Hoar frost and forecasters

click photo to enlarge

After the cold winter of 2009-2010 people expected that the winter of 2010-2011 would be milder. When those hopes were dashed and the January proved to be every bit as cold, the expectation then became that, after two successive harsh winters, the winter of 2011-2012 was almost bound to be better. And, for a while it looked as though it might be. However, late January and February have put paid to that theory, with last night being the coldest of the year, and Lincolnshire recording the lowest temperature (-16 Celsius) anywhere in the country.

In fact, there is no rational reason to suppose that a bad winter presages the next being milder, nor that a succession of cold winters increases the likelihood of the subsequent one being more equable. What we can expect, however, is that if the weather forecasters suggest that the minimum overnight temperature will be -5 Celsius, then we have no reason to suppose it will be anywhere near -16 Celsius. Last night the Meteorological Office got their predictions drastically wrong. For many that can be a major problem because they wouldn't necessarily have taken the precautions that they otherwise might. From my perspective as a photographer it was O.K. Why? Because we had a wonderful, unexpected hoar frost on top of the previous night's fall of snow!

We had a few of these frosts in the cold weather at the end of December 2010 and in early January 2011. I was thrilled to see another one this year and made a couple of morning forays with the camera to gather a few shots of the dramatic trees. Today's photograph was taken in the village cemetery. The white covering of the hoar frost combined with a shot against the light made a rather banal subject into something a little more interesting.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

December, fields and Pixlr

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Apparently December 2010 was the coldest for the past one hundred and twenty years. It was certainly the coldest I can remember in terms of average temperatures and the minimum values to which we were subjected. Thinking back through my experience of winters, that of 1963 beat it (thus far) in days of continuous snow on the ground, but the four weeks or so we have had is much more than usual. Many have lamented the weather because it has restricted what they can do, has resulted in higher than usual heating bills, and has been depressing. Certainly I haven't travelled as far afield as I would have done in more typical December weather, and the higher heating bills will follow our higher energy usage as surely as night follows day. But depressing? No! In fact, it has been a real gift to photographers. The days of compete white-outs, hoar frost, frozen water and fog have presented familiar subjects in unfamiliar guise, and photographic subjects haven't had to be searchd for - they've simply popped up at every turn.

Today's photograph is probably the last of the hoar frost images that I will post. It shows a small-holding across a cropped field. Without the heavy dousing of white I doubt whether I would have pointed my camera at it.

This particular image has one attribute that none of my other photographs posesses. All my post processing is done using one or more of the "heavyweight" image processing packages. This one, by way of an experiment, I ran through a free online photo-editor called Pixlr. I like to keep up to date with freeware, open-source and online software offerings, and make good use of several such packages that are as good as, or better than, commercial equivalents. Though this particular image didn't need a great deal of editing, Pixlr (daft name!) did what I wanted very well, and the user-interface was quite intuitive. I won't use it on a regular basis, but I could see a use for it when away from home, or as something to recommend to friends who need to edit images only occasionally and don't want to download and install any of the free packages. It's worth a look.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 92mm
F No: f9
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 320
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographers and the sun

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Photographers love the sun. Look at any gallery of outdoor images produced by a group of amateurs or professionals and you'll usually find the majority (often a big majority) were taken in sunlight. The colour, contrast and feel that it brings to a photograph are clearly the qualities that attract us. So alluring is the visual "punch" that sunlight brings to an image, many are given to boosting the saturation to make their shots even more eye-catching. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether a photographic equivalent of the arms race has begun in the past ten years or so, as photographers push the boundary of what is deemed acceptable saturation ever further, perhaps responding to the glowing colours of competition-winning images, and those that are feted in magazines, newspapers and online.

I was thinking about this as I processed a few shots of Lincolnshire's South Forty Foot Drain, a watercourse with origins dating back to the 1630s, that I took during the recent hoar frost. The top photograph was taken after I'd walked a little way along the bank. I was captivated by the way the frost subdued the colours, giving them a blue/green/grey cast that I found very attractive, so I used the sharp outlines of the fence, gate and stock-pen as a middle-ground point of interest and composed this image. Then I walked on, through the open gate, and started to compose another shot using a piece of eroded bank as foreground interest. As I looked through the viewfinder a shaft of sunlight passed across the area in front of me. It worked its magic on the exposed soil, giving it a deeper, redder colour, made the frozen surface of the water more reflective, and changed the colour of the grass and frost that it rested on - it transformed the scene.

I imagine that if asked to choose which of the two images they liked best, most people would nominate the one that is partly sunlit. I like it for the qualities that I cite above. Yet, to my mind the first image is preferable for reasons that are both photographic and personal. I like the muted colours that stretch completely across the image of the first shot and the way they support the feel of the coldness of the day: they tell the story better. The sun, I feel, brings an unwarranted lift to the scene in the second shot: a note of gaiety where none is required. You might argue that both are accurate reflections of the scene as it presented itself to me, and that is of course, true. However, my recollection of the time I spent here is better reflected in the first image. It says "cold" so much better! I'm aware that this is an unfair comparison: the same shot, both with and without the sun's presence would be better. But, hey, sometimes you have to work with what you've got!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm
F No: 7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Taking the same photograph again No. 2

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If you repeatedly walk the same routes you come upon the same photographic subjects time and again. For some photographers that is a problem to be overcome by regular travel, either locally, nationally or in distant lands. Now I enjoy travel as much as the  next person, but not for its own sake, and not solely for the purposes of photography. For me travel has to offer something wider than servicing just one of my interests. And, as I've said on more than one occasion in this blog, I enjoy unearthing new photographs in familiar places and making photographs that are variations on those that I've taken before. So, a familiar walk in the area where I live is just as likely to provide me with a photographic opportunity as is a trip to the other end of the country or to an entirely different country.

The other day I had a morning walk alone, then another walk in the afternoon with my wife. On that second outing we travelled along a track that gives a fine, distant view of Donington church. Exactly one year ago yesterday I walked the same path and took a photograph with similarities to that which I post today. The earlier photograph is from a slightly different point, has a clearer sky, and was at a time when more snow covered the ground. But, the composition is essentially the same: the principal interest resides in the horizon, the trees and the bodkin-like spire of St Mary and The Holy Rood piercing the sky, with subsidiary features being the near field, the huddle of houses and the sky. What I find interesting is how different the two photographs are in feel and colour. Each has qualities that I like - the hard, cold clarity of the earlier shot and the blue/orange complementary colours of the recent one, to name but two.

I've walked the path from which the two images were taken several times during the course of the past year, and on each occasion I've looked across at this section of the horizon. But, at no time was I motivated to take another shot until the other day when the light and weather came together in a way that caused me to raise my camera to my eye.

Why the title? See this post.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 250
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Enjoying the hoar frost

click photo to enlarge

Yesterday we had hoar frost on top of hoar frost such that everything looked like it was encrusted in a thick layer of sugar icing. I had hoped to do a few close-ups or macro shots of leaves, plants and branches, but the delicate subtlety of the previous day had been replaced by this heavy, white covering.

So, once again, I set off quite early to photograph the marvel of it all. This is the first shot of the day. It shows a farmhouse and a few outbuildings in the field across from my house. In fact, like a number of such buildings in the Fens (and elsewhere in Britain for that matter) it is a former farmhouse, now used as a simple dwelling. The consolidation of farms into bigger holdings, together with the reduction in the number of people involved in agriculture due to mechanization, are the main reasons why there are fewer working farms than there were.

I've never thought that this subject was particularly worthy of a photograph before, but the frost added a dimension that transformed it. The whiteness combined with the blueness of the early morning light had the effect of subduing the green of the hedge and grass and made the red/orange of the bricks and roof tiles of the buildings stand out more. The hole in the hedge gave the main subject a frame of sorts, while the tall poplar tree on the right broke the essential symmetry of the composition in a satisfying way, and acted as a counterweight to the upstairs window on the left.

I was glad I'd made an early start because when I went out again in the afternoon the wind was blowing the ice crystals off, forcing me to keep my camera covered, and each tree had a patch of white below that grew ever bigger as the day progressed.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 161mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wintry weeping willow

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I was born and raised in an upland area of north-western Britain, a region where the willow tree is something of a stranger. It's not that you don't see them: ornamental specimens are found in gardens, and they can be seen in river valleys. But, willows are not as plentiful as in lowland Britain, and the ash, beech, and other species greatly outnumber them. It was only when I moved to eastern England that I began to appreciate the species.

The willow is one of the earliest trees to come into leaf in spring, and one of the last to lose them in autumn. A very large specimen that grows in my garden near a stream sheds its leaves so late that for the past couple of years I've had to wait until the first snow has melted to clear the last of them away. But, this is a minor inconvenience when set against the beauty of the willow. The soaring, arching boughs and the cascades of supple, slender twigs give it an unmistakable shape. Its spear-shaped leaves - soft green or yellowish above, with a silver tinge below - are equally distinctive. Ancient trees are often missing a branch or a major limb, only the broken stump remaining, and frequently throwing out shoots. "Crack willow" is the old name for the tree because of the way it splits and cracks when assaulted by high winds. But, although it gives way to the elements relatively easily it can keep on growing for centuries, even the most shattered trunk or a fallen bough having the capacity to spring back to life. In the days when branches were used for fencing, clothes props and other garden and farm duties, people noted the way in which a piece of cut willow would often take root and begin throwing out shoots and leaves, the life force within trying to re-establish itself. Today this quality is exploited by artists who use the supple branches for weaving living sculptures.

Today's photograph shows part of a row of willows that lines the stream that goes on to flow through my garden. A hoar frost that accompanied a fog left the branches almost completely white, looking like cascades of water falling down a cliff. The subtle magnificence of the thousands of delicate lines curving downwards caused me to stop, wonder, then go in to the house for my camera. Through the viewfinder this composition reminded me of an etching or a scraperboard drawing.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 147mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation: +0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The story of a blog post

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Most of the responses I get to PhotoReflect are polite, friendly and thoughtful. However, once in a very rare while an individual blog post takes on a life of its own and roams the web, ending up in odd places and provoking unusual reactions. Here is the tale of one such recent post.

On 4th December I posted a piece called "Rooks, hoar frost and adverts". In it I mentioned the humour that I'd experienced reading the advertising pitches that Toyota and Land Rover were making during the present spell of exceptionally cold, snowy and icy weather. The photograph that accompanied it was O.K., but nothing special, and the text was mildly diverting for me, but not, I think, particularly noteworthy. Consequently I was puzzled to see it achieving so many hits; enough that it is now the fifth most visited page on PhotoReflect since I changed my page counter to Blogger Stats in July. So, I did a bit of Googling and discovered that a Wiki site that trawls blogs and that indexes "similar" subjects had picked it up and listed it alongside sites discussing the Land Rover Freelander. A couple of days later I got an intemperate email (complete with expletives) from someone who owned a Freelander, and who wanted to explain to me why I was wrong to describe it as "dangerous", and how he, with a young family, had chosen it because it was a very safe vehicle. I did what I always do with unsolicitited emails and deleted it.

Later, however, I wondered whether I should have responded - in the spirit of broadening his thinking on the ownership of such vehicles. I'd have talked about how bigger, heavier vehicles are only relatively safer, and how their safety comes at the expense of increasing the risk to other road users and their children. Then I'd have suggested to him that by his logic he should have bought the biggest available 4X4, or better still, have got a massive lorry (HGV) because as far as the passengers go (though certainly not other road users), these are by far the safest vehicles on our highways. Instead I wondered why someone would invest the time and effort to justify himself, using such language, to me, a complete stranger. Perhaps, I thought, it is an extension of the "forum" mentality, whereby people proclaim their own opinions about news articles, etc. and defend them in a completely unrestrained, and often abusive, way. Most odd.

On the day I took this photograph we had hoar frost again, alongside a thick fog and temperatures that never rose from several degrees below zero. During a circular walk I passed a lone tree that I've photographed a couple of times thinking it would make an image, but which thus far hasn't. On this occasion the weather and the frosted white umbellifer in the right foreground made a composition good enough for me to think, "That will do!"

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 47mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: +0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rooks, hoar frost and adverts

click photo to enlarge

When "Frozen Britain" (copyright - BBC TV) is in the grip of a "White Hell" (copyright - unimaginative and overworked journalists on, it seems, every newspaper) movement becomes more restricted than usual. The paths, where they exist in rural areas, have become packed snow which has turned to ice: minor roads ditto. Major roads have largely been kept open, but fresh falls and freeze-thaw make stretches periodically difficult or impassable. Consequently the radius over which I have chosen to roam during the past week has been less than two miles, the odd shopping expedition by car excepted. And the amount of time I've spent indoors has increased. This doesn't have to be a bad thing because it directs you to activities that need doing or that you would like to do. It's also a time when you take your pleasures where you can, and when you find fun in unexpected places.

Over the past couple of days I've had a few good laughs at the advertising pitches that the snow has prompted the manufacturers of 4X4 vehicles to make in the press and elsewhere. Did you know that Toyota manufactures the only such vehicles ever to have driven to the North Pole? I didn't, but once I'd read it I had to be physically restrained from going out immediately and buying one. I mean, it stands to reason that a vehicle able to do that MUST be able to cope with anything that the British weather can throw at it. Then there was the Land Rover Freelander 2 advert with the subtext "don't you wish you had one of these in this snowy weather" and the line "anywhere is possible". That last one had me wondering. Anywhere? Now I know that the school-run is possible because I see them on it. And I also know that parking on the pavement is possible because I have to step round them (and resist the temptation to walk over them). And many 4X4 drivers (owners of Freelanders included) can drive on grass verges and churn them up - in fact many seem to see it as a duty, so I know they can go there too. But anywhere? How about into the average sized parking space? In fact, the press reported that one Lincolnshire driver this week found that his Freelander didn't stop him leaving a snow-covered road and ending up in a drainage ditch with tragic consequences. Anywhere? Not really.

The truth is, manufacturers of such vehicles know that many people's (especially men's) capacity for self-delusion knows no bounds, and the ability to go to the shops at any time, including on the two or three days of the year when that might not be possible for two-wheel drive cars, is all the bait needed to make people part with a sum that can buy two or three perfectly good and less destructive vehicles. Of course none of the adverts mentioned the massive redundancy involved in these thirsty, heavy, over-engineered trucks dragging around excess metal for the other three hundred and sixty days of the year.

I was mulling this over as I photographed the rooks at the top of the hoar-frost covered churchyard trees in the village the other day. The easy grace with which they slipped from their perch, then glided and slowly flapped to their destination made me wonder if, one day, man will be able to move about as easily, and with as little impact on his environment.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On