More gallery reflections

click photo to enlarge
I recently read that the film, "Ben Hur", is being re-made. There's an old joke about the 1959 version, starring Charlton Heston, wherein someone who is asked what they thought of the film replied, "Liked him, hated her."!

I was reminded of this  witticism (though in reverse) on a recent  visit to a Lisbon gallery dedicated to two painters, the Hungarian Arpad Siznes (1897-1985 and his wife, the Portuguese Maria Helena Viera da Silva (1908-1992). I very much enjoyed the latter's work, especially the abstract city landscapes, but really could not find much that I liked in her husband's work.

The gallery itself has been made from an existing building that faces a square near a section of the large aqueduct (Aqueduto das Aguas Livres) that traverses this area of Lisbon. Its interior is painted white  (see previous post) with the exposed roof timbers and the tiled floor adding natural and muted colour. However, its origins in a pre-existing building mean that it has multiple levels, stairs, walls, lifts and corridors. Walking through the main exhibitions I came upon this glass wall and photographed my framed reflection. When processing the shot it occurred to me that a high key treatment might work with the essentially white details, so I converted it to black and white and then made the necessary adjustments.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 67mm (13mm - 26mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/20 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hydrangeas and high key

click photo to enlarge

My wife spotted one of the detached, dead flower heads of our giant hydrangea as we walked through the pergola the other day and, as she pointed it out to me, I made a mental note to examine it as a potential photographic subject. By the time I got round to retrieving it for that purpose the wind had blown it, tumbleweed-style, across the garden and it had suffered quite a bit of damage. Nonetheless I took it indoors and and placed it on a white background under a bright light, hoping to base an image around the cluster of lace-like petals. But, as is often the case, what I saw in my mind's eye didn't appear quite the way I imagined it when I came to look through the viewfinder. The multiplicity of groups of four petals was simply too much: a simpler composition was required.

I tried a shot of part of the flower head with the edge offering a ragged outline against a plain black or white background. However, whilst better it still didn't satisfy me. So I took to pulling off a few individual petal groups and examining them. The attraction, it seemed to me, lay in the delicate veins of each individual petal and the way they were grouped  in fours like the blades of a propeller. So I built this simple composition with three stems and set them on a white background with the light source behind and to the side to accentuate the key features.

My natural inclination is to aim for a "perfect" exposure or to under-expose. I have something of an aversion to over-exposure for reasons that I find hard to articulate. And yet, when I see a good "high key" shot with the main subject appearing out of a blazing white background I often like it. I have it in mind to try more of this kind of shot myself, and have done so very occasionally, as I did with this shell. Consequently I thought I'd try it again here. I haven't gone quite as far as with the shell - all the details are still showing - but it is much lighter and brighter than it would have been had I followed both my inclination and the light meter.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 0.3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Tongue-twisters, sea shells and over-exposure

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"She sells sea shells on the sea shore"
Tongue -twister popular with English-speaking children

There's a certain age, probably around 8 or 9, when English children are attracted to tongue-twisters, those phrases, sentences and rhymes that it's difficult to say quickly and repeatedly without tying your tongue in knots. The sentence quoted at the top of this entry is often the first exposure that a child has to these slippery constructions. But there are others! Here are three of the most widely known:

"Swan swim over the sea, swim swan swim,
Swan swim back again,
Well swum swan!"

"Red lorry, yellow lorry"

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper corns,
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper corns,
Where's the peck of pickled pepper corns that Peter Piper picked?"

The only point of the tongue twister is to see if you can say the phrase or sentence repeatedly and quickly without tripping up. Most people can't, but children do love to try. I am always reminded of the sea shells tongue twister when I use the word sea shell: it must have been imprinted on me at a very impressionable age!

A while ago I wrote myself a memo on my computer. It said, "Take some over-exposed, high key photographs." I didn't. But the memo kept catching my eye, nagging at me, and so yesterday I took down this shell from my book cases and made this over-exposed image of its spiral. Over-exposure of an image doesn't come naturally to me. If anything I slightly underexpose, and frequently massively under-expose, particularly when trying to control a strong light source. But, with the right subject, over-exposure can produce very engaging effects. I must do it more!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1.0
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0EV
Image Stabilisation: Off