Dark skies and photography

click photo to enlarge

After a very dry, sunny spring and early summer, with plenty of warm weather - at least in my part of the world - things have changed and we've had quite a bit of welcome rain. At the time of writing this blog post thunder is booming around us and heavy showers are queuing up to drench the fields and gardens. All this is very welcome to someone who likes to cultivate his patch, and the result of the precipitation can be seen in the increased growth rate of the grass on the lawns, the blooming of the annual and perennial flowers, the heavy crops of strawberries and raspberries that we've gathered in, and the bountiful lushness of the vegetable garden. But it's not just the gardener in me that has been pleased by the rain and changeable skies, my photographic side has welcomed them too.

On a recent day in the East Yorkshire countryside sunshine fought for supremacy with fleeting showers and dark skies. The result of the conflict was a draw, but for me personally it was, as they say these days, a "win-win" situation, with the sky with sun and clouds lending itself to photographic compositions just as much as as the dark, glowering skies. The main photograph, showing the beach at Hornsea with a groyne and the high water groyne marker, would have been less of an image without the black clouds that were above my head and heading out over the sea. They change the tonal values and the mood of the photograph. Interestingly no rain fell from them onto our heads, but rain was around, and distant showers can be seen on the horizon.

On one of the days of my recent visit to London the sky was behaving in a similar way, and it gave me an opportunity to get a different kind of shot of Canary Wharf. The grey blanket above subdued the colours and brightness of the gleaming towers, and perhaps more clearly reflected the mood that much of the financial community has experienced over the past few years. By the way, on this occasion we did get caught in a light shower and had to beat a hasty retreat for cover.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Pebbles paused

click photo to enlarge

"Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in."
from "Dover Beach", Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), English poet, writer and school inspector

Not Dover Beach, but Walcott beach, Norfolk. The shape of these pebbles shows that they have made many a "grating roar". However, their noise is now silenced, for the moment, jammed as they are in the gaps between the planks of a groyne. Yet, the next storm may well free them to continue their life of attrition, and their descent into sand.

When I was taking this photograph a couple of children were collecting pebbles in their small buckets. They scanned the beach carefully, selecting only those that appealed by colour, or banding, or distinctive shape. A man, presumably their father, was accompanying them, also intently selecting the pebbles that caught his eye. Perhaps they would be studied then returned to the beach. More likely they travelled home at the end of the afternoon and found a drier resting place decorating a garden, a backyard or a plant pot. Children are instinctively drawn to pebbles, finding the smooth shape and multi-colours attractive. Like flowers, sticks, insects and leaves a child sees them as abundant, attractive and hence, collectable. Interestingly, and almost uniquely, the childhood fascination with pebbles continues into adulthood, perhaps being driven by a primeval attraction based on a long-forgotten utility as well as their intrinsic beauty.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off