Unexpected rain

click photo to enlarge
The weather forecast said it would rain from three o'clock in the afternoon onwards so I calculated that it would be fine to cycle to my appointment for half past nine and cycle home at about ten thirty or eleven o'clock.  No need for wet weather gear I thought, summer trousers and a light sweater over my short sleeved shirt should be enough for the cool of the morning. And it was. A pleasant cycle ride down the drove roads, past the wheat stubble, the flocking swallows and the foraging collared doves and tree sparrows. But, as I chatted after my meeting at about quarter to eleven I looked out of the window and saw steady drizzle falling. The predictions of the Met Office had, once again this summer, proved hopeless and several hours early the rain had arrived.

Aiming to miss the heavy rain that was likely (or was it!) to follow the light rain I made a swift exit and cycled home, head down, legs pumping, through the steady precipitation. My front was quickly wet and my glasses were soon obscured by raindrops. But I pressed on and got home damp; the sort of damp that in winter would have had me changing clothes but which in late summer found me letting them dry naturally and quite quickly still on me. Taking my glasses off and setting them down before wiping them I saw the small droplets of rain on the lenses and quickly snapped today's photograph.

Just as it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, so too is it hopeless rain that can't produce a photograph or two.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Raindrops on Glasses
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm macro (120mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Garden colour

click photo to enlarge
There is a school of gardening that favours subtle, muted colours that belong to the same palette - say light blues and purples - to which white is sometimes added. This can be very effective. It can also become monotonous. My preference is for subtlety occasionally disrupted by an explosion of colour. And, when it comes to floral pyrotechnics, few flowers offer more of a "bang" than the gaillardia.

We've grown this flower for quite a few years and I always look forward to its appearance in the border. The red, orange and yellow blooms could never be described as subtle and the colour combination is not one that has a particular appeal for  me. On a recent tour of the garden with my camera and the macro lens I stopped in front of the gaillardias and tried to work out what it was that I liked about them. I came to the conclusion that it is the mixture of strong contrast and the way the yellow petal tips give the outline of each flower head strong definition.

I've photographed this flower before (see here, here and here for example) and this time I again looked for a different composition. I found it by keeping the camera to my eye and slowly moving around the blooms. This view with the out of focus foliage seemed to further accentuate the definition of the petals that I like.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Gaillardia Flower
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 60mm macro (120mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Meadow grasses

click photo to enlarge
Our garden is sufficiently large that one year we thought we'd turn part of our largest lawn over to meadow. That is to say, we'd stop mowing the section that has the fruit trees, sow and transplant some wild flowers into it and cut it annually with a scythe. We researched the theory and embarked on the project. It turned out that the maintenance of this area of grass was, if not more time-consuming than lawn, certainly harder work when it came to looking after it. The effect in spring and summer was fine, but the appearance after the mowing wasn't good and the disposal of the grass was harder than envisaged. Moreover, some flowers in the meadow succeeded but quite a few failed. So we decided to drastically reduce the area of "meadow", return a big portion back to lawn and see how that fared. The answer was, much better, even though I was back to steering the mower round most of the apple and pear trees once more.

Today's photograph shows some of the grasses in our small area of meadow lit by June sunshine I expect I'll be photographing the dog daisies in it soon, and enjoying the sight of the long grass and flowers swaying in the breeze and July sunshine before I take the scythe to it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Meadow Grasses
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 35mm Macro (70mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Forget-me-not

click photo to enlarge
I remember being told a story in primary school about how the forget-me-not (Myosotis) got its name. God - or a god, perhaps classical, I don't recall - was naming all the plants when a small one that he had overlooked called out to him, "forget me not", with which that became the name that he bestowed on it. I've also read that in the middle ages women wore the flower as a mark of steadfast love. However, I often think the flower should be called "cannot-forget-me" because the fact is, once you have this flower in your garden, unless you are obsessively tidy, you have the plant for ever after.

The forget-me-not spreads its thousands of tiny seeds by dropping them, and by its pods attaching to clothing, cats, birds, in fact anything that brushes it when passing by. In our garden it is in full bloom in a number of locations, its blueness vying with the bluebells, another flower that spreads easily and quickly. My photograph shows one of the tiny groups of flowers on its stem, the yellow centre contrasting nicely with the blue petals. For all that it is invasive it is reasonably easy to control, and I have yet to find a person who doesn't have a soft spot for this diminutive flower.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Forget-Me-Not Flowers
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 35mm Macro (70mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reproducing heucheras

click photo to enlarge
The first garden plant that I ever saw with a label saying that it must not be reproduced by the gardener because the variety was patented was a heuchera. It was probably a cultivar from the United States, a country where patent law frequently seems to be seen as an opportunity for lawyers and others to make money without doing anything useful. If you want to know more about that search for "patent troll" to find a definition of that term and numerous articles about the subject.

We like heucheras, their leaves are extremely attractive. They thrive in shade and semi-shade, and with quite a few trees in our garden planting sites favouring this plant are not difficult to find. What I find interesting about the patenting of heucheras is they reproduce themselves abundantly without the gardener having to do anything, so I do wonder how (and why) patents on cultivars are registered and enforced. We don't have any patented heucheras - the prices are too high and our interest in the plant is quite casual, not obsessive. But we do have varieties with leaves that are red, orange, brown, purple, green, glossy and striped. They are looking good at the moment and sending up spikes covered in very small flowers. On a trawl round the garden for a photograph or two I took this shot of one of the flower spikes with the macro lens and a shallow depth of field. I liked the dreamy effect and the soft colours merging into one another.

Looking at these flowers I am reminded that they will produce thousands of tiny seeds that will fall around the parent plant and blow onto our gravel, quite a few of which will turn into miniature heucheras that are completely ignorant of patents.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Heuchera Flower Spike
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 35mm (70mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Purple-edged white carnation

click photo to enlarge
My current macro lens is a Four Thirds (not Micro Four Thirds) 35mm 3.5 model that I used when I shot with Four Thirds cameras. I hung on to it because I thought it would transfer reasonably well to the new bodies with an adapter. And it does. It's a simple lens, like most macro lenses, and its very sharp, again, like most macro lenses! The adapter I have is an inexpensive, but not cheap, Chinese model and it works very well.

When I was taking a few photographs in the garden recently I spotted it in the lens drawer and thought it was time I used it again. However, the flower that turned out best was in a vase in the house - a purple-edged white (or light pink) carnation. I've said elsewhere that the tulip is one of the flowers I've photographed most, but the carnation must be in second (or maybe third - those poppies!) place. This one appealed to me as much for the soft daylight and reflected light in which it was bathed. It was penetrating the inner recesses of the bloom and gave a nicely semi-abstract, drawn look to the two dimensional image.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Purple-Edged White Carnation
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm (70mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Four Thirds macro on OMD E-M10

click photo to enlarge
When I used Olympus Four Thirds cameras I recall people being a bit sniffy about that manufacturer's 35mm f3.5 Macro lens. The consensus was that the Olympus Four Thirds 50mm f2 was better. At three times the price perhaps it should have been. However, what people often seemed to forget is that there are not many poor dedicated macro lenses and the 35mm f3.5 isn't in any way a poor lens. In recent years I used the Canon 100mm f2.8 L IS Macro, a lens that is universally regarded as one of the sharpest lenses available, and the fact is I was pushed to see a great difference between it and my Olympus lens except in the "creaminess" of the bokeh: in that regard the Canon excelled.

When it came to putting together a set of lenses to use with my new OMD E-M10 (what a clunky name!) I considered the Olympus Micro Four Thirds 60mm f2.8 Macro. However, I thought it might be useful to see how the old 35mm macro performed first. So, I bought a £25 Chinese-made adapter, with auto-focus connectors, so that I could use it with the new camera. It appears to be well-made and works as advertised but is slow (as expected) to auto-focus, and "hunts" (also as expected) too much. It would be a lot better, I'm sure, on an OMD E-M1. But, using the E-M10's manual mode with magnifier it works extremely well. And in fact, when I used the Canon in recent years, I usually used it in manual mode.

I did a little flower photography to test the combination and while snapping one of my favourite flowers, a California poppy, this hover fly settled on it. The slightly cropped shot above is the best example I secured that demonstrates the resolving power of the lens/camera combination. And it was wide-open and hand-held!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm Macro (70mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Autumn cherry leaves

click photo to enlarge
Apparently the intensity of colour of some autumn leaves is affected by the weather that prevails before and during the time that chlorophyl production in them begins to decline. A spell of warm, sunny weather with cool but not freezing nights results in the leaves producing sugars during the day that are retained by the closing of veins prompted by the lower temperatures.The accumulated sugar combined with the colder nights triggers the production of the anthocyanin pigments that produce the reds, oranges and purples in leaves. Yellow leaves are produced by carotenoids that are always present and not weather-dependant (which must account for why the lime trees' leaves are a fine show every year).

I've been looking at our ornamental cherry trees recently, wondering if they would produce a good show of colour, particularly some of the fiery reds and oranges that make the garden come alive. The recent weather and the information above suggests they will. However, that weather is about to change with rain, wind and storms coming in from the west. With that in mind I decided to take matters into my own hands and make the best of the leaves as they are now. The low sun enhanced the hues of several that were on the ground, allowing me to achieve my aim of a photograph of contrasts and colour.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5D Mk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Hydrangea arborescens "Annabelle"

click photo to enlarge
The same flower photographed under different lighting conditions can produce photographs with quite different qualities. The other day I was photographing Hydrangea arborescens "Annabelle", the most popular cultivar of the Smooth Hydrangea of eastern North America, a variety that is quite hardy and valued because of its large white blooms. It grows in semi-shade in our garden near a large willow tree and at this time of year it gets intermittent direct sunlight.

My shots were taken with a 100mm macro lens and the camera was mounted on a tripod. The main photograph was taken when the sun was out but the bloom was in shade. Here the bright but diffuse light was above and the shade from the tree helped to reveal the detail of each petal. The smaller photograph has the camera lower down, shooting upwards, with the light behind the petals. A sheet of white vinyl gives the white background and reflects a bit of light onto the subject. The aperture on that shot is f4 against the f16 of the main photograph and the shallower depth of field adds to the "dreamier" quality that it exhibits, something that I think complements the brightness.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 0.8 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Changing tastes and flowering currants

click photo to enlarge
It's interesting how, as you journey through life, your tastes change. Not all of them, of course, but enough for you to notice that what was once loathed is now loved, and vice versa - what couldn't be countenanced now can. I became aware of a couple of examples of my changing tastes recently. The first was when I was talking to my two year old grand-daughter. She was eating her evening meal, a dish that included cucumber. As she chomped away I told her something that, with hindsight, was probably best left unsaid. I mentioned that I didn't like cucumber; that when I was younger I did like it, but now it was something I avoided. Given that she is trying many foods for the first time and putting her off particular types is inadvisable it would have been better if I'd said nothing. Fortunately, however, she was having none of it and told me in no uncertain terms, and repeatedly, that "cucumber is nice". Apparently she later quizzed her mother with great incredulity about my dislike of this lovely food. Clearly her grandfather was mad. But, the fact is, as I've aged I've gone off cucumber.

The opposite is true of flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum). Like many people I wasn't keen on the strong and distinctive smell of this early flowering shrub. Nor did I appreciate the colour combination of pink petals and green leaves. But, in recent years I've grown to appreciate the plant. I enjoy the contribution that it makes to the garden in early spring, both visually and in terms of its scent. In fact, the other day one of our bushes looked so magnificent that I took a couple of photographs of it in all its splendour. The example I post is the shot I liked best.

The interesting question is why tastes change in this way. I have no clear answer, except I do wonder if those initial likes and dislikes were ever firmly founded. Whether my liking of cucumber and dislike of flowering currant was nothing more than youthful postures adopted for the flimsiest of reasons - because I'd heard someone else express a liking or dislike.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5DMk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm Macro
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0
Image Stabilisation: On

Bad habits and serendipity

click photo to enlarge
One of my bad habits when I was working was occasionally eating my lunch at my desk. As bad habits go it's not particularly awful but it did have an unfortunate consequence. My computer keyboard, over time, became sticky and a little grubby from the unintentional spray of juice from my oranges. Now that I am retired I never eat at my desk, I'm almost always at a dining table, and my keyboard remains free of food liquids and solids. However, since my retirement tablet computers have made an appearance and unfortunately I've developed a different bad habit - often reading my tablet as I eat my lunch.

Recently, as I was indulging my predilection, an arc of juice from my orange traced a path through the air and landed on the screen. And, before I wiped it off, I noticed how each drop of juice acted as a convex lens on the pixels and picture displayed beneath it. I made a mental note to reproduce that effect with water and a dropper to see if I could make an interesting photograph of this serendipitous phenomenon. The other day I had a go and, interestingly serendipity extended the range of images that I took from the experiment.

The effect I was initially looking for is exemplified best in the photograph labelled number 2. The grid of pixels is warped by the droplets of water in the way that I saw with the juice from my orange. An interesting additional feature is a bubble in the centre droplet. But, as is often the way, as I moved the camera and re-focused the macro lens, I got a quite different and unexpected view of the droplets. The photograph labelled number 1 was taken from a lower angle with the circle of my light above. I was puzzled by the tripling in the image of each droplet but then realised it must be due to the layers in the screen each reflecting the water slightly differently. A similar effect can be seen in the main photograph (labelled number 3) and here serendipity has intervened once more because this shot is taken with no screen illumination, the power-saving feature having turned it off.

As I looked at my collection of photographs I reflected that they weren't earth shattering but they did have a certain fascination, and that it once again it derived from the macro lens showing what the unaided eye doesn't normally notice or see.


photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon 5DMk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm Macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  0
Image Stabilisation: On

The blame game and rain drops

click photo to enlarge
Am I cynical in thinking that our prime minister's exhortation to stop playing the "blame game" concerning the responsibility for, and handling of, the current flooding in England, is simply to prevent people examining the degree to which his government's policies are responsible for the extent of the flooding and the poverty of the response to it? Has he really forgotten that he was only recently blaming the flooding on the previous government's deficiencies. Moreover, I seem to recall him telling us, when he was first elected, that his would be a government that eschewed "Punch and Judy politics", that abandoned the usual name-calling and knock about; that he would usher in a new, responsible approach that raised the standard of political discourse. How soon all that was forgotten. How quickly did business as usual assert itself as U-turns, ministerial resignations, botched policies, missed targets and political embarrassments mounted. Unattributed briefings, back-biting, smears, statistical manipulation - the whole range of dark political arts - was deployed in double quick time, and very soon we were exactly where we have always been, with the public rating politicians among the lowest of the low, somewhere alongside journalists. Now, having said that he has no choice but to make deep cuts in public spending, exhorting us to tighten our belts and chopping services with a relish that borders on the fanatical, he suddenly announces "money is no object" in dealing with the flooding. Worse yet, instead of letting the responsible minister and the professionals who know how to deal with flooding get on with their jobs he announces that he is taking charge. I don't know whether to feel blessed that we are led by this Renaissance man or to despair that we (though not me!) have elected someone so prone to knee-jerk reactions, someone whose every action seems driven by whether or not it plays well in the media and to voters.

That despairing note was prompted by the confluence of the political news and the continuing rain, some of which I noticed on a window as the light started to fail. With my naked eye I could just make out colours in some of the drops on the glass. So, with the aim of revealing it, I mounted my 100mm macro lens on the camera and took this angled shot. I made sure the point of focus was off the left edge of the frame so that all the reflected highlights were out of focus to a greater or lesser degree. Recently I was speaking of how the camera often sees what the eye doesn't. That's especially true when you use a macro lens as some of the patterns in the highlights above show.

* The piece above was written on 11 February 2014
From The New Statesman, 12 February 2014: "After the session (Prime Minister's Questions) had ended, No. 10 briefed that there would be no new money made available and that any extra funding would come from contigency budgets, a clear reversal of Cameron's pledge yesterday."

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5DMk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm Macro
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Love-in-a-Mist or Devil-in-the-Bush

click photo to enlarge
Can there be a garden plant with more contradictory common names than the annual flower, Nigella damascena? Love-in-a-Mist is delightfully evocative of the way the light, feathery foliage surrounds the modest but beautiful flowers. However, Devil-in-the-Bush paints quite a different picture and must surely refer to the seed pods, each wrapped in a net-like basket with multiple prongs, like a shroud of barbed wire. Other vernacular names are similarly inventive. Jack-in-Prison probably derives from theed pod and its surrounding entanglement. Love-Entangle may also be similarly inspired, though perhaps the "love" is the flower in the mass of lacy leaves. Hair-of-Venus must be based on the leaves too. A legend attaches to one of the names - Lady-in-the-Shade. The story goes that the Frederick I (1122-1190), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, drowned when trying to catch an enticing, green-haired water sprite. Lady-in-the-Shade immediately sprang up by the water's edge, a reminder of the tresses of the temptress. As is often the case, the Latin name of the plant is simply descriptive. Nigella refers to the small, black seeds to be found in the pod, and damascena comes from Damascus.

In my macro photograph of the seed pod that I plucked from the garden I definitely set out to illustrate the Devil-in-the-Bush and Jack-in-Prison names. Concentrating on the base from where the "prison" originates I photographed it against a black background in highly directional light and converted the image to black and white.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The accommodating Comma

click photo to enlarge
The Big Butterfly Count is currently underway in  the UK. This year it is running from 20th July to 11th August. An annual event organised by Butterfly Conservation, it enlists volunteers to count the species and number of butterflies on a bright or sunny day, in any location, over a period of 15 minutes. Results are collected and collated and help to give a picture of the relative health of the country's butterfly populations.

I recently consulted last year's results to find out the status of the Comma that I'd been photographing, at my wife's request, in our garden. Last year's wet summer produced somewhat atypical results with the Meadow Brown the runaway winner in terms of numbers. The commonest butterflies in my garden this year are (with last year's placings in brackets) Small White (4), Large White (5), Peacock (16), Red Admiral (11) and Small Tortoiseshell (10). However, we see several more including the Brimstone, Wall, Painted Lady and others. The Comma also turns up now and again. Last year it was the 12th commonest species nationwide.

The Comma is named after the small white comma-like mark on the underside of its wings. It's an attractive butterfly with its orange and black markings and ragged edged wings. A characteristic that endears it to me as a photographer is the fact that it scares much less easily than, say, Peacocks and Red Admirals, when the camera lens approaches it. I took today's shot with a 100mm macro lens that had a hood mounted on the end of it. The butterfly tolerated the edge of the hood a matter of 10 centimetres or less from it, and that when the camera was mounted on a bright silver tripod. A very accommodating butterfly in that respect.

Less accommodating in its choice of flowers however. A bright orange Comma butterfly on a pink and orange Coneflower (Echinacea) with green leaves in the background makes for an eye-watering colour combination. They would become my number one butterfly in all respects if they'd feed on one of our dusky blue flowers so I could compose photographs with colours more to my liking!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

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

Pink and black

click photo to enlarge
Pink always seems to me to be the right colour for carnations (Dianthus) because their colloquial name is "pinks". These flowers come in a range of colours yet pink, to my eye, is just the right colour to go with the blue-tinged green of the stalks, thin leaves and buds.

I think I've said elsewhere in this blog that pink is a colour that I never especially liked but, as I've aged, it has grown on me. It's a colour that cries out to be paired with another colour. I like to see it with turquoise or grey though I'm not fond of the popular pairing with red or purple. When I came to take this photograph of some pink carnations in a vase in our hall I opted for a black background. Pink and black are often put together quite successfully. In this instance it allows the relatively muted colour to display an intensity that it loses when other colours are paired with it, and makes the most of the outline of the blooms. The trouble is that that pink and black have a particular association in my mind, one that I can't shift. Such things are very powerful and can prevent one seeing something for what it is. For example, I can't see the colour mint green alongside brown without thinking of a dessert (pudding) that we had in primary school - chocolate sponge with mint flavoured (and coloured) sauce.

So what association pops into my head when I see pink and black. Nothing less than Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts, a sweet of my childhood, still available today, though one I haven't tasted for decades!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Hebe, ambrosia and shrubs

click photo to enlarge
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

In praise of things compact

click photo to enlarge
One evening a few years ago, as I sat at my computer in the glow from the screen and the nearby anglepoise light, I accidentally nudged a stack of compact discs causing them to slide across the desk. I'd placed them upside down, and as they came to rest the lights created individual rainbows on the clear, silvery underside of each one. Never a person to miss an opportunity for a photograph I took several and posted one on the blog.

I recalled that event the other evening as I was photographing the inside of a cut glass wine goblet. It had caught my eye as a potential photographic subject when I was washing up a little earlier. The faceted edges of the patterns in the bowl of the glass were making rainbow-like prismatic effects. I rested my camera on the top of the glass with the lens inside it and used the timer to take a few shots. I was moderately pleased with the outcome, but a little underwhelmed by the rainbows. So, remembering the episode with the compact disks I found one, placed it, shiny side up, under the stem and foot of the glass, and took a few more photographs. Today's image is the best of the bunch. I moved the camera a little for this one to spoil the symmetry and introduce a little contrast with the out of focus side of the glass.

As I reviewed my shots on the computer I reflected that many photographic enthusiasts disparage compact cameras, their tiny sensors and their allegedly more limited capabilities compared with DSLRs. However, if like me on this occasion, you want to take a quick, experimental shot, with good depth of field and possibly macro capability, then they are hard to beat. So join me in a glass and give a little praise for both compact discs and compact cameras!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tablets, light tables and wax crayons

click photo to enlarge
When I was young a comic that I bought often featured a quiz. One of the popular categories consisted of photographs or drawings of everyday objects seen from unusual angles. A ball point pen, for example, might be shown from a viewpoint where the tip pointed directly at you and would consist of a hexagon enclosing a large circle with a couple of smaller concentric circles inside. A teapot seen from directly above would be a large circle (the body) with two smaller circles within it (the lid and the central lid handle), and a couple of bars projecting from opposite sides (the spout and the handle). You get the idea. I recall competing against friends to see who could draw a commonly found object in such a way that its identity couldn't be guessed. Simple pleasures, happy days!

We have in our house, at the moment, a new, clear plastic tub of short, wide, wax crayons. They are for some young children to use. When I looked at the tub from above the other day I was reminded of that childhood game and an idea for a photograph popped into my mind. A photograph from directly above might have colour, shape and interest if I lit it imaginatively. And with that thought, particularly the word "imaginatively", I made a connection with something I'd been pondering for a while. We have an Android tablet and it had occurred to me recently that it would make a useful light table for photographing small objects. The problem was I didn't know how to make it display a completely white screen. However, that little problem was solved in a eureka moment when I realised that if I opened a PDF and turned to a blank page I'd have just what I wanted. There must be a more elegant solution to that problem but I was entirely happy with my easy-to-realise answer.

So, here is the resulting photograph. It was taken quickly, hand-held. It's not the best macro shot I've ever done, but is a useful forerunner and test for what I hope will be better images using the tablet as a light table.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 80 sec
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Pine tree bark

click photo to enlarge
With a "normal" length lens mounted on your camera - say 35mm or 50mm - or a zoom that covers the normal range a photographer wanders along looking around in much the same way that you do when you're not carrying a camera. However, putting a macro lens on a camera immediately alters the photographer's focal distance and field of view. You immediately start to look more closely at the objects nearby, and you home in narrowly on them, searching for interest in detail. At least that's what generally happens to me.

In the past I've likened seeing the world through the macro lens to returning to one's childhood, a time when small, nearby details, for example the ground, holes, tree roots, the texture of a wall or the reflection in a door handle, invited extended study and offered endless fascination. A while ago I was doing a little communal work with a group of villagers, cutting suckers and low branches from some roadside trees. As we went about our task I found myself at the base of one of a group of tall pine trees (Scot's pines, I think). The pattern and colour of the bark immediately caught my eye. Tree bark has been one of my recurring photographic subjects (see, for example, the bark of this silver birch, this Tibetan cherry and this plane tree), and I made a mental note to return with my camera and get a couple of shots of the fine texture.

When I did so, on a rather dull morning, I ended up with bark photographs that have a quality that in the past has caused me to reject such shots. Namely, the fine granularity of the bark can make the photograph appear to be out of focus when in fact it is perfectly sharp. That has happened, to an extent, here. However, in this instance I quite like how it offers a contrast to the sharp lines. Incidentally, and thinking once more about our childhood eyes and interests, the patterns in bark are rather like wallpaper, curtains and clouds in being very good at suggesting hidden faces, animals etc. I can see a vulture's head in this example, but again, that's probably just me!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  0.33
Image Stabilisation: On