Reflecting on hats

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It's not only fashions in hats that come and go, hats themselves fall in and out of favour. When I was a callow youth the trilby and other styles of men's hats with brims were on the way out. Flat caps were following a similar course to near extinction, being favoured by older folk only. One hat that was worn by a few men, and which is rarely seen as daily wear now, was the beret. Some men had got into the habit of wearing one during the war, and continued (without the badge) when they returned to "civvy street". Women wore hats on more formal occasions, but not too often as everyday wear. However, the headscarf was common, though like the men's hats it was in decline. Children wore the hats that their parents told them to wear: caps and balaclavas were common for boys, and bonnets for small girls. However, once the 1960s appeared few self-respecting teenagers wore anything on their heads except their flowing locks that grew in length as the decade progressed.

Consequently, for someone of my age it has been interesting to see which hats continued through the period of relative drought that the 1960s heralded, and how hats then made a comeback to the point where many teenagers have lost the habit of removing it when going indoors. Older men have always favoured hats, especially if their hair disappeared or thinned to the point where the summer sun would burn the top of their head. So, Panama hats never disappeared, and in Britain remained as sure a sign of summer as the thwack of leather on willow (cricket for the unenlightened) or the unveiling of tattoos on the midriffs of young women. But it's the rise of the American-style baseball cap that is the real surprise for me, given that baseball has about as much exposure in Britain as cricket has in the U.S. However, I suppose that these caps have been adopted world-wide as both headwear and a medium of advertising, so it's probably inevitable that they should fetch up on our shores too.

The other week I attended the Steam Threshing weekend at Bicker in Lincolnshire. This event, a small country fair that raises funds for the local church, features a variety of attractions but especially traction engines and an old-style threshing machine. As I made my first circuit of the field looking for photographs I came upon this group of men sitting on straw bales watching a traction engine. They were wearing a fine collection of hats - two Panamas, a baseball cap and a fisherman's hat (also, I believe, called a bucket hat, a "beanie"). They seemed perfect for one of my rare forays into people photography. Incidentally, I went to this event a few years ago and photographed a quite different collection of hats - see here.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 271mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1260 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dreams, holidays and hats

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I sometimes can't decide which is worse - listening to someone telling me about their holiday or hearing someone recount the dream they had last night. On balance I think I'd rather be exposed to the workings of a person's subconscious because then I might hear something that I haven't heard before; something that is unexpected, unusual, odd, weird or surreal. Though it has to be said that frequently dreams are none of those things and are just plain daft. But holidays, well, people invest so much in them in terms of cash and expectations that their reports tend to emphasise how wonderful it all was. But hearing the minutiae of travelling, sightseeing, eating, and the rest, as someone who wasn't there, makes watching paint dry seem interesting. Only occasionally do you hear a report that takes the opposite tack, that the holiday was terrible, and they wouldn't go there again. But, it's even rarer that anyone says what is usually the case - that it was everything that was expected i.e. entirely predictable.

It seems to me that much of business is involved in selling us entirely predictable experiences. Places like Macdonalds or Starbucks, and manufacturers like Coca Cola or Cadburys have business models whose very aim is to do just that. People seem to want this, and are prepared to accept the safety and certainty of the anodyne, the tedium of the foreseeable, rather than enter into the possibility of getting something worse, or better. The same is true of holidays, with travel companies, businesses and national tourist authorities in holiday destinations striving to ensure that every traveller has their expectations met. You're going to East Africa? Then we'll make sure you see lions and elephants. Spain? Flamenco dancers will be provided. Scotland? Pipers in kilts will feature at major sight-seeing venues. Travellers are complicit in this cult of predictability, wanting to tick off the mental checklist of places, sights and "experiences". Even those who make their own travel and accommodation arrangements, seeking to rise above the derided "package tour", nonetheless, tend to seek out the expected and predictable when going their "own way".

I don't imagine that the three men in today's photograph were discussing either holidays or dreams. I photographed them last year at an event where old farm vehicles were being used and displayed. Perhaps the conversation centred around the steam threshing machine, or one of the old traction engines. Whatever it was, they were bringing not only their collective wisdom to bear on the issue, but also a fine collection of hats!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On