That time of year

click photo to enlarge
In November the centres of our cities and towns enter what I call "that time of year" a.k.a. Christmas. November is, in my view, too early to think about Christmas, but commerce, ever eager to whip us into a spending frenzy in order to part us from our money, thinks otherwise. So after the interiors of shops start displaying their festive period goods in October, at some point in the second half of November the first trees and Christmas decorations start being hung in streets and market places. There they will be seen until mid-January. I find the drawn out nature of this annual spending binge quite depressing.

Today's photograph shows the view of Newark's wonderful market place from Bridge Street, one of the four roads that enter it at its corners. Above is a fine sky with clouds piled high, beyond the red and white striped market stall canopies is the fine eighteenth century town hall, the work of the architect John Carr of York. Other Georgian and Victorian buildings can be seen fringing the market square and on Bridge Street. The busy shoppers in the shady foreground add their silhouettes to the composition. What spoils it for me, however, is the wires crossing the street awaiting the decorations that will be strung from them, the five tall poles that are also waiting to be festooned with wires and Christmas paraphernalia, and the Christmas tree in between the columns of the town hall portico. These may not worry the casual viewer who will concentrate on the good things about this view. However, for someone like me, who feels photographically thwarted at this time of year every time I go around a town with my camera, they stick out like sore thumbs.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Market Place, Newark, seen from Bridge Street
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Enforced phone photography - colour

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On our most recent visit to London my camera stopped working properly and so for a few days I had to use my phone for photography. Despite the rapid improvement in phone cameras to the point where many are "good enough" for a limited range of photography, I still prefer the flexibility and quality of a purpose-built camera. I should also add that my phone was bought knowing that I wouldn't use it a great deal and so I chose on price rather than features.

All that notwithstanding, it takes photographs, and in some circumstances for some purposes the images it produces are quite good. It doesn't have real zoom or course. Nor does it handle low light well. Its dynamic range is somewhat limited, and you have to make a conscious effort to hold it still. In fact, the latter is the most frustrating feature because a few of my shots that are compositionally quite good, when enlarged show distinct blur caused by my hand movement. As far as basic ergonomics for photography goes the shape of the average smartphone seems deliberately chosen to induce blur.

Today's photograph is one of the better shots I got. It shows the platform at Cannon Street station in London. We've become quite familiar with this location following the closure of London Bridge station. However, our regular route means a walk to Bank station to get the Northern line tube, and interesting as that is, I'll be glad when London Bridge reopens in 2018 and I don't have to do it so often.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photograph: CannonStreet Station, London
Phone photograph

Photographing staircases

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Photographers seem drawn to photographing staircases in the way that painters paint bowls of fruit, and perhaps for similar reasons - it is a very three-dimensional subject depicted in two dimensions. Architects put a lot of work into staircases and over the centuries have come up with many variations, some ornate, others utilitarian. The wrongly named spiral staircase (they are almost always helicoidal) must take the prize for the most photographed design, and I've taken my share of examples of both elaborate and simple construction.

Any staircase that involves a change of direction (called in this instance a "return") gives a photographer a strong set of lines and a visual route through an image, and this must lie at the centre of its attraction as a subject. Handrails, balusters, newel posts, wall stringers, lighting etc add further elements though the most important is often people using the staircase. Today's example was taken in a relatively dark staircase at Tate Modern in London. Here I liked the contrast of the flat dark areas and the subtly shaded lighter areas as well as the line created by the lighting under the handrail and the fact that the colour palette is nearly all in the area of browns and beiges.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Staircase, Tate Modern, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Humber Bridge and a soft sky

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

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

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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

Nativity and photographing stained glass

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When I first started photographing stained glass a tripod was a necessity. Today, thanks to image stabilisation and improved high ISO capabilities, that's not the case. As a subject stained glass presents quite a few challenges, particularly when it is in a church. Firstly there is the fact that it is usually above head height. This necessitates either raising the camera or correcting converging verticals. Then there's the very wide range of tones in stained glass, usually ranging from white through to black. How to expose them all correctly is the problem: usually some underexposure is necessary followed by selective post processing.

Stained glass is best photographed on bright, overcast days because sunlight on the window usually presents insuperable difficulties if you are seeking true colours. Windows near transepts and porches are a problem because the shadow of the building projection often makes one side of the window much darker than the other. I've never succeeded in satisfactorily overcoming the exposure challenge that this situation presents. The demands of the clergy and congregation often present problems. For example, the east window (often the most elaborate stained glass in the church) often has a sanctuary lamp hanging in front of it, resulting in a silhouette of the metal holder and chain. Other window sills are frequently used for vases of flowers and other objects designed to beautify the building.

However, these difficulties notwithstanding, I enjoy photographing stained glass, as this blog will testify. At the end of each year I search my collection for a nativity scene to use as the illustration on our Christmas card that we make. Above is this year's example, an example of Victorian glass from the parish church of St Denys, Sleaford, Lincolnshire.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 120mm (240mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:640
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tower Bridge seen from London Bridge

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One recent cold and windy night we found ourselves in London Bridge station waiting for someone. We had about forty minutes to kill so we walked out onto nearby London Bridge. After photographing the big blocky office building on the nearby south bank we walked out onto the bridge itself. It was freezing! Definitely not the weather you'd choose for photography.

The temperature was low and the wind speed high making it colder and harder to hold a camera steady. And yet, there on the bridge, besides the usual tourists taking photographs with their phones, were a few hardy photography enthusiasts, some with tripods, some without. I joined their ranks, tripodless, and started to take a few shots of the illuminated Tower Bridge, nearby HMS Belfast and the lit buildings along the shore. It quickly became apparent that a bright lens and a reasonable focal length were required. I happened to have my current portrait lens with me, the Olympus 45mm 1.8, since I'd been photographing my grand-daughter earlier in the day. It proved ideal for the job. Reasonably sharp wide open and image stabilised by the camera body.

As I took my photographs I reflected on the time when I used Four Thirds cameras without stabilisation, and without the high ISO performance of current cameras. The quality that was possible today simply with my unsupported camera body and lens was impossible only a few short years ago. The metering too has improved in leaps and bounds and it took minimal effort to achieve what I consider to be the very satisfactory result in today's photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:5000
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photos from hill and dale

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph was taken on 1st October on an unseasonally warm and bright day with scarcely a cloud to be seen. We were walking from Settle to Knight Stainforth upstream alongside the River Ribble. The water was lower than is usual for this time of year due to a dry spell and with very little by way of breeze its surface was quite mirror-like. Looking at my photograph you could almost imagine it was high summer, such is the brightness of the light and the clarity of the scene. Only the hint of the trees turning to autumnal colours reveals the later date in the year. Weather of this kind isn't what I usually look for when I'm out with my camera; I prefer more interesting skies. And yet this light on this scene was sufficiently attractive for me to take the shot.

As I reviewed the photographs taken during our time in the Settle area I realised that a couple of days before I took this photograph we had been on the limestone above the Ribble Valley near this point. A shot I'd taken of the valley side with its medieval terrace remains emphasised by the slanting light also included this stretch of river and the prominent tree (the first of a line of five or so). If you enlarge the small photograph and look near the centre you'll see the location. What I find interesting about this pair of images, from hill and dale, is how the second photograph contextualises the first and shows the topography of the setting.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic aspect ratios

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The world wide web, it seems to me, has increased the amount of confrontation and stridency in photography. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that this outweighs the co-operation and learning that the online world confers on our hobby and profession. However, the early years of my forty odd with camera in hand certainly didn't feature the vituperation I regularly see today. Photography is not alone in this of course, and it's possibly the opportunity to adopt extreme postures and language anonymously that encourages the outpourings of bile.

To stick with photography, I continue to be amazed about the subjects on which people have unwavering views that they broadcast and defend with boorish language. Brand loyalty, sensor size, fixed lenses versus zoom, black and white versus colour, the list is endless when it comes to the subjects that some photographers can get exercised about. I've even seen people vociferously arguing the merits of one aspect ratio over another. Now when it comes to this subject I play the field. I'll use 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 and 1:1 as the subject requires. Sometimes I'll select the aspect ration before taking the shot, often I'll take it with the largest capture possible but with a different aspect ratio in mind, and frequently I'll crop post-capture. And the idea that one or another is intrinsically "best" or "better" than another seems to me absurd: all are possible, so choose the most appropriate. I've even been known - whisper it quietly - to choose a non-standard aspect ratio where it seemed to fit the subject better.

Today's photograph was one that I shot at 4:3 thinking that it might work well at 16:9. That turned out to be the case and is in fact the best aspect ratio for this image. It shows some of the inshore fishing boats on the River Witham at Boston, Lincolnshire, with in the distance, the tall tower of the medieval church of St Botolph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 34mm (68mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3
Image Stabilisation: On

A photographic truism

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It's a truism that it's possible to take a good photograph of a bad subject. In fact, as I've said elsewhere in this blog, many of the best photographs work despite, not because of, their subject matter. Certainly there are those who disagree with this proposition, maintaining that the subject is of paramount importance in all photographs. It's my belief that, whilst this is true where photography serves a wider need, in those instances where the photograph itself is the only goal, where it serves only itself, the subject matters less than everything else about the image.

Today's photograph, to an extent, illustrates this point in an oblique way. Firstly let me state that I don't consider it a particularly good shot. However, it does illustrate a subject (the "Rock Around the Fleet" art installation) that, in an earlier blog post, I described as WYSIATI: I don't think it amounts to much. So why did I photograph it again and post it here? Well, the colours are what drew me to take this shot - the green of the reflective water, the blue of the sky and the buff stonework, brown brick and orange pantiles of the old buildings. But all of that wouldn't have prompted this photograph without those quirky points of day-glow pink introduced by the "art installation". So, it was the colours that caused this photograph, including the lurid hues of a weak art installation. Here, the subject doesn't really matter but its colours do.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing trees

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I like trees and I've taken a lot of photographs of them over the years. However, only a relatively small number of my many tree photographs have made it to the blog because making an interesting shot of a tree, where it is the main subject, is a difficult task.I've done multiple single trees, groups, parts of trees (leaves, roots, bark and more bark), seasonal trees, silhouetted trees, semi-abstract trees and reflected trees to name just some of the angles I've come at this subject.

One approach I do favour, however, is a shot of trees where order is imposed on the randomness of these natural forms. Today's main photograph has order that was decided by whoever planted this row by the River Slea in Lincolnshire. However, I've emphasised this externally imposed order by shooting at this particular angle and by choosing to include the reflections in the water.

My second, smaller, photograph was taken where this row disappears into the distance in the top photograph, and where saplings by the water's edge accompany the main row further back. In this composition I imposed order by using the junction of the river bank and water as a diagonal line dividing the composition into two roughly equal-sized parts. The top half  shows the trees, an old fence and the bank; the bottom half the reflection in the river. Here the colours, reflections and that slightly curving line assume an importance that is greater than if I'd included more of the trees and some sky in the scene.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm - 35mm equiv.) - cropped to 4:3 ratio
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The fall of the light

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I sometimes think that the way we appreciate photography, in fact any kind of art, can be reduced to two descriptors: "intellectually" or "viscerally", or a combination of the two. By viscerally I mean as near to emotionally as makes little difference. Moreover, I don't think we should give primacy to any of these modes of appreciation: the outcome is more important than the method.

There are those who feel that to say one appreciates or likes something for unexplainable reasons is to enjoy it in an inferior way. Others, of course, take the opposite view; that the emotional engagement and reaction is paramount and is deeper than words can express. Ultimately these "ways of seeing" are not mutually exclusive. Take today's photograph, a shot of sunlight falling through the turned balusters on to the red carpet of the stairs in our house. Due to the way the house is aligned this doesn't happen very often. However, when I saw it recently I was moved to photograph the event. Why? Largely because I had a visceral reaction to the sight. To put it into words, I enjoyed the rich red of the lit carpet glowing against the un-illuminated areas. I liked the way the balusters' shadows zig-zagged down the steps, and I appreciated the water-colour softness of the whole. It's a slight subject but none the worse for that. In photography sometimes the thing that converts the mundane to the transcendent is simply a matter of the fall of the light.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 6400
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mist, photo cropping and relativity

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I've been using my relatively small DSLR body (Nikon D5300) and one relatively light and small lens (AF-S Nikkor 18-140mm 1:3.5-5.6G ED) as my walking camera for several months now. I'm relatively happy with the combination's relatively low weight, relatively high quality and relatively wide zoom range. If that makes me sound relatively unenthusiastic, I'm not. Bear in mind that I was raised in Yorkshire, a county where the compliment, "Not bad", is high praise indeed. Seriously, I'm very happy with the results I'm getting: the technical qualities of the sensor, camera controls and lens are very good.

However, the 1.5 crop factor (relative to 35mm) means that the lens' range is 27-210mm and that's not quite wide enough or long enough for me. Better would be 24mm-300mm. However, such a lens would be bigger, heavier, probably not as bright, and probably not as sharp. All equipment involves compromises and my reluctance to carry the Canon 5D2, 24-105mm and 70-300mm (which clearly does cover my desired focal lengths) means that sometimes - maybe 5% of the time - I can't get the shot I want using the Nikon. But, one of the benefits of a good 24 megapixel sensor is the ability to crop the image and simulate a longer focal length, so one of the shortcomings can be addressed.

I took today's photograph with a heavy crop in mind so I ensured the camera was well stabilised. I estimate that I'd have needed a 400mm (equivalent) lens to secure this shot. Yet, cropping has left me with a file that is perfectly usable for most purposes. It shows a view from near Herefordshire Beacon in the Malverns, looking across the low hills around the Severn valley. On our recent walk in that area the mist was clearing when we arrived but started to thicken again as we departed. I liked the colours and gradations in this composition, as well as the detail of the trees and the plumes of smoke. It reminded me of traditional Chinese ink and wash paintings.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

People and landscapes

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

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

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

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

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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

Same lane, different lighting

click photo to enlarge
One of my regular visits to Lebury in Herefordshire coincided with a bout of minor illness and so my photographic foraging in the area wasn't as productive as it sometimes can be. However, my morning walk to collect my newspaper took me, as it always does, past the entry to Church Lane. So, when I'd collected my "Guardian" I went the few yards back on my route to take some photographs.

Anyone remembering my photographs of this narrow, pedestrians-only, lane that I took in February of this year might wonder what else there is to glean from the location. However, I've always believed that light, time of day, season and weather can make sufficient difference for anywhere to be worth photographing on several occasions. Here, I first took a shot that was compositionally as close as I could get it to the main photograph from my earlier attempt. Then I went back down to the entrance to the lane and took the view from the bollards up to the distant church spire. Late April's early morning light, combined with the position of the sun just to the right of straight ahead, made all the difference. So too did the dynamic range of the Nikon which I'm finding to be pretty good.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm (40mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic trickery

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Trickery has been a part of photography ever since the invention of the medium, and certainly entertained the Victorians. In twentieth century England the Cottingley Fairies became a celebrated example of the art. In fact, the five photographs that cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took in 1917 were so good that they convinced many that the "the little people" were real and not a product of the story teller's art. The author of "Sherlock Holmes", Arthur Conan Doyle, a confirmed spiritualist, saw them as a genuine example of a psychic phenomenon. Not until the 1983 did the cousins admit that they had faked the photographs.

Today the "selfie" is all conquering, but there was a time when people experimented making illusionistic photographs. A person in the foreground positioned and standing so that they appeared to be holding up a bridge or the moon, people adopting the "Harry Worth" position at the corner of a shop window, and car hub caps tossed in air to be passed off as flying saucers, were all popular subjects.

On a recent walk on the Lincolnshire Wolds I saw a sight that I just had to photograph for the illusion that it suggested. Looking across some fields and trees I saw what appeared to be a rocket shortly after blast-off, rising out of a massive cloud of smoke of its own making. What I was seeing in reality was the top of the Belmont TV transmission mast, a slender structure 1,154 feet (351 metres) tall, firmly braced by cables, from which the signal to my TV (and the TVs of many others!) is broadcast. It was sticking up out of one of the banks of mist and cloud that periodically blanked then revealed the sun as we set off on our walk. Looking at the "rocket" I recalled that the date was 1st April.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 52mm (78mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photography, rejection and composition

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A large part of photography involves rejection. I'm not thinking of the way your output may be received by others, though rejection by an audience figures with photographs just as much as it does in any artistic or craft undertaking. No, in this instance I'm thinking of the rejection of that which is not needed to tell the picture's story.

When I come to compose a photograph I find that my mind either concentrates on including the parts that I want, or, more frequently, focuses on eliminating those aspects that are not required so that I am left with only the desired elements. Rejection, it has always seemed to me is more important in photography than addition. In painting it is the other way round: the blank canvas is built into the final work by addition after addition.

However, there are times when, even though you've included all you want and rejected all that you don't want, there is a case for refining down further still. That's because, sometimes, a part is more expressive of the whole than is the whole itself.

It was that thought that came to mind when I was photographing Church Lane in Ledbury, Herefordshire, the other day. This narrow, medieval and later street, with the old church at the end, is a fine photographic subject. However, each time I looked at my shot of the cobbled alley, the timber-framed buildings and the stone tower and spire on the camera screen I was less than satisfied with the outcome. After pondering the matter for a while I decided that this was because the essence of what makes the view interesting wasn't coming through in the image. So, as I passed by the location the next day, I switched the focal length from 28mm to 100mm, walked well into the lane, and concentrated my attention on the upper part of some near buildings and just part of the culminating tower and spire. The outcome is more agreeable to me than the wider (though still narrow) vista, though I'm sure there will be those who don't agree with that judgement.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Otherworldly photographic colours

click photo to enlarge
I was looking at some competition-winning photographs online recently. Those judged the best were chosen by the popular vote of the particular online community. As I went from category to category - landscape, still-life, travel, etc - a recurring thought kept popping into my head: "Which planet were these shots taken on?" The reason for my query? The colours of many of those selected were so heavily saturated, so unnatural looking, so "otherworldly" that they were unbelievable as images of planet Earth.

This penchant for bright, deep, fantasy colours has, I think, grown with the rise of digital. Sometimes it's down to the preference of the photographer. On other occasions "vivid", "saturated" or some other synonym is the default setting of the camera, chosen by the manufacturers in preference to "natural" or "standard", because the they know these stronger colours will appeal to buyers. Deeper colours can also be a deliberate or perhaps even an unwitting manipulation of the saturation slider by the photographer who makes that choice because they feel that's how "good" photographs now look or how they must look in order to win photographic competitions. Then there's the influence of HDR, Instagram and all the other "effects" that are so easily applied digitally. Well, I wish it would stop. I wish that photographic colours would look more like they do in life.

However, there are three more reasons why saturated colours abound. Two causes are hard to deal with and the other should be left alone. The first is the inability of camera sensors to accurately record all colours in all situations. Colour film couldn't do it and neither can digital. If you want total accuracy you've sometimes got to adjust the hues the camera records to a closer approximation of what your eye saw. And that's not always easy. Then there's the fact that monitors are frequently not colour calibrated. Consequently there is often a mis-match between the way the colours of a particular photograph are seen on different computers and devices. Finally, there's the fact that sometimes, in some lights, the natural colours of the world are saturated in a way that makes them look unreal. A few weeks ago I pointed out a pasture to my wife that was so intensely green it looked like it had been spray painted. It probably had been sprayed, but with fertiliser and herbicides. Then, more recently we saw dozens of small clouds at sunset that were a vibrant salmon pink against a glowing cyan blue sky. On this occasion I actually said to my wife, "A photograph of this sky would look like it had been heavily manipulated in Photoshop." Where otherworldly, unusual colours occur naturally there's nothing that needs doing to change the photograph. Today's shot has something of these qualities because the colours look unreal or manipulated. I took it near the River Thames in London, and it's as it came out of the camera, the colours fairly close to what we saw in what was the second best London sunset I've ever seen. For the very best London sunset of the past few decades, one that was widely acknowledged as such, see my photograph here. Note - I did use a graduated neutral density filter for this shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: crop of 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Melton Ross chalk quarries

click photo to enlarge

The popularity of Joseph Wright of Derby's paintings or those by Philip James de Loutherbourg of the industrial revolution in Britain stems, in part, from a paradox. On the one hand there is the fascination, excitement and money-making potential of processes, machines and large new, landscape-moulding developments that have never been seen before on such a scale before - forges, furnaces, bridges and tall chimneys, big factories, mines, new workers' housing etc. But there is also a feeling that the new industries, whilst clearly being the future and progress, also mark a change from a gentler, more natural, essentially agrarian Britain to one where the forces of industry and finance are being let rip and their rapid march is stamping all over the traditional, the loved and the familiar. The appeal of paintings such as Loutherbourg's showing the Bedlam Furnaces at Madeley Wood, Coalbrookedale in Shropshire, is in part because of this kind of ambivalence towards large-scale industry and its consequences.

As a photographer I recognise something of that when I photograph wind turbines or electricity pylons that have been dumped, like metal monsters, into rural or offshore locations, places that either haven't changed much, or have changed slowly, and which represent the nearest we get to continuity in a fast changing world. As a subject for the camera both turbines and pylons can offer something striking that even the most ardent protector of rural Britain must recognise. It's a feeling that I felt again when I stood just outside the gateway of Melton Ross chalk quarries in north Lincolnshire and photographed the buildings and machinery associated with the extraction and processing of lime. Ugly? Undoubtedly. Grim? Certainly. But also imposing and visually interesting. I liked the tyre tracks the lorries had left on the wet ground, the bright colours of the safety signs and their reflections against the earth colours of the buildings and conveyor belts, and the dark, threatening clouds flecked by the white smoke from the works' chimneys, that promised more rain.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5D Mk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Proximity as a photographic device

click photo to enlarge
Proximity, juxtaposition, adjacency - open the thesaurus and choose your word. Whatever you call it, the photographic device of arranging two, often very different (but sometimes oddly linked) objects in the frame, is one of long standing. Depending on the objects that are chosen this compositional approach can be arresting, humorous, thought provoking, surreal and much else. It's something that I like to do when the situation arises, and a technique that I will often go out of my way to engineer into an image.

I've touched briefly on the subject before, but anyone who has looked through my offerings on this site will recognise the frequency with which I put the idea into practice. I've used a trompe l'oeil bull and a passerby, old and new architecture, primary colours, a traffic sign and a poster, a futuristic public bench and a roller coaster and many other pairings in an effort to bring something new and different to my compositions.

On my recent stay in London the echo of the unusual colours of the ready-mix concrete lorry and the block of flats called for a photograph that made something of the slightly odd proximity of the two. The adjacent railway bridge gave something of a frame to my shot and the whole was lifted by the low sun and deep shadows of the early morning. Not as obvious a juxtaposition as in some of my photographs, but one that pleased me. Incientally, I've commented to my companions on more than one occasion that I really like the architectural treatment of the exterior of this building. Thus far I've found no one who agrees with me!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Motion blur and stained glass

click photo to enlarge
On a recent visit to Gloucester Cathedral I felt motivated to try a motion blur photograph. My recent post where I'd inadvertently done such a shot and liked the result was still fresh in my mind, and I had been looking for an opportunity to try for another, more considered, example. As I photographed monuments, architecture and windows the possibility of rendering some figurative stained glass in a non-figurative manner came to me.

My usual method when trying to achieve motion blur is to either set the aperture very small (say f11 or f22) so that a slow shutter speed results or use a speed priority mode or set the camera completely to manual and dial in numbers that I think will work. However, in those instances I've usually been trying to blur something that is moving. Here I was trying to make something that was static blurred by moving the camera. In theory there's little difference, but when I came to take my shots I was dissatisfied with the outcomes. So, I put the camera on auto and had a look at what that produced. Counter-intuitively, it produced much better results. I think this was due to a large amount of chance and the way I moved the camera. Nonetheless it resulted in today's photograph. I was pleased to transform this rather dark, poorly lit (it was early evening on a dull, wet day) window into something bright and colourful that looked like it had the summer sun streaming through it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Auto
Focal Length: 36.8mm (99mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec
ISO: 2500
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On