two qualities confer, lend a character and mood to the subject that I like.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 65mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Parterres

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The "parterre", a formal garden device employing low hedges, often of box (Buxus sempervirens), in elaborate patterns enclosing contrasting shrubs and flowers, originated in France. It was developed from the "compartimens" where herbs were grown in patterns that enclosed other plants. Claude Mollet (c.1564-c.1649), a gardener to three French kings, was influential in popularising parterres proper through the royal gardens at St Germain-en-Laye and Fontainbleau in the years around 1600. Andre Le Notre (1613-1700), gardener to Louis XIV developed them still further at Versailles, Fontainbleau and Saint Cloud. The French examples were on a grand scale, and often formed part of a much larger formal, ordered, symmetrical scheme.

In England parterres became very popular after the Restoration, though they were usually employed on a smaller scale than across the Channel. Influential gardeners such as George London (1681-1714) and Henry Wise (1653-1738) promoted them amongst their clientele. With the accession of William and Mary in 1688 the formalities of Dutch gardens were introduced, and parterres were produced that were ever more elaborate. However, by the 1720s the informal English landscape garden had begun to establish itself and the ideas of France and Holland came to be seen as old-fashioned.

But, parterres never completely disappeared from English gardens, and remained in use in the gardens nearest stately homes of the aristocracy, even when the landscape garden was taking over further away from the house. Today, when gardeners strive to re-create the schemes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, parterres often make a come back. Today's photograph shows a corner of an elaborate group of box parterres at Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire. The radial shape is replicated in each of the four corners of one section, with "S" shapes and more angular lines filling the centre. Small trees, shrubs and a statue enliven the composition. The lavender planting in these compartments looks relatively recent, and will doubtless be encouraged to almost fill the shapes. My idea with this photograph was to extract an element of abstraction from the parterre, and also use this interesting part of the planting to summarize the whole.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking for colour 2

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In my garden the winter-flowering heather is showing its purples and whites in vigorous clumps among the dwarf conifers on the rockery. On the trellis yellow spots of winter jasmine still shine like stars against their dark backdrop. And a few clumps of yellow, purple and pink primulas glow from their protected spots below shrubs and trees. All these flowers have been offering spots of colours for quite a while now, snow permitting.

However, since Valentine's Day, and coinciding with the increasing temperatures and easing wind, other flowers have started to show signs of life. Drifts of white snowdrops are blooming in profusion in the flower beds and on the bank of the stream. Dull purple and bright white hellebores are showing well under the willow, and nearby the blue and yellow of the lungwort (pulmonaria) is starting to be visible. A couple of yellow tete-a-tete narcissi have opened, and under the crab apple tree the daffodils are in full bud, and visibly growing taller each day.

So, with bright colours starting to re-appear in the garden I put my macro lens on my camera and went out to see what I could photograph. And promptly went back in! Though the day was overcast it was bright, and whilst the temperature was lower than on recent days, it wasn't unpleasant. What drove me back into the house was the wind. It has been quite gentle for the past fortnight, but today it was quite a bit stronger, gusty and disturbing every plant at which I pointed my camera. So, feeling thwarted, I took some "Lakeland" water colour crayons out of the cupboard, a pack that I bought a while ago and haven't yet used, and got my "colour fix" by arranging and photographing some of those!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/10 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A Victorian garden

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There's small wonder that when children go into a public playground one of the first things they head for is the see-saw ( that is if "health and safety" hasn't banned it.) It seems that the human psyche just loves to go first this way, then that. Yesterday lending was good: today it's bad. Bust inevitably follows boom, and the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

This see-sawing (or perhaps it's a swinging motion, and I chose the wrong piece of equipment for my metaphor) affects gardening just as much as international finance, the length of skirts, or the nutritional value, or otherwise, of the humble egg. England's great contribution to gardening - the landscape garden -was triumphant in the eighteenth century. Capability Brown, Humphrey Repton, and their followers recast the gardens and parks of the well-to-do to look like the vision of "wild nature tamed" as seen in the paintings of Claude. Romantic ruins, serpentine paths, "eye-catcher" follies, asymmetric clumps of trees and shrubs all contributed to the look. However, by the 1830s people had become tired of this, and the pendulum (to introduce a third metaphor!) swung back to the very formality that the landscapists had sought to banish. The gardens of Italy during the Renaissance, with their rectangular, geometric forms, prominent fountains, statues, axial layouts, tall conifers contrasting with tidy, cut shrubs, were the inspiration for this new direction. That this recreation wouldn't have been recognised by either an ancient Roman or a later Italian was of no consequence: even parterres made a comeback, and newly imported exotica like the monkey puzzle tree were included in this heady mix.

Today's photographs show something of this style of garden at Brodsworth Hall, Yorkshire, in the month of February. The two views each show a part of the same area, the first illustrating the favoured axial symmetry, here lined up on the centre of the west facade, and the second the degree of "close control" that such gardens exhibit: not so much nature tamed, as nature caught, caged, muzzled and trimmed like a pampered poodle!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Second image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 48mm (96mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On