Industrial semi-abstract with reflections

click photo to enlarge
The word "industrial" in the title of today's blog post is something of a  misnomer. The fact is that Lincolnshire, with a few exceptions doesn't feature much of what is usually called industry. It is a predominantly rural and coastal county with no large cities, and few areas of heavy industry - steel making at Scunthorpe and petro-chemical processing near Grimsby is about it. However, it is an agricultural county with a greater proportion of the workforce engaged in growing, processing or packing produce of one sort or another than is to be found in most counties. Consequently there are quite a few sites in the countryside or adjoining villages and towns, that have some of the characteristics of industrial buildings. Large, anonymous steel sheds are commonplace, as are strong perimeter fences.

The other day we walked past such a place, one that from the signs on the building appears to be engaged in distributing flowers. The heavy rain of morning had been followed by afternoon sunshine and its car park was awash with large puddles reflecting the "palisade" security fencing with its viciously pointed tops. The colours, lines, irregular patches of water and tarmac, and the reflected building and sky made an interesting abstract composition. I homed in on a section that seemed to offer something of interest across the viewfinder and took this shot. I used to do more semi-abstract compositions when I lived in a more urban area. I think it's something that I'll have to get back into.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Puddle ice compositions

click photos to enlarge

We've had a couple of days of thaw and now the thermometers are back to showing sub-zero temperatures day and night. But, as they say, "it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good", and the return of the cold has at least been accompanied by bright skies. So, a walk with the camera over a few well-trodden paths seemed in order.

I don't know about you, but I have come to realise that I can walk the same routes on many days over many years, and still come up with something new to photograph. Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt (to quote another old saying), it can just as easily reveal new possibilities. If, that is, we care to look for them. The puddles on our path, that had been frozen for the best part of two and a half weeks, had more or less returned to liquid, but on this walk were ice once again. But what ice! I'd love to know the physics that created the two main pattern types that most of them exhibited on one of the tracks. I mentally gave them the names "Feiningers" and "Arps" after the names of the painters whose works they brought to mind.

The Feiningers were the compositions with straight, thrusting, and angular lines. The Arps, by way of contrast, had soft curves and concentric loops. No one else seemed to have walked the path since the latest freeze so all the puddles were intact. I took several shots, all of which I found fascinating, and here I present a fairly random foursome that shows two of each type. However, though my photograph choice is random, the recurring details of these ice patterns shows that their creation wasn't entirely down to chance, but was influenced by some common processes that were repeated across the ground the night the puddles froze over. Someone will be able to explain them. I can't.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 73mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fenland droves

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To most people the "drove roads" are the old routes frequented by the drovers, those men who walked the cattle sheep, pigs and poultry from the Highlands of Scotland, the Welsh mountains, and the upland Pennines, to the markets of England, travelling hundreds of miles on foot, sleeping under the stars, their final destination often being the metropolitan bustle of London's Smithfield and Cheapside markets. The tracks across the Northern Pennines such as the Driving Road and the Maiden Way, courses that thread their way down in to Cumberland and Westmorland, can still be followed today. Hambleton Drove is another such route, winding from County Durham to the city of York. The coming of the railways brought the ability to transport animals quickly and inexpensively from farms to market, and as their web of steel spread across the country during the nineteenth cenury, so the drovers, the special purpose of their roads, and a way of life, faded into history.

However, there is a second kind of drove road to be found in England. Lincolnshire's Fens abound with them. Here the word "drove" is used in preference to "road" because it more accurately describes the intention of this network of roads that spreads from the villages, hamlets and main roads, out into the wetlands and fields that were formerly seasonal grazing for livestock. In winter animals would have been kept on drier land that was less subject to inundation. As the rains receded and as spring brought drier weather, the cattle and sheep would be driven down the drove to the, by now, lush grass. But, as with the long-distance drove roads, the Lincolnshire variety has also become a relic of the past. Today the wetlands are drained and grow cereals and vegetables. The few resident cattle and sheep that are found on the Fens frequent the same fields all the year round, though animal transporters do bring in sheep from the uplands during the colder months to eat unsold crops. Lincolnshire's droves now have a new purpose, as access routes for tractors, ploughs, combines and lorries that service this highly productive landscape.

Today's photograph shows one such drove near the village of Bicker. It is a single track road that leads from the village and its surrounding farms down to near the South Forty Foot Drain. My photograph shows it after a short, sharp shower had made a puddle by the field edge. I used the reflection of the sun in it to give some extra light to the rapidly darkening evening scene.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 29mm (58mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The world in a puddle

click photo to enlarge
"...imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."
Douglas Adams (1952-2001), English author and satirist

If mankind is to disappear from this world perhaps it won't be, as some imagine, a gradual decline with pockets of people hanging on until finally the last Adam and the last Eve expire. Maybe, as Douglas Adams' quote that uses the water in a puddle as a metaphor for mankind suggests, it will be sudden, a surprise, something we don't see coming. However, I don't foresee the earth being destroyed by part of a Vogon constructor fleet making room for a hyperspace bypass, as in Adams' book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: rapidly accelerating climate change, a pandemic or a meteor impact seem the current favourites!

I came across the above quotation a while ago, quite incidentally, when looking for something else. But it stayed with me, like many of the best quotations, because it offered a different perspective on a familiar idea. The way Adams plays with and extends the metaphor is clever, humorous and thought provoking. It also shows, in a small way, how good prose and fiction can make powerful, perhaps even more telling, contributions to a debate that most think of as the province of science and politics.

But enough of all that doom and gloom, and on to the gloom in which I took this photograph! The blueness comes from the fast-fading light of evening. As I passed the puddle the yellow of the leaves seemed to glow against it, and I grabbed the image. A wide open lens and a touch of negative EV gave me just enough speed to maintain a sharp shot and keep the camera at 100 ISO.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On