Stocks Reservoir

click photo to enlarge
When I was a teenager living in Settle (then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, now in North Yorkshire) I reasonably frequently cycled the several miles to Stocks Reservoir (then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, now in Lancashire), a large area of water in the Forest of Bowland. The purpose of my journey, up hill and down dale, was bird watching. This had to be done from the road that cuts across a narrow arm of the reservoir and from the few public footpaths that allowed a view of the water and its margins. Elsewhere were signs saying "Keep Out", others warning against the risk of fire (many square miles of forest surround the reservoir) and yet more reminding people that the man-made lake was their drinking water.The tone of all this was decidedly unwelcoming.

How times change. Today, though the risk of fire is no less and it is still a water supply, the area around the reservoir features cyclepaths, visitor attractions, bird hides, footpaths of varying lengths and a general welcoming atmosphere greets the visitor. Moreover, fishermen are to be seen on boats, criss-crossing the water in search of their prey. Look carefully at today's photograph and you'll see a pair in their boat, an insignificant dot in the big landscape under a even bigger sky.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Fishermen on Stocks Reservoir, Lancashire
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Humber Bridge and a soft sky

click photo to enlarge
I have a liking for what I call "soft skies". These are cloud-covered skies with only a small amount of contrast and strong detail. Not the featureless stratus that is just unbroken grey. I mean those skies where the individual clouds are not strongly delineated but are either "smeared" across the sky or are merge into one another like a bed of feathers. I featured one of the latter skies several years ago above a collection of small boats drawn up on the beach at Aldeburgh in Suffolk. Today's photograph, taken on one of our frequent, family-related trips over the Humber Bridge, has the former kind of "smeared" softness.

I've always maintained that a sky can make or break a landscape photograph and I take a great interest in what the day offers by way of cloud cover and the type of cloud. There are several photographs on this blog of the Humber Bridge, including a number from this location - Barton Haven. Each one has a different sky, and each sky lends the photograph a large part of its "mood".

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Humber Bridge Seen From Barton Haven, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Belton Boathouse Pond

click photo to enlarge
Sometimes what you see isn't what you get. What could be called "inverse WYSIWYG" is a feature of most English country houses and comes about through the art and artifice involved in their planning and construction. Belton House in Lincolnshire is no exception. Here the main house illustrates it most obviously in the eighteenth century veneer of stone (and extensions) that overlay a seventeenth century structure. The landscaping of the park that surrounds the house is also subject to changes made in the interests of "improving on nature", that can be misleading to the casual observer.

Take Boathouse Pond, the subject of today's photographs. It looks like a perfectly natural feature among the trees, one that has been retrospectively adapted to leisure purposes. However, a walk up the slope to it, past the large earth dam that holds the water in place, shows it to have been constructed to beautify the area and provide somewhere for the wealthy owners and their guests to sail, row and perhaps fish or shoot. The boathouse itself also has its share of deceptive features, most notable the faux wood grain applied to the door and window frames using wood-coloured paint and a graining comb.

I took my photographs on a walk through the grounds of the house, a property now in the care of the National Trust and open to the public. The yellow light of a January morning gave a visual warmth that wasn't matched by the temperature, and the angle of the sun created dark shadows that, I think, made for a more interesting landscape view.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Boathouse Pond, Belton House, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Obelisks

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The obelisk is a monumental form of long standing. This tall, tapering, four-sided monument, capped by a four-sided pyramid takes its name from the Greek "obeliskos" yet it pre-dates the Greeks and is common in Egyptian architecture. My introduction to the obelisk was in primary school when we learned about Cleopatra's Needle. This is an Egyptian obelisk of c.1450BC (far older than Cleopatra) that was brought from Egypt to London in 1877 and in 1878 was erected on the Thames embankment where it remains today. Paris and New York have similar (and similarly named) obelisks. In England obelisks were popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when they were used as memorials and eyecatchers alongside other Greek, Roman, and occasionally Egyptian architectural forms.

The example in today's photograph is an eyecatcher in the parkland that surrounds Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. My photograph shows a view of it from the Iron Age "British Camp" on the Malvern Hills near Herefordshire Beacon. Its purpose is to enhance the landscape and endow it with classical qualities. Follies, ruins, monumental arches, pillars, temples, rotundas and obelisks were all pressed into service by landscape architects such as Repton and Brown, as they tried to re-create the Romantic views seen in paintings by the likes of Claude Lorraine. This particular obelisk is about a mile and half from the castle on a low summit, a place where it would be regularly seen by the occupants as they walked around their extensive estate.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 112mm (168mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Using up the left-overs

click photo to enlarge
I've never been a big fan of Christmas. The increasing commercialisation of it has made the holiday into an orgy of consumerism. The "12 days of Christmas" are long gone and now it seems to last for about four months, from the moment the first shop puts out Christmas items in September to the last of the decorations coming down in January, to be replaced by the chocolate eggs and hot cross buns of Easter. Some traditional Christmas food I like - cake, pudding, mince pies - but in general I prefer to spread my merry-making and celebrating throughout the year. The coming of grandchildren has softened my Scrooge-like demeanour somewhat, but on the whole I'm glad when Christmas has passed and the new year with all its promise is upon us.

In fact, I think I sometimes enjoy the aftermath of Christmas more than the event. There have been times when I've found the picked left-over turkey, cold, with cold sage and onion stuffing, in a sandwich, more appealing than the meal with all the trimmings. A cup of tea and the last of the mince pies appeals more than the first of them. The remainder of the Christmas cake goes down better in January and February with further cups of tea than it does during the season proper when it can't be fully appreciated among the other culinary riches. Yes, left-overs have something to recommend them. I was reflecting on this when I was scanning the rejects for posting from the past month or so. Sitting among them was the photograph I've posted today -  a left-over that I initially didn't think good enough. Well, the passage of time has changed my mind. I quite like the way the camera caught the light of sky and the water of the elongated pond rather grandly called Crowland Lake, the delicacy of the branches and grasses, and the subdued, almost sepia colour that suffuses the scene.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Welland, Nene and Rolls Royce

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Long before I moved to Lincolnshire I was familiar with the names Welland and Nene. A teenage interest in aircraft taught me that the Rolls Royce aero engine company usually named its turboprop and jet engines after Britain's rivers. Consequently I came to know the Spey, Dart, Avon, Tyne, and many others, including the Welland and the Nene. I read that rivers were chosen for these engines' names because they emphasised the steady flow of power that is a requirement when powering an aircraft. If that's true it makes more sense than the naming conventions of house-builders when they come to name the streets that they create. Poets, castles, trees, birds, flowers, warships, aircraft, bishops, generals, towns, villages, and yes, rivers, are just some of the inspirations I've come across. I'm waiting for sponsored brand names to make an appearance - it can only be a matter of time.

I think I've mentioned before in this blog that river names are some of the oldest words to be found in our language. Because of the importance of rivers as sources of water, food, soil enrichment (through flooding), defence and as territorial boundaries, the original name, given who knows when, has often continued in use, unchanged, to the present day. Which is more than can be said for the River Welland itself. Today, for much of its course, it is embanked and flows in a channel that is above the level of the surrounding land. Sections of it have been straightened to speed its flow. It has always been one of the rivers that drained the hinterland of The Wash, and today it is carefully managed to do that as efficiently as possible.

None of this is evident in my photograph of the Welland that was taken near Crowland at the end of November towards the close of an afternoon. I deliberately under-exposed the shot to increase the contrast and make more of the sky's details, the shiny ribbon of water and the delicate branches of the leafless willows.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 2000
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

People and landscapes

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It's my impression that most contemporary landscape photographers prefer to exclude people from their views. I struggle to find any that routinely - and deliberately - include the human form. So, in that respect, if I'm right in my judgement, I am in a minority because I often strive to include people.

Most English landscape painters of the eighteenth and nineteenth century considered their landscapes to be incomplete if there wasn't a figure or two somewhere to be found. Where people are absent an animal, domestic or wild, is used instead. Such inclusions are there as an area of focus in the composition; often a starting point for the eye's journey through the painted world the artist has laid out for the viewer. They also provide a sense of scale. And, for many artists, they say something about Nature and man's relationship to it. This is particularly so in the case of the painters of the Romantic Movement where the awe and majesty of a scene often towers over the diminutive people.

What these painters knew, and what many photographers also realise, is that the human eye and brain are adept at finding people in a landscape, whether the view is a real one or one in painted form This is probably an evolutionary trait: for millennia individuals and groups needed to be aware of other people as a potential danger and seeing them early increased their safety. Eyes became attuned to spotting the human form, and this is a trait that we still have today.

The photograph above features the view from near Hereford beacon across the nearby lowlands that includes the valley of the River Severn. As I was composing my shot I noticed a dog walker on a hill below me. When he stopped to admire the mist clearing from the patchwork of fields I seized the moment and composed my shot around him.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm (157mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Morning on the southern Malverns

click photo to enlarge
On one of our regular visits to Herefordshire we stopped off at a spot that I've long intended to visit. The Malverns is a chain of low hills that rise up from a lower, slightly undulating area near the Severn valley. They appear higher than they are, and they have a pleasantly ragged summit line. At the southern end a road takes advantage of a low point to cross the range and it was at this point we stopped to visit an Iron Age hill camp near the summit known as Herefordshire Beacon.

It's my experience that many of life's pleasures are serendipitous, and all the more satisfying for being unexpected. The weather forecast predicted that early fog would be driven off later in the morning by sun. When we arrived at our parking spot, however, it appeared that sun had the ascendancy and mist was in short supply. But, the story from the summit told a different story. Whilst the low ground in our immediate neighbourhood was virtually mist-free, farther away it was still plentiful and made for a magnificent sight with several prominences raising their heads above the white blanket. The fine autumn scene was enhance by the remaining leaves on the trees and the shadows thrown by the low sun. A group of three walkers, also enjoying the morning's pleasures, gave me a further compositional element and added a sense of scale to the grandeur on display.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm (120mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Grass fields and droves

click photo to enlarge
When you move to a new part of the country you immediately notice accents and dialect words because, despite the long, dominating presence of TV and radio, and the fact that people move from place to place much more than formerly, regional differences are still evident. And we should be glad that they do because they enrich our experience and provide a link with a past that will, in all probability, eventually disappear.

I've got used to Lincolnshire women I've never met before calling me "ducks" and the way in which words containing the letter "u" are pronounced: computer isn't "compyouter" but "compooter" and the DIY chain isn't B&Q (Bee and Queue) but Bee and Coo! I've also reconciled myself to the fact that in south Lincolnshire the pastures are "grass fields" and that many roads are "droves". However, that field description still puzzles me. I know that over the past century sheep and cattle farming has declined in the county and arable has become dominant, but was the term pasture, a word widely used across Britain, never used in Lincolnshire? Drove rather than road is easier to understand. The roads so named usually lead from settlements into the lower surrounding fens, areas that in the past were poorly drained, used less in winter and wetter weather, and which must have seen much organised "droving" of sheep and cattle to and from the drier land as season and precipitation dictated.

Today's photograph was taken on a recent late afternoon. It shows a grass field that was sown a few years ago to provide fodder for cutting and feeding rather than for the pasturing of animals. The second growth of grass had a beautiful texture and a delicate yellow tinge in the afternoon light, a quality that contrasted with the blue tinged clouds and sky as well as the detail of the distant drove road marked by its collection of trees, farm buildings and a few houses.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11.5mm (31mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

An urban landscape

click photo to enlarge
I was raised in quite rural surroundings and, unlike most of the contemporaries of my youth, I enjoyed the countryside and what it offered. I didn't share their yearning for the bright lights and big city. Consequently, when I moved to a city in order to further my education, and then for employment, I was quite surprised to find that I liked urban living. I was discussing this with one of my sons the other day. He lives in London and enjoys the experience. During the course of our conversation I observed that as someone who relishes the visual more than many, the city offers me stimuli aplenty. The fact is, for those with eyes to see there is always something of interest in cities.

Today's photograph was taken only a few minutes after the shot in the previous post. It shows a subject that I've photographed many times in recent years - the financial district known as Canary Wharf. What I like about this group of towers as a subject is that they change with the light, time of day and season, and especially with the myriad foregrounds that can be placed before the them. This shot appealed to me for the contrast between the children and parents in the playground at the bottom of the frame with the impersonal bulk of the distant skyscrapers at the top. It's an urban landscape of the sort that I enjoy composing.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mist on Giggleswick Scar

click photo to enlarge
The all-enfolding mists of autumn are viewed by many as an unwelcome intrusion after the brightness and warmth of summer. But, to poets such as Keats, and to many photographers they are a pleasing change that transforms familiar landscapes and offers a melancholy note that is rarely to be found in the warmer months.

We recently spent several days in the Yorkshire Dales, the area of my upbringing. Rain was quite frequent, as it often is in such parts, but not in quanitities or at times that prevented us having a long walk each day. One of our rambles took us on to the limestone upland known as Giggleswick Scar, an area of cliffs, scree, caves, short sheep-cropped grass, rowan trees, bracken - all the attributes of what geographers call a karst landscape. A thick mist accompanied our walk to the summit of the Scar but shortly afterwards it started to clear from the high ground leaving the grey blanket in the valleys below. Today's photograph shows rowans and hawthorns silhouetted against the mist in the Ribble valley with the summits and clouds beyond. When the mist started to dissipate it was quite difficult to distinguish between the hills and the clouds, but by the time of my photograph this was more easily done.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 95mm (142mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Land versus sky

click photo to enlarge
When I was starting out in photography over four decades ago I remember reading a number of "rules" - the dos and donts of good picture making. As I progressed and matured I came to see them as guides rather than rules and each as something that could be ignored if the circumstances warranted it. One such rule concerned the balance between land and sky. Never, it was said, have the horizon in the middle of your photograph giving equal weight to sky and land because if you do the viewer will not know where you wish to place your interest and emphasis - or words to that effect. It's not a bad piece of advice, and there is some truth in the guidance. However, there have been times when I have done just that because my compositional judgement said it was the best solution.

An extension of this rule was that you should split your composition 1/3 to 2/3. If the land was to be 2/3 then the sky would be 1/3 and vice versa. Again, it isn't a bad rule because it often looks "right". However, there are times when it looks wrong. These days I compose largely intuitively but every now and then I pause and think about the land/sky split and what the proportions should be. In the shot above the enormity and the interest of the Lincolnshire sky was accentuated by making it more than 1/3 of the composition. Moreover, the spire of Walcot church (see previous post), a structure that is big when you are nearby, is reduced to its proper insignificance when seen in the context of a broad landscape.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm (57mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Walcot church revisited

click photo to enlarge
The church of St Nicholas at Walcot, Lincolnshire, is a favourite of mine. Its exterior leaves something to be desired aesthetically - the tower and spire are too tall for the nave and chancel, the entasis on the former looks a little odd and its broaches are unusually long. But, despite these shortcomings it is interesting and it makes for a prominent landmark in the locality.

However, when it comes to the interior it is a different story. Here the restorers did what was necessary and little more with the result that the medieval work hasn't been altered too much and the Victorian additions don't overpower it. Some would say it looks a little neglected but I welcome the absence of well-meaning tidying, polishing, renovating and prettifying. I like the oddities inside too, particularly the way old capitals were reused as column bases. I don't mind the absence of elaborate memorials and paintwork. And I welcome the "knocked about a bit" look of the pews. It's a rural church serving a small collection of farms and houses, and its sparse interior reflects the small population that services it.

On a recent walk I photographed a distant view of the church among the red tiled houses and agricultural buildings. When we went in to the church I took a view of the nave and chancel. As I took both of these photographs I had in mind two previous shots I've posted of the same subjects and it was with a view to comparison that I took the second set. Different seasons, different weather and different light have produced different shots. I prefer the earlier pair I think, so next time we are passing my aim will be to take photographs that better them.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO:1600
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sandstone semi-abstract

click photo to enlarge
Today's post manages to encapsulate two of my recent themes. It is an "incidental" shot taken at Bolsover Castle. Not one of the obvious architectural photographs that such a place inspires, but a detail, a "photographer's shot" if you will. It is also semi-abstract which I recently described as one of the genres I often return to when I'm trying to get back into the "groove" with my photography.

The stone is part of the moulding (architrave) of a doorway made in the seventeenth century. The figuring in the stone reminds me of the burr and strong grain that characterises some woods. However, when I first saw it the first word to come to mind was "landscape". The curves, shading and lines remind me of Japanese watercolour landscapes of the sort that Hokusai and Hiroshige produced. All it requires is a few trees, a wooden bridge, a river winding its way between the hills, and a few people going about their work and it's there. It's the sort of piece of stone that you can get lost in, in much the same way that as children we often dive into the landscapes, faces and more in wallpaper and curtain fabrics. I've noticed such landscapes in trees, with silver birch being the best at suggesting them.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm (150mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:640
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Landscapes - with or without people?

click photo to enlarge
Very little early landscape painting, for example that of ancient Greece or China, showed only natural features. It was much more usual for such work to, somewhere, often in a fairly insignificant way, include buildings or a human figure. As the genre developed down the centuries the place of people in landscape paintings persisted. Artists knew that the inclusion of a figure changed the meaning of the work, gave scale to the depiction and offered a powerful focal point. The fact is, if the human form is present in a work the eye finds it extremely quickly. Only in the work of later painters, and in photographic landscapes, is it common to find work where no human figure is present.

When it comes to landscape photography I often like to include a person somewhere. Frequently I choose the foreground to give the eye a starting point. But I also see the value of a person in the middle-ground or background for establishing a sense of scale. When I was photographing this stand of cedars in the arboretum at Eastnor castle, Herefordshire, I deliberately took one shot without people and one with people to illustrate just that point.

Cedars are not native to Britain. These examples were planted by Victorian collectors and they are widely regarded as the best group and some of the biggest specimens on these islands. For that reason alone I can justify the inclusion of people for the purpose of scale. When you view the photograph without figures it's hard to appreciate the width and height of those big tree trunks.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (63mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:250
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

London balcony views

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My current reading includes "21st Century London: The New Architecture" by Kenneth Powell. This interesting book, published in 2011, surveys over 150 notable buildings erected in the first decade of this century and includes a few that were under construction or planned at the time of publication. Two things immediately leap off the page at the reader; firstly the sheer number and quality of new buildings that went up in that short period of time, and secondly, the enormous amount of money that has been spent in London either building, extending or refurbishing major buildings. For example, the Royal Festival Hall refurbishment was costed at £50 million but eventually cost £110 million! The new Wembley Stadium also came in massively over its estimate at £352 million. The relatively minor Roundhouse refurbishment cost £19 million. In fact most of the projects listed in the book cost multiple millions or in excess of one hundred million pounds. The biggest outlay by far is the £16 billion currently being spent on Crossrail, the new rail links that go under the centre of the city. Sums of this magnitude dwarf the spending in other cities across the UK.

Whenever I've visited London over the past twelve years I've enjoyed this view of the centre of London from my son's balcony. And during that time the view has been constantly evolving with new, bigger and more striking buildings taking the place of older structures. Looking over the Thames at the skyline recently I took this evening photograph and noted the number of cranes and the almost completed "Cheese Grater" (left of centre) and the "Walkie Talkie" (near left edge of frame). There is more to come as the pace of change in London in recent years shows no sign of slowing down, unlike elsewhere in the country. One might wish that a significant portion of the largesse showered on our capital could be diverted to the regional cities and towns. But I can't see that happening any day soon.

Out of interest I include a shot taken from the same place later in the day.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 31.2mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rain over the Humber Bridge

click photo to enlarge
How long does it take to judge the quality of a photograph? I'm thinking more about the "keepers", not the ones I cull immediately. How long is it before I consider them to be one of my better efforts or one of the much larger, "O.K" group? You might think that an odd question since quality must always shine through. However, I think that most people can more quickly judge quality in other photographers' images than their own. Photographs that you and I make carry more information and have more invested in them by us, than do those made by strangers. We know the circumstances in which we make our own photographs, where the image stands alongside other versions of the same shot, any difficulties overcome in securing it, etc. In other words we don't always judge it solely on its photographic merit, whereas that is something we can much more easily do with the work of a stranger.

So, how long does it take to judge the quality of a photograph? For me, I know that if I live with it for a couple of weeks I've usually come to a settled opinion as to its worth. That is the point at which I confirm a judgement made earlier, whether good or bad, or more often, slightly shift one way or the other from my initial thoughts, making a promotion or demotion if you will. Of course, when you run a blog that has the self-imposed task of showing a new photograph every other day, then sometimes you run low on images, and the luxury of considering one for a fortnight becomes impossible. Today's photograph is a case in point. It was taken on Sunday, was one of only three shots taken on the day (yesterday's post shows another), and I haven't really made my mind up about it. One thing I do like, that probably tipped me into using it before some other, older photographs, is the way it conveys a certain type of wet, English winter day, with its leaden sky and reduced visibility. The other thing that appealed to me was the contrast of the brown and greens of the grass and reeds with the monochrome sky, river, bridge and trees.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18.2mm (49mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Views with spires - take two

click photo to enlarge
For quite a while my blog statistics have shown a photograph that I posted in May 2011 called "Views with spires" as the one that receives most hits each month. I often try to work out why such things happen because, on the whole, the most frequently viewed post in a particular month is one published early in that same month. However, for reasons that are usually unfathomable, posts reasonably frequently depart from this pattern. Sometimes it's because I can see a particular website has referenced it and readers have looked at a link to it. But mostly I simply can't account for it. Why, I often wonder, is "Tree shadows and architectural drawings" my blog post with by far the most hits, fifty percent more than the second most visited? Who knows? It certainly can't be down to the quality of the image!

"Views with spires", to return to the current favourite, does I suppose, describe a subject that appeals to those of a traditional and Romantic mindset, and that title may in fact explain its popularity. Today's photograph of the church of St Denys at Aswarby, Lincolnshire, is another photograph on the same theme. More than that, it shares compositional similarities, with the road curving away to the prominent church tower with its tall spire. When I look through my landscapes I find that I frequently use church spires as strong compositional elements. And why not? Is there anything to beat the strong vertical accent of a medieval tower and spire set against the flat or rolling English countryside? Lincolnshire abounds with convenient examples. Churches such as Sempringham, Gosberton and Donington grab the eye and grace any photograph in which they appear, even if they are shrouded in mist or fog, as is Swineshead in this winter photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Catrigg Force, Stainforth

click photo to enlarge
"Deep down on your left is the partly wooded defile in which runs the turbulent beck that riots among the wild rocks and cliffs of Catterick. Follow the glen up along the top until there are signs of its disappearance among the tracts of heather. A little below this point you will come to the highest and grandest of the waterfalls, which, after a flood, makes a sublime sight, hardly to be matched in Yorkshire, and that is saying a great deal. The water comes down a lofty ravine, thickly clothed with trees and flowering shrubs, (amongst the latter the giant rose-bay, the finest of the willow-herbs, gives an effective colour), and falls in two magnificent leaps into a shadowy pool below, running then onward among immense boulders to fall again and again in lesser but still beautiful cascades."
from "The Craven and North-West Yorkshire Highlands" by Harry Speight (1892)

The description above, apart from the presence of summer flowers, is still a good description of Catrigg Force which we visited recently. When I was growing up in the area people called the waterfall both Catterick Force (or Foss) and Catrigg Force. Harry Speight uses the former. So does "Otley's Guide: Concise Description of the English Lakes" (1823), a Midland Railways poster of 1909 advertising Settle, and a postcard of the waterfall dated 1912. However, a map of 1896 prefers Catrigg Force, and so do subsequent Ordnance Survey maps. Interestingly the present day wooden finger post near the waterfall is marked Catrigg Foss. It's common to find "Force and Foss" used interchangeably for Dales waterfalls for reasons that I discussed in this post about Stainforth Force. However, it isn't common for the main name to differ in quite the way that happens in this instance. There is a suggestion that Catterick comes from "cataract", and yet Catrigg is the name of a nearby area of moorland from which Catrigg Barn and Catrigg Beck (the stream) take their names. The word "rigg" comes from the Scandinavian and means " a ridge or cultivated strip of ground",and that seems appropriate. It's a puzzle that I must look into a little more!

I'm not a great fan of massively blurred water of the sort that enthusiast photographers seem keen to use in their photographs of waterfalls. However, I did take a couple with some blur, of which this is one. I used a fairly slow shutter speed and put the camera on my monopod and wedged it in a crevice to the maintain sharpness of the trees and rocks.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11.3mm (30mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/3 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ancient field systems, Langcliffe

click photo to enlarge
The derelict field barn in today's main photograph can be seen on the first ot the smaller photographs. It is at a position on a line approximately ten o'clock from the centre of the image. It's one of the more recent features of the fields on this section of hillside between Langcliffe and the old Craven Quarry. How old is it? Probably nineteenth century judging by the style and the stone main roof, though it could be earlier. An extension with a slate roof is newer.

I've often looked across the valley at these fields, especially when the sun is low, because then the shadows reveal the work of farmers over hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. The most obvious remains are several cultivation terraces or lynchets. These appear to be deliberate constructions rather than those that passively arise due to ploughing across the slope. The west-facing aspect of the valley side would mean that terraces enabled farmers to make easier use of the land and maximise the warmth of the sun. Celtic field systems often exhibit such features, and they continued to be used into the medieval period. There are also a number of close parallel ridges that go down the hillside. These are long medieval fields that appear to have had earth or perhaps stone boundary walls, probably to separate them from neighbouring plots. Some are not unlike the Gaelic "lazy beds", cultivated banks separated by channels, an agricultural system not unknown in England, though some here must surely have been simply narrow holdings (see the photograph taken from nearby with the floodwater). Small, square fields can also be detected that are probably Romano-British in origin.

The narrowness of the Ribble valley at this point leaves only one or two field widths available in the valley bottom. These would benefit from silt deposition when the river flooded but during such times they would be unusable. Consequently early farmers would have had to clear stone and trees from the inundation-free lower slopes to make fields suitable for planting or for improving to make hay and pasture. Grass is the main crop today. It feeds both sheep and cattle, beef and dairy, both as it grows and in the form of silage or hay. The fields that are deeper green, showing less brown, indicate where herbicides and fertiliser have been used to improve the grass. Farmers long ago, as today, must have carefully weighed the costs against the benefits of improving the ground on the higher slopes. Often the answer will have been to run fewer sheep on the unimproved grass of the rougher ground and "tops" and bring them down into the valley for the winter.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.6mm (39mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On