Meadow grasses

click photo to enlarge
Our garden is sufficiently large that one year we thought we'd turn part of our largest lawn over to meadow. That is to say, we'd stop mowing the section that has the fruit trees, sow and transplant some wild flowers into it and cut it annually with a scythe. We researched the theory and embarked on the project. It turned out that the maintenance of this area of grass was, if not more time-consuming than lawn, certainly harder work when it came to looking after it. The effect in spring and summer was fine, but the appearance after the mowing wasn't good and the disposal of the grass was harder than envisaged. Moreover, some flowers in the meadow succeeded but quite a few failed. So we decided to drastically reduce the area of "meadow", return a big portion back to lawn and see how that fared. The answer was, much better, even though I was back to steering the mower round most of the apple and pear trees once more.

Today's photograph shows some of the grasses in our small area of meadow lit by June sunshine I expect I'll be photographing the dog daisies in it soon, and enjoying the sight of the long grass and flowers swaying in the breeze and July sunshine before I take the scythe to it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Meadow Grasses
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 35mm Macro (70mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The west's debt to the east

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Today's blog title might look like I'm going to reflect on the role of the "tiger economies", China in particular, and their role in keeping the shaky western economies ticking over. In fact I've been thinking about some earlier indebtedness that is owed to that part of the world.

The debt that the Renaissance owes to ancient Greece and Rome is widely known. What fewer people are aware of is the extent to which this European movement drew upon technologies from India and China. These were transmitted in one of two ways. Either the invention and process were taken and copied (and often improved), or the idea was reported in the west and that was enough for it to be developed there. Gunpowder and paper are generally known to have come to Europe to the east. However, the range of borrowed technologies is much more extensive and includes the horse breast strap, silk, the stirrup, segmental arch bridge, canal lock gates, mariners' compass, printing and business techniques including book-keeping. The rapid growth and change that Europe undertook in the Renaissance would have been significantly slowed without these and many other contributions from the other side of the world.

The contribution of China and Japan to the arts is also not widely known. However, as trade expanded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the decorative arts of the east became available and admired in Europe and even prompted fashionable trends. The "chinoiserie" of these centuries influenced painting, English landscape gardening, porcelain design, architecture, and interior decoration. In the nineteenth century artists such as James Abbot McNeill Whistler, the American-born, British-based painter, were heavily influenced by Japanese and Chinese prints and fabrics. Whistler amassed a large collection of such things and artists as disparate as Degas, Van Gogh and Aubrey Beardsley  show the influence of the traditional ukiyo-e style and its major Japanese exponents such as Hiroshige and Hokusai.

It's hard to imagine that Western paintings lacking perspective and shadow, that featured flat areas of colour, had strongly asymmetrical compositions and made a strong feature of empty space, would have arisen in the way that they did without the influence of eastern art. And where painters lead photographers follow, even humble amateurs such as yours truly. My photograph of the grass stems and leaves poking up through the snow wouldn't have been one that I would have thought worthy of making without the august precedents described above.

Addendum:

The photograph I had thought to use today was this one showing a Valentine's Day display at a flower shop in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire. The fine Regency bow window links with my recent posts on that period's architecture, and the subject is topical. However, my newspaper, the radio, the internet, and for all I know the T.V., are awash with ever more tenuous pieces on Valentine's Day and the associated razzamatazz - much more it seemms than in previous years - and I felt the last thing needed was yet another. So, here's the photograph and not another word on the subject.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Gravestones and lawnmowers

click photo to enlarge

The earliest device for keeping down the grass in graveyards was the humble sheep. They are still occasionally used today, and their presence brings an old world, agricultural charm to the hallowed plot. The scythe was also used for long grass and awkward corners, but like the sheep it has pretty much disappeared. In virtually every UK churchyard today (except those that deliberately let the grass grow long for conservation reasons) it is the lawnmower and strimmer that are employed to keep the grass in order.

Walking a mower round the closely packed and irregularly sized graves is never an easy task, and around the mid-twentieth century some parishes tried to make the grass cutting an easier task. They took down all the headstones and re-positioned them in lines around the perimeter of the churchyard. Often they were placed in front of the wall: sometimes they were used to make a wall. This was accomapnied by levelling of the turf. Immediately the job of cutting the churchyard grass was a task taking a couple of hours rather than a day ot two, and the volunteers to do it became easier to find. Not everyone likes this development, and where it has been proposed in some churches it has led to strong disagreements. But, quite a few have adopted the measure, particularly those in urban settings.

The second of today's photographs shows a church (St Margaret's at King's Lynn) where this has happened  in a very extensive way. A few notable gravestones remain, dotted amongst the greensward, but most have been put to the edge. These headstones date from the second half of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. The first photograph (of Duddington churchyard, Northamptonshire) may show it too, though much of this churchyard looks fairly "unreconstructed". What this image does show is the damage that mowers can cause to gravestones (see the chips and scrapes at the base of the leftmost), something that never happened when sheep quietly cropped the grass away.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1(Photo 2)
Camera: Lumix LX3 (Olympus E510)
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35 mm equiv.)(55mm (110mm/35mm equiv.))
F No: f2 (f5.6)
Shutter Speed: 1/125 (1/160)
ISO: 80 (100)
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 (-0.3 EV)
Image Stabilisation: On

Morning Dew

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"Walk me out in the morning dew, my honey,
Walk me out in the morning dew today."
from the song "Morning Dew" by the Canadian singer, Bonnie Dobson (1940- )

The title of today's photograph is the most obvious choice - Morning Dew. However, as soon as I said it, into my head popped the words of that great song. I heard it first in the 1966 version sung by Tim Rose, a fine rendition with a great guitar figure, fine, deep piano and an interesting bass line behind the singer's gravelly voice. Today it's probably better known through successive cover versions by the Grateful Dead. I'm a fan of the Dead, but I don't especially care for them doing this song. The earlier versions are the best, but in the later, live covers the strengths of the song get buried in the many layers that they pour over it. I've heard two exceptional covers by the Jeff Beck Group - the earliest has Rod Stewart on vocals. This one borrows from Rose's version more than the later cover featuring the singing of Beth Hart. In both the singing is great, with the rawness that the song demands, and Beth Hart adds a few nice vibrato touches. However, it's Beck's guitar playing that distinguishes these versions with very effective distortion and some great wah-wah.

Other singers, too many to mention, have had a go at the song, but I have yet to hear the original by its author, Bonnie Dobson. A quick trawl through YouTube will throw up the versions I cite, along with a quite unaffecting endeavour by Robert Plant, and an OTT cover by Long John Baldry.

So, back to the photograph. It was taken before breakfast from the edge of my lawn with me on my belly, shooting into the early morning sun. The macro lens threw the distant dew drops nicely out of focus, and I helped by reducing the aperture to f5.

Incidentally, over forty years after first hearing Morning Dew I still haven't a clue what it's about!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/640 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On