Taking a break

click photo to enlarge
I'm taking a break from the blog for a while - it will be good for both of us. How long is a while? I don't know at this time; it could be a few weeks, it could be a few months, it could be longer.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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

Pollarded willows

click photo to enlarge
In the middle of the Lincolnshire town of Bourne is a large, grassed open space with some stretches of water, trees and bushes. It looks like a municipal park and it is - the war memorial is sited there as is a children's playground, benches and tarmac paths. However, there are also a couple of quite old, stone-built buildings - an early C18 farmhouse and barn - and, at the edge of the area a building that was once a working water mill fed by a stream. There are also odd undulations that hint at what was formerly here and accounts for such a large area being undeveloped.

The mounds mark the site of an eleventh century motte and bailey castle that appears to have had two large enclosures. Some of the remaining areas of water must have fed defensive moats. However, the motte has gone and it is hard to discern the parts of the Norman site that must have been built to control the area after the Conquest. Recreational use has led to the planting of plentiful willows, the water-side sites being ideal for this species. However, willows in parks can present problems - they weren't called "crack willows" for nothing - and many have been pollarded to control their spread and remove high, heavy boughs that were seen as potential dangers.

Todays' photograph shows some of these pollarded willows reflected in one of the stretches of water. Immediately after they have been cut such willows look rather ungainly compared with their elegant uncut neighbours. But, as the boughs thicken and the the shape returns they look much better. These, I thought, looked somewhat sinister reflected in the water with a broken sky above.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Pollarded Willows, Bourne, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 25mm (50mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Belton Boathouse Pond

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Sometimes what you see isn't what you get. What could be called "inverse WYSIWYG" is a feature of most English country houses and comes about through the art and artifice involved in their planning and construction. Belton House in Lincolnshire is no exception. Here the main house illustrates it most obviously in the eighteenth century veneer of stone (and extensions) that overlay a seventeenth century structure. The landscaping of the park that surrounds the house is also subject to changes made in the interests of "improving on nature", that can be misleading to the casual observer.

Take Boathouse Pond, the subject of today's photographs. It looks like a perfectly natural feature among the trees, one that has been retrospectively adapted to leisure purposes. However, a walk up the slope to it, past the large earth dam that holds the water in place, shows it to have been constructed to beautify the area and provide somewhere for the wealthy owners and their guests to sail, row and perhaps fish or shoot. The boathouse itself also has its share of deceptive features, most notable the faux wood grain applied to the door and window frames using wood-coloured paint and a graining comb.

I took my photographs on a walk through the grounds of the house, a property now in the care of the National Trust and open to the public. The yellow light of a January morning gave a visual warmth that wasn't matched by the temperature, and the angle of the sun created dark shadows that, I think, made for a more interesting landscape view.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Boathouse Pond, Belton House, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Belton boat house

click photo to enlarge
I've long felt that the UK's country houses are largely stuffed with expensive tat, objects that serve no purpose other than to provide something on which the wealthy owners can spend their excess of money. Truly, shopping as a leisure activity didn't begin in in the malls of the second half of the twentieth century, but much earlier, on the Grand Tour and in the workshops of painters, wallpaper manufacturers, and craftsmen who decided that there was a living to be made parting the wealthy from their cash by selling them elaborate and ornate versions  of everyday articles, or specially created objects whose sole purpose was to be collected.

The last of the photographs I am showing from our visit to Belton House near Grantham, Lincolnshire, is a view of the boat house. This small building sits at the edge of a man-made lake that is surrounded by trees. Like much else at Belton it is more than it needs to be. However, it makes a nice eyecatcher in its location and doesn't quite scream "money" in the same way that the house does, even though it was designed by the notable architect, Anthony Salvin, in 1838-9 and is in the style of a Swiss chalet with fish-scale tiled roof and walls of basket-weave pargetting.

photo and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Alvingham watermill

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There has been a watermill at Alvingham, near Louth, Lincolnshire, since the 1100s. The brick house and the lower storey of the present mill (the white painted building) dates from the 1770s. The latter was extended upwards in about 1820 when the machinery was replaced. Alvingham watermill worked on a commercial basis until the 1960s, and the mill we see today has been carefully restored to working condition.

An 11 foot (3.35m) iron breast shot wheel power two pairs of overdriven Peak stones. The water supplying the power comes from the nearby River Lud. It passes under the Louth Navigation (a canal of 1767) in a 60 feet long brick tunnel that is 5 feet (1.5m) in diameter and returns to the river in another tunnel under the canal.

I took my photograph from a bridge at the end of the mill pond that carries a road to a farmyard. The clear May sunlight, on a day that was colder than it looks, sharply delineated the mill and its surroundings and gave every colour a strong boost.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f9
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Getting to know the willow

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It wasn't until I had willow trees growing in and adjoining my garden that I really got to know them. One of the first expansions of my knowledge of Salix alba came about when I looked out of my bedroom window one morning and saw that overnight winds had brought down a huge branch. It was flattening a section of ten feet high conifer hedge, had bent a bay tree down to the ground, crushed a shrub border and gouged the lawn. It took four of us most of the day to cut it up with a chainsaw and remove it. Prior to that event I had heard this tree called "crack" willow: now I understood why it had been given the name. The countless small leaves had acted like a sail in the wind that had forced the limb from the tree where it forked. Evidence of the rending crack could be seen on its trunk.

But, the fact is, the willow tree has many endearing habits and I like it. In winter its slender new branches glow reddish-orange in the yellow-tinged light. In March it is one of the earliest trees to come into leaf, a real sign that spring is on the way. The sight of the branches of a willow swaying in the summer breeze, like tresses of long hair, is an arboreal phenomenon that is hard to beat. Birds, large and small love willow trees for the nest sites it offers and the insects that abound in it. As a garden screen the willow tree has few deciduous equals because it carries its leaves for such a long period of time. However, that advantage brings with it some of the tree's disadvantages. It loses leaf through most months of the year so if a tidy garden is your idea of a good garden then it isn't the tree for you. Moreover, the leaf loss is accompanied by long, slender, whippy twigs so composting the gathered leaves becomes more difficult. And then there is that late leaf drop in autumn (or rather early winter). A couple of weeks after you've cleared up most of the deciduous leaves from lawns and flower beds in late November the willow decides its time to shed its leaves too. This is usually in early December. In fact, after completing this blog post collecting up the carpet of willow leaves brought down by yesterday's high winds is my next job!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17.8mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Afternoon tea at the Petwood

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I'm a northerner, born and bred. Consequently I have breakfast shortly after I rise - porridge and a cup of tea all year round for me - dinner is what I eat near noon, tea is a meal I consume around five o'clock (teatime) and supper is a small snack and more tea (cup of) an hour or two before bed. I often have a mid-morning cup of coffee or tea and a mid-afternoon cup of tea. The names I give to my mid-day meal and evening meal are not those used in the southern half of England however. In these parts, generally, what I call dinner is called lunch, and my tea is called dinner and is eaten later, perhaps around seven o'clock. Confusingly, in southern England an evening meal is sometimes referred to as supper. The southern way is to have afternoon tea of, perhaps, a cup of tea and a buttered scone to fill the hunger gap between lunch and dinner. These names are not regionally hard and fast because social class differences sometimes cause northern people to adopt the southern terminology. All of which is confusing enough for the natives; it must baffle visitors to our country.

One of my sons and his wife visited recently and while we were out one dull, damp and overcast day we stopped off at Woodhall Spa. In this large village is a memorial in the form of a breached dam that commemorates the members of the RAF's 617 Squadron, "The Dambusters", who gave their lives during the second world war. Since the end of that conflict thirty further members of the squadron have died and a new memorial has recently been unveiled that will commemorate them. Lincolnshire is sometimes known as "Bomber County" because of the large number of airfields that were created here during WW2. Today it continues to be the home of some of the RAF's largest airfields.

After a brief stroll round the streets and a viewing of the memorials we slipped into southern English mode and went to the Petwood Hotel for afternoon tea and cake. This former large house in the Edwardian Elizabethan-cum-Tudor "black and white" style, was built in 1905 for Grace Maple who became Baroness Von Eckhardstein and later Lady Weighall. In the 1930s it became a hotel and during the war it was requisitioned by the RAF as an officers' mess. The building contains much memorabilia from those days when pilots from 617 Squadron (who flew Lancasters) and 627 Squadron (who flew Mosquitoes) based at the newly created airfield of RAF Woodhall Spa spent much of their off-duty time there.

My main photograph shows afternoon tea being taken in one of the Petwood's large, panelled rooms that overlook the extensive gardens that were full of rhododendrons in flower. The smaller photograph shows a view of the building's south elevation seen from near the Round Pool.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Water lily leaves and macro lenses

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

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

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

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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

Fishing platforms and films noir

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I think I watch too many films noir. Or perhaps it's the spate of TV police dramas of Danish origin that BBC 4 has shown in the past couple of years: all night time sets, rain, winter skies, dour expressions and dour locations. Why? Well, when I brought this photograph up on the computer screen I imagined it being a scene in such a film, the camera pulling back to show a couple of police cars, lights flashing, on the pond bank, detectives exchanging theories and a diver in a wet suit about to enter the water in search of a body.

Of course, the actual scene when I took the shot was nothing like that. I'd taken a few steps from a path by the River Slea to look at the fishing pond among the reeds with its old wooden platforms. Other people were enjoying the fresh air and the water-side walk. Cars were passing a hundred yards or so away on a busy, built-up road, and mallards and moorhens were deciding whether to bother with nest building or to wait for an improvement in the weather.

Photographs are like that. People take preconceptions, misconceptions and ideas to the viewing experience and see in an image something that isn't there for other viewers. That's not too surprising. But it is somewhat odd that the person who took the photograph, viewing his own image later on the same day that he took the shot, and knowing what the context was, should do the same.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (59mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The year's first water lily

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It's a truism believed by many photographers (and ignored or disbelieved by even more) that your best photographs are usually shots of subjects with which you are deeply familiar. Many respected photographers specialise in places, subjects or genres and are acclaimed for their work within their self-imposed limits. I tend to be a generalist in all areas of my life, including photography. However, I do deliberately take many photographs of my immediate locality and know from years of experience that this is a rewarding and creative approach to picture making. Only by walking familiar routes repeatedly at different times of day and year, in different kinds of weather, do you see all the potential photographs that surround you.

My garden pond and the annual cycle of growth, maturity and decay displayed by its water lilies is a subject that I return to several times a year. As I've said elsewhere, I especially like the photographs that I've taken in spring and autumn over those when the beautiful yellow and white flowers are blooming. But that's not to say that I don't take shots of them. This year I watched the first leaves appear, then the stalks and buds emerge under water and slowly extend until they broke through into the air. The first bloom opened properly on June 4th and I took a few shots of it.

The main photograph is the obvious image of this subject showing the characteristic flower in its watery context. However, I'd earlier taken the morning shot against the light, after rain, before the petals were fully open. I think I prefer this one. For completeness I've included a photograph taken only three weeks earlier on May 14th when buds and blooms were nowhere to be seen, and the leaves had the characteristic brown that they exhibit when they are newly appeared.

photograph and text © T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 228mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cherry blossom pond

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"Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless?  To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving.  Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration."
Yoshida Kenko (c.1283-c.1350), Japanese author and Buddhist monk

Look at photographs and paintings of flowers and you'll find that the vast majority depict them in full bloom. Perfect flowers are generally thought to be best to represent on canvas or in print. Buds of flowers-to-be and the dying blooms of flowers past are viewed as less than perfect; the former because they hold only promise, the latter because they remind us of what was and what all life becomes. And yet, a small proportion of painters and photographers choose to show flowers before or past their peak. Why? Well, it's often because we are sated with images of perfection. Or that, in what can seem to some an odd way, we admire the look of beauty marred by imperfection and the symbolism of both promise and decay. Faded beauty prompts different thoughts than does the full flush of youth or maturity, thoughts with a poignant and melancholy edge that those of a Romantic persuasion enjoy. The quotation above by Kenko, a contemporary of Dante, reminds us that we can find beauty and something worth admiring in less than perfect circumstances.

It's feelings of this sort that prompt my annual photographs of emerging and dying water lily leaves and led me to photograph some hydrangeas that I found past their best in a church. The cherry blossom on this pond in Billingborough, Lincolnshire, probably provoked many photographs when it was on the tree, yet on the water it has its attractions too. I've photographed this subject before using a longer focal length. For today's shot I selected a wider angle to capture the beauty of the reflections and the massed pink petals before they discoloured and were subject to the decay that afflicts all living things.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Eyes, mind and camera

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Displayed on a chest of drawers in our house is a beige, glazed, clay model of an animal. It has big ears, a wide mouth and, on each side of its body, green, feathered wings. Its tail is broad, notched, and may be either feathers or hair. The general posture, if I can call it that, resembles the way a dog sits with its front legs straight and the rear legs folded under. Except that those back legs are bent the wrong way and look more like a person's would if they were kneeling. The mythical beast, which has elements of the griffin and Pegasus about it, is a treasured possession that was made by my youngest son when he was young. He must have used his memory when he modelled the back legs of the animal, because if he'd followed an actual precedent, as he did for the rest of the animal, he'd have got them right.

Our eyes and mind often deceive us in this way. We look at something and create an internal picture that is at variance with reality. Sometimes that is because we mis-interpret the subject, but other times it's because we can't clearly see the phenomenon in question. A classic example of the latter relates to the eighteenth century and earlier paintings and drawings of running horses, with their front legs stretched forwards and their back legs stretched rearwards. It was only when the English-born photographer, Eadweard Muybridge, in the nineteenth century, ran a series of sequentially taken still photographs rapidly one after the other, that the truth of the horse's gallop became clear.

I was reminded of this when I leaned out of a bedroom window to take some photographs of rain falling on our water lily pond below. When I varied the shutter speed of the camera I recorded different versions of the effect of the drops hitting the surface of the water. None of them precisely matched what I thought I was seeing with my own eyes. The shot that I've posted today is quite close but the camera saw the shadows of the ripples on the surface of the pond much darker and in greater numbers than they appeared to me. However, it's an effect that I like, and it adds a semi-abstract, unifying layer over the young leaves and dead strands of vegetation. I frequently take photographs of this pond in spring when the lily leaves unfurl below the water, and in autumn when they die back from whence they came. Why this time of year should appeal to me more than summer when the multiple showy flowers are in full bloom I leave you to work out.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A lake or a pond?

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There seems to be no universally accepted definitions that allow us to categorically state whether a small body of still, enclosed, inland water should be called a lake or a pond. It is widely held that a lake is larger than a pond. However, exceptions to this rule are not uncommon. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says that "properly" a lake is "sufficiently large to form a geographical feature". However, it then adds, "but in recent use often applied to an ornamental water in a park etc": in other words small stretches of water that do not form geographical features. Biologists have looked at the problem in a different way and proposed that an area of water should be defined as a pond if sufficient light reaches the bottom to allow rooted plants to grow, otherwise it is a lake. Others say that if the effects of wave action can be seen on the shore it is a lake, but if not then it's a pond. No wonder we are so confused on this relatively insignificant matter.

In the UK the small, man-made stretches of water that are created for fresh-water fishing are often called "fishing lakes". Whether this is simply for marketing reasons I don't know, but many of them are what I would call ponds. Of course, the UK also suffers from a plethora of other terms, many of great antiquity, that are used to describe what otherwise might be termed ponds or lakes: loch, Llyn, mere, tarn, pool, water, flash, broad, pit, are a few such words that add a layer of complication to the issue. When I saw the man-made pond in today's photograph I thought that it might be a fishing lake, but I could see no perimeter jetties or other locations where a fisherman might sit. It is also on a farm where the owner has made a conscious effort to maintain areas attractive to wildlife, so perhaps it was designed for the benefit of the moorhens, greylag geese, mallards etc, that scurried for cover or took flight at our approach.

I've noted elsewhere in this blog, that a sunset over water multiplies the effect of the dwindling light in a magical way, so I wasted no time and took a group of shots across the water as the sun sank out of sight. These are the best two photographs.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 75mm
 F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ponds, marl pits and pingos

click photo to enlarge

When I moved from East Yorkshire to the Fylde Coast in Lancashire I was struck by the number of small ponds in the fields around where I lived. The geology of the area, the location of the ponds relative to field boundaries, the sheer amount, and the evidence of "spoil" at the edges of some, led me to the conclusion that they were marl pits, holes deliberately dug to find lime-rich clay to spread over a light, impoverished soil to improve its fertility and water-holding capacity. Such pits, which frequently become ponds, are common in many lowland areas of Britain. Cheshire abounds with them, though it also has large ponds the size of small lakes (meres) caused by gravel extraction or the subsidence of salt workings.

Britain's man-made ponds were also dug as watering places for cattle and sheep and perhaps some of those on the Fylde Coast were made for that reason - or served that purpose after the marl had been extracted. The period from 1750 was when many of these kinds of ponds were created. But not all field ponds are man-made. Some occur naturally where soil type and water flow lead to the build up of water. This kind of pond is often dry in high summer, but has varying levels of water at other times of year. Several of the Cheshire meres are thought to have been created thousands of years ago when glacial ice that was embedded in moraines melted. The eastern edge of the Fens and the Brecklands valleys have ponds that have been identified as pingos. These were formed during the last glaciation when ice below the surface caused mounds which collapsed when temperatures rose, creating ponds.

What of today's pond in the Fens photographed on a foggy day? It's my guess that it's man-made. In this area that was once littered with ponds and meres of varying sizes caused by the poor drainage of low-lying land there are, today, hardly any left. Agricultural improvement banished them, and with their disappearance went the wildlife that frequented them. This happened not only in the Fens but right across the country. In fact, three-quarters of our field ponds have been filled in or drained since the second world war. So, examples such as the one above are not only a worthy photographic subject, but are in need of preservation as precious ecological and scenic resources.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.2mm (48mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mining the seam

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"Anything you want - love stories, murders, whatever - can be written in these few streets."
Roddy Doyle (1958-), Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter

In a recent Guardian interview the writer Roddy Doyle articulated a truth many artists come to realise - that mining a seam that has close limits, and is well-known, can be more revealing and inspiring than trawling the world for new sensations. He was referring to the suburban area of Kilbarrack on the outskirts of Dublin. For others it has been the landscape around Dedham Vale ( the painter John Constable), the Yorkshire port of Whitby (the photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe), or the county of Dorset (the writer Thomas Hardy). But it's not just the limitations of a location that can offer this kind of liberation and focus: the same interest and depth can also be found in restricting oneself to a narrow subject range.

For the painter John Ward of Hull, it was marine subjects, for photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher it was systematic industrial subjects, and for the writer, Isaac Asimov it was the fact and fiction of the future. One of the best known examples of an artist's almost obsessive focus on a single subject is the attention that the painter Claude Monet gave to his garden and particularly his water lilies during the later period of his life. It's the example of Monet that I think of when I approach my modest lily pond each year as the leaves break through the surface of the water once more. The plants, water and reflections are ever changing, with the time of day, season and weather all contriving to bring something different and interesting to the same small area. The other evening it was the bright glow of the sunset that coloured the scene and had me reaching for my camera.

For my other shots of this subject, taken at different times of year, see here, here, here, here and (if you can bear any more!) here.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 81mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Leisure, pleasure and reflections

click photo to enlarge

There are two contemporary leisure activities that I find completely baffling. Actually there are several, but for now I'll restrict my comments to just two - shopping and driving. Like many men I have a very utilitarian approach to buying things that usually follows this basic outline: a need arises, I decide on the product to meet that need, I look for the best price and the place to buy it, I go to the shop, buy it, then go home. This is sometimes called the "surgical strike" approach to shopping because it tends to have the deep focus of a military operation. Shopping as a leisure activity seems to involve going to the shops to see what's for sale, trying a few things on (it frequently involves buying clothes), having a coffee and chat, browsing a bit more, buying a few things that may or may not have been on a "wanted" list, then going home. But it doesn't end there because the leisure shopper then goes back to the stores the next day to return an item or items that turn out not to fit or weren't really wanted in the first place. It's an approach to shopping that strikes me as very strange.

Then there are men (it's usually men) who do something called "going for a drive". Not anywhere in particular, just for a drive. For the pleasure of it. They are the kind of men who can sit through a whole episode of "Top Gear", who can discuss into the early hours of the morning things such as "ride", "understeer", "torque" and whether a Porsche Boxster offers a better driving experience than a Mercedes SLK280. When I'm within earshot of such discussions (which isn't very often) I want to shout, "They're all cars, tin boxes with a wheel at each corner, they all get you where you want to go, they are a form of transport." In fact I sometimes do, but to little avail because anyone who can "go for a drive" or discuss the merits of sports cars is impervious to both ridicule and reason. And anyone who suggests that slinging a camera bag over your shoulder and going for a long walk simply to find some photographs to take, is not too different from either of these activities is clearly not thinking straight!

The location where I took today's photograph - the Springfields shopping outlet at Spalding, Lincolnshire - prompted this reflection. As a purpose-built retail centre with acres of parking, rows of clone shops, and piped music everywhere, Springfields is very much like anywhere else, and is clearly a leisure shopper's paradise. From my point of view it does, however, have one redeeming feature: the adjoining Festival Gardens with its ponds, water features, woodland walks, flower beds etc. My wife spotted the the silver birch reflections in one of the formal pools as we had a stroll after buying a couple of things, and it seemed a useful addition to my ongoing collection of motion blur images.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 249mm
F No: 7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Climbing the north face of the high street

click photo to enlarge

"Our Himalayan suit will keep you alive in minus 40, minus 50 degrees. Not so many people are going to go to Everest but you can trust we are going to keep you dry even if it's only while you walk the dog."
Timo Schmidt-Eisenhart, head of European division of North Face outdoor clothing company (quoted in The Guardian, 11th December 2010)

The other day I was laughing at and lamenting Toyota's advertising pitch for its 4X4 vehicles. Their suggestion that because they are the only manufacturer to make an off-road vehicle that has journeyed to the North Pole then you should buy one for whizzing about the roads and lanes of Britain seemed to me risible. And then, a couple of days later I read an article about North Face and how their clothing, which includes some that is designed for climbing etc, is a fashion hit on the high street because of, to quote one of the authors, "the discreet badge of masculinity the logo confers." Ridiculous, but probably right. People are daft enough to swallow the line spun by such companies. In fact it appears to be a basic marketing approach across a range of consumer products. You want to sell cameras? Get a high-end model into use by professionals then sell the consumer models on the back of it. How about a family saloon? Take the body shell of your mass-production model, gut it, re-engine it, change everything except the basic shape, compete in rallying or some other form of motorsport, then use the resulting images and associations (and trophies if you happen to be successful) to sell your mainstream cars to the man in the street. There are plenty of men (and increasingly women) who will buy cars on this basis. Ludicrous or what?

I was wearing no discreet badge of masculinity from North Face or any other "top brand" when I took today's photograph. In fact, the temperature was a couple of degrees above zero, and felt positively balmy compared with previous days. My subject is the Italianate pool and the classical loggia of the war memorial in the grounds of Ayscoughfee Hall, Spalding. The ice shows signs of melting, but it was several inches thick and so needed a good few days of higher temperatures before it became home once more to the mallard that were huddled on the bank nearby. The memorial building is by Edwin Lutyens who was also responsible for the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. It is a fine piece of work that I must make the subject of a future blog post. Incidentally, the grounds of Ayscoughfee Hall are now public gardens with a cafe etc, and the unusual and wonderful name has prompted me to suggest, on more than one occasion, that we should have an "Ayscoughfee cafe coffee", a remark that usually provokes groans and pitying looks in my companions.

I seem to have taken a lot of contre jour shots lately, and have probably done enough to fulfill the pledge I made a few months ago to do more of this kind of shot.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fading water lily leaves

click photo to enlarge

Until I moved to my current house I'd never observed water lilies especially closely. One of the places I worked at had a pond with a few, but I didn't have the time to keep an eye on their growth cycle in the way that I do with the ones that now grow in my own garden.

Over the winter there is no evidence of water lilies above the surface, and it's pretty difficult to see anything of the plant below the murky water. However, when spring appears the shoots and unfurling leaves, brownish to start with, make an appearance. Around June the characteristic white flowers with yellow middles decorate the pond. This year the biggest number in bloom at any one time in my pond was fourteen. Once the flowers have gone the leaves grow with luxurious abandon, pushing up out of the water and spreading across the surface. If they weren't kept in hand they would cover the the pond completely. Then, in September and October the leaves begin to fade. The green turns to yellow, the edges become ragged, and holes appear. Patches of red and brown then appear in the mix, and towards the end a colour close to purple can appear. In some respects I think that the death throes of the water lily can be every bit as attractive as when they are in full flower. In fact, when I look at the photographs I've posted of the leaves, it is this fading and dying stage that is most represented.

Today's photograph, taken on an overcast morning when the colour was quite saturated, is yet another one, and its appearance on the blog has got me wondering. Is the fixation with photographing water lily leaves on their last legs a morbid affliction or at the very least a known medical condition? Have I got a touch of the Monets?!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 94mm (186mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Foggy winter pond

click photo to enlarge
Today when I woke up there was a dense blanket of fog over the countryside, and a temperature that was flirting with freezing. So, after I'd re-fuelled and warmed up with my morning breakfast of porridge and a cup of tea, I set off to look for photographs.

Usually when I photograph in the fog I'm searching out the simplification and flattening that this atmospheric condition brings. Simplification happens because the background to objects fades quickly into invisibility, leaving them highlighted against a clean backdrop. Simplification comes about through the thick atmosphere masking the detail of things, giving them the appearance of faded silhouettes. I got some of those kind of images. However, today's post isn't one of them because it's full of detail.

It shows a pond opposite a farm at Quadring Eaudike. I took the shot for the silhouettes of the leftmost trees that gradually fade into the distance, their reflections in the pond, and the reddish brown of the dead reeds. The branches of the tree in the right foreground add a layer of dark sharpness that contrasts nicely with the bluer, more distant trees. This whole package appealed to me in the fog. However, it will also offer something different when the fog has gone so I'll probably return in a week or two to see what other shots I can harvest.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The best and the rest

click photo to enlarge
Periodically I look through the photographs that I post on PhotoReflect and consider which are my best images of recent weeks or months. When I did this the other day it was pretty clear to me that this image of dying water lily leaves was my favourite.

Nominating a favoured image in this way encourages you to reflect on why that particular shot stands above the others, and that's not always easy. I've blogged about this subject a few times, so I won't bore you again. However, I will say that in all the millions of words that are written about photography and photographs on the internet, in books, and in magazines, this is the aspect that receives least attention. And yet, knowing what makes an image good as opposed to mediocre or bad, and being able to articulate that, is surely crucial to the art and craft of photography. I'd like to see more people describing, in detail, why they like an example of a great photographer's work, or indeed one of their own shots. Unfortunately, painters are no better at this than photographers, and much of the wider world is happy enough to be told by "experts" which are the images worthy of placing in the pantheon, and which are the "also rans"!

There is a down-side to my little habit of selecting examples of what I think of as my best work, and that is I'm tempted to revisit the subject looking for a variation that matches up to the chosen shot - something that rarely happens. I'm happy enough with today's photograph - a variation on the dying lily leaves - which includes a couple of our fish, some willow leaves and shows the pond in its frozen state, but it doesn't, for me, have the qualities of the preferred image.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/120
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On