Another view of fog

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph was taken about seventy yards from and a few minutes before the shot in the previous post. And, where that image was captured with the sun behind me, this one was taken contre jour. That fact, the nature of the subject and the conversion of an essentially monochrome colour photograph into very definite black and white has resulted in this image acquiring a quite different mood. The previous shot has a slightly melancholic touch but it's essentially neutral, wistful or even slightly upbeat with the intrusion of that warming sunlight. However, here the stark gravestones silhouetted against the misty west end of the church is loaded with associations that, I can't help thinking, are largely the result of certain writers and a whole slew of horror and mystery films.

People such as Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Dickens knew that there is nothing like a fog or mist to evoke a feeling of cold, menace or fear. Think of Pip and Magwitch in the misty Kent marshes in the 1946 version of "Great Expectations". Better yet think back to how Guy Green, the Oscar winning cinematographer on that film depicted the scenes, and how influential his work was for succeeding generations of film makers such as John Carpenter. And then consider how these images have affected how the man or woman in the street views a misty churchyard. From Bram Stoker's "Dracula" to the latest teen horror, the combination of fog and a graveyard have become, in the popular mind, synonymous with supernatural dread. Of course, none of this influenced me in any way as I carefully composed and processed this photograph. Really. Just as it wasn't a factor in this photograph of a "House of Correction" or this one of a ruined church. Honestly!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18.9mm (51mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rotten apples and Gothic novels

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Horror is one of the genres of film that I pass by. I can't take it seriously nor can I accept it as a tongue in cheek exercise. The plotting is often puerile, the acting awful and the photography feckless. Even where this isn't the case I'm invariably unwilling to suspend my disbelief. I feel the same about the Gothic novel too. Many years ago I read Horace Walpole's, "The Castle of Otranto" (1764), the novel that is credited with initiating this branch of fiction, and went on to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (1818), a few Edgar Allan Poe stories and sundry other examples of the type. My experiences didn't encourage me to look further, something you may find surprising in someone who spends so much time photographing Gothic architecture.

It's not the core elements of the Gothic novel - terror, death, gloom, decay, darkness etc - that I take issue with so much as the fact they are the centre and totality of the experience offered: there is no light against which to contrast the deep shade (to use a vaguely photographic metaphor). In fact, decay is something that I do like. That's perhaps not surprising since it is claimed to be a feature of the English psyche that recurs in literature, painting and architecture down the ages.

I've posted quite a few images of decay on the blog, for example these hydrangeas and water lilies, and I've even got a few involving death, such as these moles and a swan. Last November I photographed some windfall apples as they started to discolour. Today's photograph is another attempt at this subject, a little later in the year and with, perhaps, a little less focus on decay and a touch more on semi-abstract pattern making. I particularly liked the effect of the interloper willow leaf that had settled like an acute accent over the very decomposed apple on the right.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm (macro)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Hamming up the horror

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I've never been one for horror films. The graphic, gore-laden offerings of today leave me cold, and I simply exclude them from my viewing. I can't say that I'm particularly enamoured of the older horror films either, though there have been a few that I've enjoyed. These have usually been those that approached the subject with either "art" or "comedy" uppermost in mind.

Of the artistic horror movies my favourite has to be Werner Hertzog's 1979 film,  "Nosferatu the Vampyre". It's a homage remake of a 1922 German silent film, and though Bram Stoker's basic Dracula plot underpins it there are differences, principally the focus on Nosferatu's loneliness and disgust with what he does. It's usually the very different depiction of the vampire in this film, and the absence of camp humour that people see as setting it apart from others of the genre. However, I would also cite the sets and the photography as very different from the usual Stoker-derived offerings.

Of the humorous takes on horror one that I liked better than most of the critics and fans is another one based on Bram Stoker's tale. "Dracula: Dead and Loving It", the 1995 film starring Leslie Nielsen is fun and funny. But, being British, I've also seen quite a few Hammer horror films. These were often made with a fairly serious intention - in so far as you can be serious with any horror film - but often ended up being unintentionally funny. They seemed to almost invariably cast either Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, with, often, Ingrid Pitt to add the glamour. Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummies and the murders of Victorian London seemed to figure large in their plots.

It was Hammer Films that came to mind when I visited this ruined medieval church in Norfolk. It is located in a piece of woodland close to a country house, and in the past was used as a folly-cum-eyecatcher by the owners. They built ruinous arches and other structures around and in it to make it into a romantic feature that the family and guests could come upon during short walks from the house. The Victorian tomb must have been placed there at that time, and perhaps the medieval stone coffin. A wooden cross had been placed at one end of the building, and its derelict state combined with the other artefacts suggested the kind of set that a Hammer Films version of Dracula might use. To that end I converted my colour image to black and white, upped the contrast, gave it a slight vignette, and burned in the clouds that the graduated ND filter had already made quite striking. Perhaps you can imagine Christopher Lee in a long black cloak hurrying in through the pointed arch as he averts his eyes from the cross.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
Filter: Graduated ND8