Frost on leaves

click photo to enlarge
I've mentioned a few times some of the themes that have developed in my photography during the lifetime of this blog - chairs, benches, church vaulting, deliberate blur, shadows, reflections, to name but a few. Today's photograph is another - leaves.

I like leaves for their shapes, colours, lines  and patterns. I also like them when frost subdues their colours, adds emphasising outlines to their shapes and lines, and gives a "hairy" look to leaves. The first few frosts of the year were weak, leaving only a little impression on the fallen leaves. But a few days ago stronger frosts made much better effects, good enough for me to mount the macro lens on the camera and search some out. The photograph shows the underside of a large field maple leaf that is surrounded by smaller leaves from the same tree and flowering cherry leaves from a neighbouring tree. Soon the leaves will have decayed too much for this kind of shot so I was glad to get it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Frosted Leaves
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm macro (120mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:800
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Built to impress

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The first two houses that we bought and lived in suffered from a problem that many buildings have suffered from down the ages - more money was spent on the front than on the back and sides. One was built in the early 1900s and the other in the 1930s. In each case the quality of the bricks on the main elevation was better than those elsewhere. Ornament in the form of stone/concrete arches, oriel windows, and large bays appeared on the front, but not on the back, or where they did, in simpler, more pared down form. The fact is, those houses and many other buildings had relatively more money spent at the front for a reason that is obvious - to impress the buyer and passers-by. Interestingly, and refreshingly, this wasn't so pronounced in a house we bought that was built in the late 1970s. Our current house, part of which is oldish and part relatively recent uses the same quality materials throughout but has a much more "composed" facade.

Constraints of this sort did not affect the affluent builders of the country houses of the Georgian period - all elevations aimed to impress. At Belton House the main (south) facade and the rear (north) elevation are almost the same. The east elevation is composed with symmetry in mind, is flusher than either north or south, but then doesn't have the main entrances that those feature. Only on the west, where stables, courtyards and other ancillary buildings are found does the main house lose something of its imposing appearance. And here this is compensated for by those subsidiary buildings being large, ornate and monumental.Today's photograph shows Belton House's plainer east elevation from one side of the wide avenue of trees that frame it. Incidentally, my composition was prompted by the desire to find a composition that was a little different, that emphasised the building's setting, but also by a desire to minimise the featureless blue sky.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen


Photo Title: Belton House, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Autumn duck pond reflections

click photo to enlarge
There's nothing like a walk on a bright autumn afternoon for suppressing in one's mind the memory of the lies, bile and bigotry that has surrounded both Brexit and U.S. presidential election. And though deep concerns would, I knew, return once the walk was finished, I determined that I would take the time to stand and stare, as well as use my camera, and drink in something of what makes this time of year special.

In the Lincolnshire village of Swineshead is a duckpond. As we walked by and the ducks, presumably well fed, shunned our presence, I admired the reflection of the sky and the surrounding trees on the slightly rippled cloudy water. The leaves floating on the surface gave a second plane to the image and added some depth. I've always liked the reflection of trees, anything in fact, in gently stirred water, and especially the painterly feel and semi-abstract quality that it can lend to a photograph. Here the wide range of colours and textures gave further interest.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Autumn Duck Pond Reflections
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15.6mm (42mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Beech leaves

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Beauty is all around us, there to be seen if we care to look. Elsewhere in this blog I've quoted the first two lines from William Henry Davies' poem, "Leisure" - "What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare." In this post I add the next two lines, "No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows." A few days ago we sat beneath the boughs of a tree and ate our lunch during a break in a woodland walk. The sun was shining, the oak leaves and the silver birch seeds were falling, and around us on the ground were small pieces of prickly gorse that the wind have removed from a nearby bush. It was pleasurable to simply sit,eat and watch as autumn progressed all around us.

After we had eaten we set off and I soon stopped again beneath some boughs of beech and studied the colours in the leaves of the tree's shoots at the base of its trunk. The green leaves of summer were fast passing to be replaced by green-veined yellow and more sombre yellow-veined, brown, and the shiny twigs were reflecting the blue of the sky. I can't guarantee that I stopped as long as a sheep or a cow, but it was long enough to enjoy the colours and patterns and collect a memento of the moment in the form of this photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Autumn Beech Leaves
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28.5mm (77mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 320
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Virginia Creeper

click photo to enlarge
In England early November is often the best time to appreciate leaves displaying the colours of autumn. If the temperatures have been favourable ornamental cherries show reds, oranges, browns and yellows at their best. The horse chestnut glows with oranges, browns and yellows - at least those that haven't succumbed to the leaf miner moth do. Beech trees turn to hard gold, and limes to soft yellow. And on the houses and garden walls the Virginia Creeper's glossy leaves show mainly red, but with almost black patches of purple and paler flecks of yellow adding subtlety to their transformation of the bricks and stone they cling to, outshining all the other plants as they reflect the pale autumn light.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Autumn Virginia Creeper
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Raindrops in sunlight

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Recently overnight rain was followed by a sunny morning and the glistening foliage of the garden encouraged me to put my old 35mm 3.5 Four Thirds macro lens on its adapter and mount it on the camera. However, even as I walked around searching for a subject the warmth of the sun was visibly drying out the leaves. Consequently I headed for one of our our patches of Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis), a plant that I had been meaning to avoid.

Alchemilla is the obvious choice for any photographer wanting to capture raindrops on foliage. The minute hairs of the leaves cause rain to form into myriad drops of varying sizes. However, I'd taken photographs of the attractively shaped leaves on a number of occasions and I wanted to try a different plant. But the sun's effects elsewhere forced me back to the Alchemilla. So, rather than concentrating on the leaves I searched out the drops themselves. This photograph shows them clustered on the ends of a group of leaves that had yet to fully open. I liked it for the contrast of the dark, shady background against which I could place some drops. The only thing I don't like about the shot is that it has something of the look of a studio photograph taken with flash. I recognise that not everyone shares my antipathy to such things, but for those who do I can assure you that this was taken in natural light, in the garden solely with the aid of a tripod.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Raindrops on Lady's Mantle Leaves
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 35mm Macro (70mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:250
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tenacious ivy

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Ivy is a plant I admire, one whose ecological value is apparent to me, a species without which the world would probably be a poorer place. And yet I can't bring myself to like it. The plant's tenacity, the way it comes back after being the recipient of axe, clippers, poison and much else, is awe inspiring. The way it manages to flourish in the most unpromising niche in woodland, waste land, the urban jungle and even the most manicured of gardens is, in its way, admirable. But still I don't like it.

I think my antipathy stems from the fact that sometimes it is just too successful. Not content with growing up the side of a tree it too often expands and tries to cover the whole of it, disfiguring the living giant with a mound of glossy greenery. In churchyards, it spreads horizontally and vertically, taking the sharp edges off everything as it throws a mat of leaves on gravestones, monuments, seats, trees and anything else that gets in its way. Once started it becomes a tide that can only be stopped by the most concerted effort. On buildings, what at first appears attractive soon turns to intrusive and even after removal it leaves unattractive marks where its stems have grown. I have sympathy with those who cut the stems at ground level and cause the green growth to slowly die, turn brown and eventually fall away.

On a recent walk I came across a tree with a trunk completely covered in ivy stems - not an inch of bark could be seen. Glossy leaves were flourishing in the canopy above but the trunk looked like it was wrapped in writhing snakes. With the exception, that is, of a couple of leaves that had made an optimistic appearance in the deep shade of the woodland floor.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm (70mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:3200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Autumn leaves

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph shows the multicoloured hues of a selection of plane tree leaves that I saw blown into a drift in a park. I took the shot for the shapes of the leaves, the contrast between the bright hues of the freshly fallen and the earth tones of the older examples, and for the way that the signs of decay gave them a hint of melancholy. Looking at them I reflected that soon the bright reds, yellows, greens and oranges would be gone and all would be brown, then ragged, and finally a wet, decomposing sludge that would return to the earth.

However, looking anew at my photograph, I decided that I would reprieve this particular group of leaves and let their fading beauty shine on through the winter and into next year. How? By making the shot into my computer's desktop image. When I think about the photographs that I've chosen for that particular purpose I find that I've chosen leaves more than any other subject. Leaves against buildings, leaves against sky, new leaves, dying leaves in water, crisp, dry leaves, fiery leaves and many more have been the image that I see when I turn on my computer. Until the fresh green leaves of next spring make an appearance it will once more be autumn leaves that greet me each morning as I sit down to my work.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Acer leaves and real colours

click photo to enlarge
The widespread use of photographic enhancement is starting becoming a problem. I don't frequent social media websites, but the images that I see associated with them frequently have an effect applied - bleached colours, heavy vignetting, "antiquing", heavily saturated colour, etc. Enthusiast websites such as Flickr, 500px and the rest all too often feature shots that have been heavily processed to the point where I'm often tempted to ask, "On which planet were these taken?"

Now, I'm aware that photography comes in many forms, and manipulated images have always featured in the craft. However, too often the manipulation is to achieve no other end than to make the image more eye-catching; in other words they are a substitute for vision and skill, and they frequently take the photograph into the realm of painting. Down the road of ever more effects, lies an escalation that ends in madness.

The other problem with the omni-presence of manipulation is that it makes us disparage reality and even forget what it looks like. Consequently it can make some examples of photographic reality look like examples of manipulation. Take today's photograph of fallen acer leaves. The colours on display have a similarity to shots that have received a washed-out magenta cast. But, there has be no such trickery involved. These are the colours the camera recorded and they are quite close to what my eye saw. The only effect I've added here is that old stalwart, vignetting, where I used it to accentuate the shadows that were naturally invading the scene. My armoury of effects, by and large, involves the digital equivalents of the wet process effects we used in pre-digital days, especially dodging, burning and vignetting. Am I old-fashioned? In this regard, probably.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm (150mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6 Shutter
Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:720
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fallen leaves and Blogger colour

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Over the years I've been generally quite happy with Blogger, the Google-owned service that provides the blogging platform I use. It is free, easy to operate, easy to adapt, doesn't require me to host advertisements and it is very reliable. It has fewer bells and whistles than Wordpress, a blogging service I use for a different site, but overall I prefer Blogger for the reasons listed: it does all I require.

However, a while ago something happened to the way that my photographs were displayed. Instead of showing just as I had prepared them, as soon as I uploaded them the colours became over-saturated. I take a lot of care in preparing my images and the last thing I wanted was for them to glow with artificially bright colour. I searched to see if there was a reason for this but came up with nothing. So I muted the colours of the shots I posted hoping to compensate for what was happening. It did somewhat ameliorate the effect, but I wanted an answer to why it was happening and a better solution. A search some time later turned up the answer. At a point I couldn't determine Google's Picasa photograph hosting had been placed under the wing of Google+. A feature of these galleries is that photographs there are always made brighter because Google in its wisdom has a feature called Auto Enhance turned on by default. Why? I can only think that they assume people like the "vivid" or "saturated" look of TV, magazines and some phones and cameras. Well, many don't, and so I looked for a way to turn it off. After much searching I discovered that the only way to do so was to join Google+. I was not happy with that at all because I've deliberately ignored all the social media services for reasons I won't go into here. But, Blogger is free, I pay nothing for it so I can demand nothing of it. I had no choice but to sign up to Google+. I did with bad grace and in a minimal manner. I then turned off Auto Enhance, found all was well, and I now carry on as I was, and ignore Google+. At some point I intend to find out if I can exit from it without Auto Enhance turning back on again.

I was reminded of all this when I took today's photograph of fallen acer leaves we came across in Lincoln. When I looked at the camera screen after I'd taken my shot I showed it to my wife. The colours weren't saturated, they were unnaturally muted! I assume the white balance was wrong. But I was out shopping and photographing only incidentally so rather than change it until I got it right I made a mental note of the brightness of everything and went on my way. I was glad I did because when we came to the fallen willow leaves the camera recorded the colours perfectly. Go figure!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Incidental photographs

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Some of my best images I think of as "incidental photographs". That is to say, they came about when I was engaged in other business. In other words, I hadn't gone out with the express intention of taking photographs, I had other things in mind, but I had a camera with me "just in case". If I'm visiting my family in another part of the country I carry one. Shopping in town or city, one is with me. When I take the car for its service a camera is in my pocket. If I ... well you get the picture. And so do I!! It's an often repeated truism that the best camera is the one you have with you and, by and large, I've learnt my lesson on that score.

I've done this for more years than I care to remember, and my "go everywhere and anywhere" camera has always been a reasonable quality, small, pocketable device. It's currently a Sony RX100. Prior to that it was a Panasonic Lumix LX3. I had the Sony with me recently when we popped into Spalding for some shopping and I took a photograph of the Sessions House, a stone-built, castle-like, court building of 1842 by Charles Kirk senior, as the low sun illuminated the leaves of a nearby tree. I also had it when we visited Southwell in Nottinghamshire one evening and we came upon the Minster, a Norman and later church of cathedral size, floodlit in its leafy precinct. Of course there is the odd occasion when I forget to carry it, and it's then that opportunities for a photograph are seen and lost. And, like the fisherman who loses the big fish, the lost photograph takes on ever more impressive qualities the more you think about what might have been. Neither of these photographs are ever going to feature in my top ten or even top one hundred photographs. But both have qualities that I like and that, I think, make them good enough to post on the blog.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen
Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13.6mm (37mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec
ISO: 2000
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Autumn in London

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When I engaged in paid, daily work I always regretted that I didn't have the time to watch the seasons change in the way that I knew they did - slowly and incrementally. The transition from autumn to winter involves not only a peaks and troughs decline in the temperature, but a change in the light from blue-white to yellow tinged as the sun moves closer to the horizon. The autumnal tints of the trees and the drifts of leaves against walls and kerbs were easy to see. Less visible was the subtle colours of individual species - the red-orange of the cherries, the yellow of the limes and field maples, and the lingering green of the willow.

When I lived in a city such changes were masked by the prevalence of concrete, brick, tarmac and grass. Yes, there were trees, parks and gardens, but the daily grind meant that often you could pay little attention to seasonal metamorphosis. Before you knew it the end of August had turned to November and you had only a vague notion of how the transformation had been achieved. The pace of modern life means that we rarely have the time to stop, stand, stare and fully appreciate the beauty of the changing seasons.

The other day I took a couple of "autumn" shots in London. The first was of the tower and spire of St Mary's church at Rotherhithe. The current building, completed in 1716, replaced a church of the twelfth century. As I walked along the cobbles of the adjacent road I looked up through the yellows, browns and greens of the trees and took a photograph that, when I viewed it on the camera screen, looked like it could have been taken in a small town, a village or the open countryside almost anywhere in England. The presence of a churchyard with its old trees was enough to turn autumn in the city into a more universal view of the season. That couldn't be said of the second photograph of what looks like a red oak near the glass curtain wall of some offices near the centre of the city. Here a grid of man-made, regular, modernity contrasts strongly with the irregularity of the branches and leaves of the specimen trees tat are dotted among the gleaming towers. The contrast of of the two photographs taken only a couple of miles apart in the capital city couldn't be greater, and yet I think both say something about autumn in the city.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19.3mm (52mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

No budget for photographs

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When I changed my contact and enquiries page in February 2012 (modified in April) I had an email from a regular visitor suggesting that my wording was, perhaps, a touch off-putting to people interested in using my photographs. I explained that it was meant to be because I was getting fed up of people contacting me and asking to use an image commercially, but unwilling to pay for doing so. The last straw, and the prompt for my somewhat brusque re-write, was a communication from a company working in the field of Combined Heat and Power units. They explained that my photograph of the undulating, rather artistic cladding that surrounds one of the CHP units at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in London, would be perfect for a publication they were putting together. They explained that they were a "non-profit" company and regretted that they had no budget for photography so couldn't pay for the image. However, should I consent to them using my photograph, they explained, I could be sure that they would give me full written credit.

My response was polite, curt and in the negative. When I re-wrote my contact information I wrote my reasons for this approach in a blog post called "Something for nothing". I was reminded of it the other day when browsing a photography website. One of the posts was a copy of a letter from a musician who had been approached by a TV production company seeking music and regretting that they had "no budget for music" to pay for it. His eloquent and heartfelt response to the solicitation (originally posted on music websites) chimed with a lot of professional and enthusiast photographers who are regularly asked for their work without the offer of recompense and consequently it has been widely circulated on photography websites too. It's well worth reading.

All of which has nothing to do with today's photograph of the upturned, broken top of a Victorian cast iron fountain basin. Except, I've discovered that you never know just what kind of photograph is going to be attractive to a company. Who would have thought the hospital CHP unit would be attractive to anyone? Is this broken fountain? It makes me glad that photography is my interest rather than my job.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 88mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cemeteries and red oaks

click photo to enlarge

A new crematorium is currently being built near Surfleet in Lincolnshire. Its purpose is to supplement the existing crematoria in the area and reduce the journey times for funerals in the south of the county. One of the first things that the contractors did, after a service road had been built, was to plant two hundred trees and a kilometre of hedging on the ten acre site. As with most such facilities the aim is to surround the main building withattractive parkland. Reading a newspaper report about progress on the development I noted that hornbeam has been chosen as the tree to form an avenue from the main road to the crematorium building and chapel. Cemeteries and crematoria are good places to go in search of interesting trees. The desire to beautify the place where people are laid to rest leads to careful consideration of the disposition and type of trees that feature in the grounds. Boston cemetery has a big avenue of mixed trees featuring both pines and limes. Long Sutton cemetery is reached by an avenue of lime trees. The much smaller cemetery in the village of Bicker has a couple of noteworthy silver birches.

I was in Boston cemetery the other day having a look at the architecture. However, I also took some time to see the kinds of trees that were planted there. The older part of the site is something of a wildlife haven, and here the trees have, for the most part, reached maturity. It was in this section that I came across the red oak (a tree of North American origin) shown in the main photograph. It's deeply cut and pointed leaves were begining to show the hues of autumn. These are appearing a little later than usual due to the recent mild weather. In an area that seemed to have closely packed graves of the 1930s and 1940s I came upon a copper leaved tree that I foolishly didn't take the time to identify - is it a beech? Perhaps its something else entirely. I'll check if I visit there again.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Water lily leaves and macro lenses

click photo to enlarge
Over the years I've discovered that a garden becomes much bigger when you own a macro lens. If I were to photograph my garden solely with a 35mm or 50mm lens of the sort I used for many years with a film SLR the number and variety of photographs that my garden provides for me would be significantly reduced.

I enjoy taking macro photographs of plants, but the interesting thing is, even if you aren't using a macro lens at what we might consider to be a macro level of magnification the very fact that you have it mounted on your camera makes you look closely at smaller areas of the garden, at individual plants, single blooms or at one or two leaves. A camera with a wider angle of view and without the ability to focus at close range, though it doesn't always makes such shots impossible, usually makes them difficult, and more importantly doesn't give you the mindset where you go in close, focusing on small details.

Today's photograph is a case in point. I was in the garden with the 100mm macro lens with the camera on the tripod photographing individual blooms. Then, when I took it off the tripod, even though it has technically a telephoto length, I took several hand-held shots from no more than close range. The lily leaves in our small pond hold endless fascination for me. At this time of year the new ones are emerging from below the surface of the water, brown in colour, but soon to be green when they start photosynthesising. I like their shape and size, the way they look against the water and the submerged vegetation, and how the meniscus layer of the water is very evident as they slowly push upwards into the air and light. This isn't the first such shot that I've taken of these leaves and regular visitors will be relieved to find that I'm not going to provide links to those previous shots!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hebe, ambrosia and shrubs

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As far as I can see Greek mythology doesn't figure much in the education or interests of school children today. Yet when I was a child we were taught quite a bit about the subject, including some of the best known stories, and this made us (well, certainly me) want to know more. Alexander Pope said that "a little learning is a dangerous thing", and it certainly can be. However, in the case of me and Greek mythology it proved to be one of the catalysts that inspired a love of words and their origins.

It all started with "Ambrosia" creamed rice, a tinned rice pudding from Devon that first came on the market just before the second world war and was a family staple in the 1950s and 1960s. I discovered that the Greek gods fed on ambrosia and that Zeus and Hera received it (with nectar) from their daughter. It didn't take much research to discover that their ambrosia was unlikely to be the kind with which I was familiar, but the derivation of the rice pudding's name was something I found very interesting.

What has all this to do with a shallow depth of field photograph of a sprig of the plant, Hebe "Red Edge", I hear you ask. Well, the name of the daughter of Zeus and Hera was Hebe. She was the goddess of youth and cup-bearer to the gods until she married Heracles (Hercules to the Romans). When, later in life, I again came across the name Hebe it wasn't in connection with mythology but rather as a very useful, usually hardy, evergreen shrub that originated in New Zealand and South America, one that usually did well in the sort of coastal environment where I was living at the time. It's a plant I've always liked, and a variety that I particularly appreciate is the one shown in today's photograph. The blue-green of the leaf sits well with the red-purple of the leaf edges and makes it an attractive plant all year round. I was photographing our wych hazel when the very structured branches of opposing leaves caught my eye. I composed this shot to hint at the structure and clearly reveal the tip. Incidentally, I have no idea why this particular name was applied to this genus of plant!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 200 Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Avenues

click photo to enlarge
The word "avenue" in English originally comes from the French avenir and Latin advenire, to come to or to approach. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the word was often spelt, "advenue", and in the eighteenth century "a'venue" was used. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records the first use of "avenue" meaning "approach" in a piece dating from 1639. However, by the eighteenth century the definition of the word that we use today - an approach or road lined with trees - was widely accepted. The United States seems to have modified its usage of the word to mean any fine, wide street, but in Britain trees are usually implied by "avenue".

The habit of lining a street, road or entrance driveway with trees to give it an enhanced status is a practise of long standing. It is a feature seen in the grounds of most large English country houses. Towns and cities with streets of eighteenth and and nineteenth century foundation often have such trees and feature the word "avenue" in their name. Municipal parks of the Victorian and Edwardian period usually have avenues, and the rare park of eighteenth century date, such as that at King's Lynn, frequently have them too. Go to the municipal cemetery- usually a nineteenth century creation - and here too you will find a tree lined road leading from the main entrance or to the chapel.

We recently, for the first time, walked into the cemetery at Boston, Lincolnshire, and found here a fine, imposing avenue leading from the entrance gatehouse to the chapel. Unusually it had a mixture of trees rather than being restricted to one or two species. Pines stood alongside beech and lime, with the deciduous trees shedding their leaves on the tarmac and gravestones below. we didn't venture far into the cemetery - that exploration can wait for a later date - but I lingered long enough to see two men come into view at the bottom of the avenue, figures to give some scale to my symmetrical shot down the roadway.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The ones that got away

click photo to enlarge
Photographers are like fishermen: they dwell upon the ones that got away. I can still see the shot I missed when an enormous sheet of agricultural plastic, more than 100 feet long, blew past me and floated over a bungalow, twisting and turning in the air, a surrealistic sight that I came upon when I was without a camera. And the photographs that I've missed when driving along roads where stopping was dangerous or forbidden are too numerous to mention. However, the failure to get photographs on these occasions can be be easily forgiven; you simply feel that fate, circumstance - call it what you will - were against you. What's harder to deal with is when you see a shot, consider how to secure the best that it offers, and still don't end up with the photograph you wanted. Today's two images are examples of this phenomenon.

We were walking through some trees at Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, when the tip of a beech tree branch hanging low against a background of foliage caught my eye. There was no light coming through the trees behind, so I knew there would be no circular highlights to detract from the serpentine line of the twig or the delicacy and fine colours of the leaves. I opened the aperture to f4.5 to blur the background and mounted the 70-300mm lens to provide a longer focal length to further increase the blur, then took the main shot at 141mm. The composition and the light through the leaves is just what I wanted. However, I could see from the LCD that the background could do with more blur. So, I took a second shot. For this one I increased the focal length to 300mm. Then, knowing that the depth of field would be very shallow, opened the aperture to f5.6 (hardly worth the change). I took my shot looking carefully at the background, and was very satisfied with it. However, when I came to look at both shots on the computer I realised that I'd missed my composition on the second shot even though I'd got my background as I wanted. If I'd been paying better attention I'd have got the composition of the main photograph with the background of the smaller one. My next chance of that particular confluence of details is probably next autumn!

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 141mm
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Waterside colour

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The trees and bushes of town and country are full of colour at the moment as autumn's progress wreaks its toll on deciduous leaves. In my garden the cherry trees and the silver birches show the brightest hues; orange/red and yellow respectively, and their leaves daily pile up on the lawns and gravel, inviting us to gather them up with rake and barrow.

On my recent trip into Spalding, during a stroll round Springfields Gardens, I came across a fine reflection in the stream that was duplicating the strong colours of the waterside shrubs. The yellow and green looked natural enough, the sort of tints that can be seen everywhere. However, the pink/purple leaves were obviously not a native species, and they gave this corner of the garden a slightly exotic feel. As far as I could see it was a variety of dogwood (Cornus), a shrub grown as much for the winter colour of its stems as for the beauty of its leaves.

Reflections in water are a recurring theme in my photography. I like the element of confusion that the doppelganger introduces and the hint of abstraction that comes from a subject that has no very obvious main subject. In fact, the reliance on colour and texture often gives such images a painterly quality - another reason I favour them. If you like the photograph above you might also like these earlier examples involving water and reflections: willow branches, trees with cherry blossom, reeds and a fence.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 92mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Eau, the confusion

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet

A few years ago I read some research indicating that the further you go with formal learning the unhappier you are likely to become. Learning, the authors suggested, was characterised by an upward payback curve that stopped after a first degree and thereafter went downwards. If this is true then Pope's observation isn't entirely accurate - at least as far as happiness goes.

One could argue that it isn't true anyway because a little learning - if it is presented to the student well - is a catalyst for further self-directed learning that continues throughout life, and far from being dangerous, is life enhancing. The problem is that much education doesn't achieve this goal. It used to be a characteristic of English primary education. However, the introduction of the dead hand of the National Curriculum and the utilitarian and market demands placed on the already moribund secondary and higher education put paid to that.

Pope's famous lines and education in general came to mind when I looked at my semi-abstract photograph of Bourne Eau, a stream that runs through the town of Bourne in Lincolnshire. The word "Eau" is, today, usually pronounced like the French word for water that has the same spelling. However, this is, in the words of "A Dictionary of Lincolnshire Place-Names", "a spurious Frenchified form" of "ea" (prononounced as in "bead"), a word deriving from the Old English for a river or stream that was variously written as ea, eay, ei, ee etc. The spelling "eau" and the current pronunciation has come into use, presumably, due to the "little learning" of French in English schools that has been common for seventy or so years. The old, original pronunciation clings on in some parts of the county and with some older speakers. One wonders for how long.

It's often said that a successful photograph immediately indicates its subject to the viewer. However, this aphorism, like all such sayings, is subject to exceptions. Confusion can be an appealing quality in a photograph, with the subject not immediately apparent, and the component parts of the image requiring study for the viewer to make sense of what is seen. It was those features that I noticed in this watery scene.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On