Photographic and architectural contrasts

click photo to enlarge
It would be hard to find a greater architectural and photographic contrast than is exhibited in the last post and that of today. A large, angular, urban, twenty-first century health centre made of concrete and steel is just about as distant as you can get from a late 1300s, timber-framed, rural manor house with a later fifteenth century gatehouse and moat.

The photographic treatment adds to the contrast. Black and white, I think, suits the modern building. However, when I idly looked at a monochrome version of the shot above it simply confirmed my opinion that I had to stick with colour despite the "chocolate box" character that it gives to the subject. I recently commented on how, when you visit a place for the first and perhaps only time, you have to accept the weather and light that prevails. Here it was shortly after 10.00am on a June morning with scarcely any cloud in sight when we came upon Lower Brockhampton manor house in Herefordshire. Consequently the light was bright and sharp and the colours vibrant. This house is a subject I'd like to tackle on a slightly misty autumn morning with some brightness and cloud. Or perhaps a bright, late spring evening when clouds pick up a yellow tint from the low sun. As it was the strong white of the paint over the timber-framed walls had to be controlled by under-exposure, and a bit of post-processing was required to get the whole scene back to the brightness levels that my eye saw.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 9mm (18mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6 Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Attracted to the insignificant

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It's happened to me more times than I care to remember. I'm out photographing something large and eye-catching when my attention is drawn to something small and relatively insignificant, something that I hadn't noticed until I got into position for the sought after shot. And that relatively insignificant subject produces a photograph that I like much more than the one I originally had my eye on.

My previous post, of Tattershall Castle, is a fairly routine piece of photographic reportage. The light is OK, the composition works, the content is reasonably interesting, and the shot is different from many of this subject because it's taken in winter when the building is out of use, rather than in summer. But it's not the sort of photograph that I'll look back at, ponder or seek to repeat and improve upon. However, when I was standing on the outer wall of the moat I noticed below me the skeletal remains of plants that had grown up through the water. Initially I thought they were umbellifers of one kind or another, but I now think they must be something else. What attracted me was their pale, winter-blasted stalks and seed heads against the deep, shadowy blue of the water. Then I noticed that the plants were throwing reflections on the surface that were dark doppelgangers. Looking through the viewfinder I liked the sharp, scratchy lines against the dark background and I ended up taken rather more shots of this unimportant subject than of the historic and significant pile only a hundred yards away. Which, I suppose, takes us back once more to the Aaron Rose quotation I mentioned last month.

Reviewing the photograph on my computer I was reminded of a photograph I posted in April 2012, one that was languishing in the vaults, that I plucked out and used. It shows willow branches and twigs over water. Its a shot that sits quite nicely alongside today's, and would look even better with a third to make a short series or triptych. I must look out for something suitable.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Using graduated ND filters

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In the days of film photography I used a fairly wide selection of filters on my SLR camera lenses, and one or two on my rangefinder camera. I still have most of them, and several weeks ago I was looking at the collection, trying to decide which had a future and which I would be unlikely to ever use again.

I think its very doubtful that the red, yellow, orange and green filters that I used with black and white film will find a place in my future photography. The digital equivalent of these, applied to a colour image converted to monochrome in post-processing, seems to me to offer significant advantages over shooting in black and white with a filter on the lens. Nor too, I think, will the 49mm polarising filter be used again: my current lenses have much bigger filter sizes. I suppose, however, if I ever bought a compact system camera - M43, NX, NEX or somesuch, it might fit a lens. I also have a set of square filters of various kinds with a group of mounting filters, but once again these are of a size suitable for smaller diameter lenses. So, even though some of them, such as the neutral density filters, continue to have a very real purpose in these digital times, they are just too small for the lenses I currently use.

My attention had turned to filters because I was wanting to use a graduated neutral density filter to make better use of the sky in my images. It's true that with digital you can expose for the sky and then bring up the underexposed ground in post processing. But the fact is this takes time, effort and skill. Moreover, it's often the case that the dynamic range of the shot is too wide to do it completely successfully. The graduated neutral density filter tones down the brightness of the sky at the moment of capture and makes the details more as our eye sees them. It's especially useful, I find, on overcast days where the sky is white (but figured) and the ground dark and without obvious shadows. It is also useful when the camera is pointed anywhere near to the sun. Occasionally, however, this kind of filter does make too much of the sky's details and it can look a touch apocalyptic!

The upshot of all this is that a while ago I bought a 72mm mounting ring, filter holder and a square ND8 graduated neutral density filter. Fortunately the 24-105mm and the 17-40mm lens both have 72 mm filter threads, so the two lenses I own that are most suitable for this kind of filter can be accommodated by the single setup.

The photographs above were all taken on a rather overcast day using the filter. They show the late C15 (and later) Mannington Hall, a moated house in Norfolk. I may have been able to achieve the balance of the first image without the filter, and perhaps the second one too, but the third shot really benefited from it, acquiring a mood that would have been difficult to reproduce with a normal exposure and post-processing.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
Filter: Graduated ND8