Towers of the winds

click photo to enlarge
Many years ago I visited Athens to look at the architecture of Classical (and later) Greece. One of the many buildings that I viewed was the Tower of the Winds, a 12 metre tall octagonal structure in the Roman agora, that was built in the period between 50BC and 200BC. It features the eight deities associated with wind and has a sundial on each of its faces. It was, essentially, a clock tower.

The other day I was standing in a public space at Canary Wharf in London where there are several clocks indicating time at different locations. We were debating where to sit to eat the lunch that we were carrying. That question was important because, though the sun was shining and the temperature was generally quite pleasant, it was windy and we knew that sitting in the wind would soon result in us feeling cold and uncomfortable. However, it was difficult to find such a place because the tall towers that dominate the location cause the wind to swirl in many directions. We eventually settled on a bench in a well planted area by some water features.

As I ate my sandwich I recalled an article I read recently about a tall tower in Leeds that caused the wind to increase in speed at its base to the point where it often knocked people off their feet, and caused a death when a lorry blew onto a pedestrian. The piece described how structures were being erected at ground level as baffles to reduce the wind velocity. It occurred to me that Canary Wharf's towers were "towers of the wind" too: the gusts definitely seemed to be stronger among them that in the open space by the river. But, the people who work there seemed to know the best places to sit at lunchtime and enjoy food and a break, so I took the opportunity to photograph the be-suited people enjoying their moments of mid-day leisure.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Curtain walls and coincidences

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It would be great to believe that the modern world had done with the concept of "good luck", that the superstitious attitude that leads people to waste money on lotteries and other gambling would have gone the way of belief in fairies and the efficacy of a daily dose of castor oil. But no, people queue up to give away money they can often ill afford to lose in the hope - sometimes expectation - of becoming a millionaire.

But the fact is, despite the Enlightenment, despite the rise of modern mathematics and science and despite universal education, many people have only a hazy grasp of concepts such as chance, probablity and coincidence, and frequently fall back on the superstitious beliefs of centuries ago. If only I stick with the same set of numbers, some say, I'm bound to win the lottery one day, while another group are equally convinced of their belief that changing the numbers is a better way to beat the odds. A much smaller group realise that the odds are the same each time you play your numbers, whatever the numbers are. Similarly, many people will accept that the probability of two people sharing the same birthday is 100% when there are 366 people in a room (excluding February 29th birthdays), but will dispute the fact that there is a 99% probablity when there are only 57 people. (For further information on this probability theory paradox see here).

My most recent blog post was about my liking for using glass curtain wall grids in photographs. What a strange coincidence then, that on my next photographic outing (that happened to be in London), I should return with just such an image, a semi-abstract example taken around sunset. Not really. I like the subject, I'd been thinking about it recently, and I was in a city with a multitude of glass boxes, so the fact that I should take such a shot is not at all unlikely: it's simply the sort of coincidence that occurs regularly throughout our lives.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.2mm (48mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Privatising public space

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The insidious spread of private space into what was formerly, or should be, public space continues. Whether it be shopping malls, new developer-created streets, gated communities, or public-private partnerships that trade space for council-owned facilities, the result is the same: areas that would, in the past, have been publicly owned and would have offered unfettered access to everyone, are now often places in which we have restricted rights, and what we can or cannot do is limited in order that the owners can sell more effectively to the public or to their tenants. So, watch out if you're taking photographs, collecting for charity, skateboarding, or doing anything that offends the delicate sensibilities of the owners or their private security guards: if they don't like it they have the power to tell you to "clear off".

On a recent visit to London it was pointed out to me that one of the largest redevelopments of the river front is privately owned. The area upstream of Tower Bridge on the South Bank, a location that has a riverside path, green space, benches, multiple office blocks, open-air amphitheatre and is known by the ridiculous name of "More London" is not the public space that it seems to be. If one looks carefully you can see discreet metal plates fixed to walls that proclaim its private status. This is all the more remarkable because the space includes the new City Hall from where the London Assembly governs the metropolis. One of the architectural features of this Norman Foster-designed building is its openness, designed to bring transparency to the democratic process. Yet it is located in a privately owned part of the city. As they say in the United States - "go figure".

All that being so, I did wonder whether I might be stopped as I pointed my new camera at the orange coloured acers in front of the offices with their blue-tinted glass. However, anyone trying to restrict my photography would, in fairness, have to do the same with the thousands of tourists snapping away at Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast, the city skyline and the "Glass Gonad" itself, so I felt fairly safe.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Illusions

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I like a good, confusing, photographic illusion. I don't mean the staged sort that shows a man holding the Great Pyramid above his head, or a small (but actually distant) person apparently diving into someone's mouth. No, I mean those "found" images that either show something that looks to be one thing, but is in fact another, or those that confuse us to the point where we can't understand what it is that we are looking at.

I've taken a few examples of this kind of photograph in the past including a fire escape staircase, a giant mirror ball, a theatre's sign, a reflection in a well, a piece of bark, and a bicycle stand. The other day, in Peterborough, I took another one. As I was passing a heavily glazed office block that I've photographed before, I was taken by the reflection of the sky and clouds in the tinted glass of the walls/windows. Approaching the building it appeared as if the clouds were floating from above my head into and out of the walls of glass. So I pointed my camera upwards and tried to capture this illusion. I had to wait a short time until the actual and the reflected clouds seemed to be making the transition, then I pressed my shutter. What I hadn't banked on was that the final image, at first glance, when it appeared on my computer screen, would look like the perfectly still water of an inviting swimming pool into which - if it really existed - I'd be tempted to jump.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Gotham City-on-Thames

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When I drive into London down the M11 from the north, my first glimpse of the capital is the cluster of towers at Canary Wharf. As I get closer, off to the right, the tall buildings of the City and the London Eye start to compete for attention. But, my destination being the south bank of the Thames upstream from Canary Wharf, it is this landmark, and particularly the pyramid-topped Canary Wharf Tower (One Canada Square), that acts like a lighthouse guiding me on to the A13, the north bank and the Rotherhithe Tunnel.

Canary Wharf is London's financial district. Ken Allison, in his book London's Contenporary Architecture +, describes it as an "instant Gotham City", and with good reason. Not only has it appeared in a relatively short time, but the overall planning for this area of derelict docks was by Skidmore, Owens and Merrill (SOM), the Chicago-based architectural firm who were responsible for some of the iconic towers of the C20. They also designed several of the lower buildings in the development in a Post-Modern and post-Post-Modern style. However, it is the cluster of tall structures, in particular Canary Wharf Tower, HSBC, and Citigroup that give the place a metropolitan character that is much more of the U.S. than England. The architects of these three buildings - Cesar Pelli and Norman Foster - have produced sleek, but quite bland emblems of global capitalism that impress more in a group than individually.

In fact, at night, or when low cloud wreaths their tops, or when sun burns off early morning fog as in my image, the buildings have a brooding quality that brings to mind some of the more recent Batman films. But, a bright, clear, sunny day reveals them as just another set of opulent, shiny boxes. My photograph was taken last autumn, and is one I overlooked at the time. The indistinct quality of the image, the fog and mist (partly of the buildings' own making), and the way the early sun was falling, has made a photograph that seems to have more than a hint of the Gotham City-on-Thames alluded to by Ken Allinson.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm (100mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On