Autumn duck pond reflections

click photo to enlarge
There's nothing like a walk on a bright autumn afternoon for suppressing in one's mind the memory of the lies, bile and bigotry that has surrounded both Brexit and U.S. presidential election. And though deep concerns would, I knew, return once the walk was finished, I determined that I would take the time to stand and stare, as well as use my camera, and drink in something of what makes this time of year special.

In the Lincolnshire village of Swineshead is a duckpond. As we walked by and the ducks, presumably well fed, shunned our presence, I admired the reflection of the sky and the surrounding trees on the slightly rippled cloudy water. The leaves floating on the surface gave a second plane to the image and added some depth. I've always liked the reflection of trees, anything in fact, in gently stirred water, and especially the painterly feel and semi-abstract quality that it can lend to a photograph. Here the wide range of colours and textures gave further interest.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Autumn Duck Pond Reflections
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15.6mm (42mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Watery reflections, Canary Wharf

click photo to enlarge
We were in London's Canary Wharf at about 7.30am recently,  Our reason for being there wasn't photographic but family-related. However, with a little time on our hands, I was photographing buildings and people in the clear, sharp, morning light. My photographic assistant, a.k.a my wife, knowing my liking for semi-abstract subjects, pointed out these patterns in some of the remaining water of one of the former docks. The reflections in the moving surface of the water were made by a building with a facade with very finely detailed fenestration. I took several shots of the subject but liked this one best showing the contrast between the building reflection and a section of water that mirrors only the blue of the sky.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Reflected Building and Sky, Canary Wharf, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm (140mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reality and reflections

click photo to enlarge
No 1 London Bridge is a building that has featured before on this blog - quite early, in 2006, and a little later in 2008. On both occasions it was a detail that I posted rather than the whole building of the monolithic office block. One day I may post a shot of it in its entirety but it won't be for any qualities that I especially admire so much as its prominent position and unusual structure.

This building has always seemed to me to be an "eyecatcher" design - a hollowed out block with a supporting "leg" whose design is primarily intended to be noticed. And in that respect it works. You can't miss it, despite the subdued, glossy, brown marble cladding and reflective glass. A quality the building possesses that I do admire is the way the reflective surfaces work together to impart complexity and confusion. Sometimes, only by looking very carefully can you discern what is real and what is reflected, especially in a photograph. Today's shot was grabbed as we passed by on a recent brief visit to the capital, and is one of the few that I have taken of the building at night.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on gallery walls

click photo to enlarge
When I frame a photograph or select a background for a photographic subject the colours I most commonly use are cream, black and white. There are those that argue the latter two are not colours but in everyday parlance they are and most people treat them as such. Their virtue as a backdrop is that they are neutral and interact with and modify a subject much less than any of the other colours. The same is broadly true of cream (and also grey).

In my experience today's galleries also favour these colours, especially white, above all others as a background for art works, particularly framed paintings, and undoubtedly for the same reasons. However, more traditional gallery buildings housing more traditional paintings sometimes go in for other colours such as drab purple, greyish blue, or autumn green, colours that, I suppose, better reflect the opulent decor of the houses in which the works would have originally hung. But, as far as modern galleries displaying contemporary or twentieth century work are concerned white is pre-eminent as a background with, as far as I can see, black a distant second.

Today's photograph shows a gallery with black painted walls in a small Lisbon museum - the Casa Museu Dr Anastacio Goncalves - created from a house and the collection of paintings and furnishings of its owner. The gallery was between exhibitions and lit only sufficiently to allow visitors to pass through safely to the main rooms of the building. The fall of the light and the colours appealed to me sufficiently to take this shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 25mm (50mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/13 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Another Kitchen Sink shot

click photo to enlarge
In a blog post several years ago I announced to the world that I was a Kitchen Sink photographer. It was a title I conferred on myself after the creation of my greasy baking tray photograph, and once I'd done so I immediately cited some earlier photographs as examples of this genre, including a piece that I consider one of my better attempts at humour.

A couple of days ago I added to my collection. This time, however, it did not include grease, chili or soap suds. The low sun of a mid-September morn was slanting through the kitchen's Venetian blinds and casting shadows across our shiny induction hob and the tiles on the wall behind it. This happy coming together of two of my photographic favourites - shadows and reflections - combined with another structure that appears regularly in my photography - a regular grid of rectangles - was like photographic catnip to me and I took the semi-abstract shot above. It won't be a subject or style that appeals to everyone but it pleases me.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:250
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing trees

click photo to enlarge
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

Glass curtain wall reflections

click photo to enlarge
It's almost become a reflex action, a tic that I can't stop. I pass a tall office block or other large building with a glass curtain wall and I begin to search its reflections. I'm looking for either an interesting mirroring of the street, people, trees and other buildings; or I'm searching for the airy, almost diaphanous lightness that often arises between the plane of the wall and the sky beyond. There's something that fascinates me about the way the regular grid of slender glazing bars seems to lay across the sky like the rectilinear web of a robotic spider, and how it abruptly ends as it wraps around the corner of the building.

I've photographed glass curtain walls many times over the years and quite a few of  the shots have made it onto the blog. Probably my favourite is one that was, like the shot above, taken in London; though this time in the early evening so featuring incandescent clouds. And though it may look like the example in todays's post features the same building, it doesn't.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 112mm (168mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing water reflections

click photo to enlarge
"It looks like it's swimming in paint", said my wife, when she saw this photograph on the screen of my computer. And so it does. Yet, when I took this shot of the cygnet (not far off adulthood) on the canalised stretch of the River Witham in the centre of Lincoln, my eye saw little of these striking colours and patterns. The wildly distorted lines of the river-bank buildings and the blue sky were lost in the flickering sheen of the water's surface. However, the photographic experience that I've gathered down the years told me that the camera would present the water in a way that made a bold, colourful, semi-abstract backdrop for the swimming bird.

In the past I've photographed reflected branches, clouds, tree trunks and even steel fences. The way that the shutter freezes movement that the eye doesn't see, or echoes the tangible intangibly, is something that I like, and I make a point of looking for good water reflections whenever I'm out and about with the camera.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 66mm (99mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ripples, reflections and bubbles

click photo to enlarge
I've been doing less photography than is usual for me in recent months - other activities and interests have been consuming more of my time. And, as a consequence, I think my photographic eye has become somewhat dulled. The fact is, with photography as with many other undertakings, pursuing the act on a regular basis is the only way of maintaining an acceptable level of performance. Just as the soccer player or musician loses their touch without regular training, matches or performances, so too does a photographer find it harder to see subjects once he or she begins taking fewer shots.

I've experienced troughs of this kind before. The way I dealt with it then was to keep on snapping or - and this works for me but may not for others - by giving more attention to seeking out semi-abstract subjects. I don't know why this should be effective, but it has been in the past and it may help again. My shot with the out of focus barbed wire was an example of my endeavours in this direction, and so too is today's photograph. I'd been photographing the large, formal fountain in Queen's Gardens, Hull, and producing nothing of interest. So, in pursuit of my short-term aim I concentrated on the reflections and bubbles produced by the falling drops of water. Not the best example of this genre that I've produced, but better than most of what I've been producing lately.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:280
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Canary Wharf at night

click photo to enlarge
This isn't the first night time photograph I've taken of the financial district of London called Canary Wharf. And it probably won't be the last. However, if you live in the Lincolnshire countryside, where the brightest light around is probably a security light on the side of a farm, then the opportunity to photograph night views with plenty of lights is one not to be missed.

There was a time when I used a tripod quite regularly, particularly when I photographed more interior church architecture than I do now. These days I reserve that kind of camera support for macro photography. I've always thought one of the best developments in camera technology in recent years has been image stabilisation (or vibration control or whatever term your manufacturer uses). A close second has been the improvement in the high ISO abilities of sensors. Put those two together and the tripod is no longer quite the necessity that it was. Even a pocket camera with a relatively small 1 inch sensor like the Sony RX100 is capable of producing pretty good images after the last light of the day has disappeared.

I had the ISO on Auto for today's shot and it chose ISO 5000 to keep the shutter speed up to 1/60 second, a necessarily high speed given the focal length was 56mm (35mm equivalent). Nonetheless, old habits die hard and I rested the camera on a handy lifebelt point for my photograph and I braced it firmly. The result is a shot that I wouldn't have thought of taking this way with this kind of camera only five years ago, and it's one that is, I think, technically pretty good.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20.6mm (56mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:5000
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Attracted to the insignificant

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

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

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

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

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

The camera and the eye

click photo to enlarge
Something that I like about photography is that the camera often sees what the eye doesn't, and sometimes it sees what the eye can't. Take this photograph. Had I been walking by the River Slea in Sleaford without my camera, and with my mind on anything but photography, I wouldn't have noticed this semi-abstract composition. I wouldn't have seen the line of three posts in the water supporting the boarding that stabilises the river bank. Nor would I have seen the way they make a lower left to upper right diagonal across which the branches of a nearby tree makes wavy diagonals at right angles to them. More than that, without a camera I wouldn't have seen the extent to which the shifting surface of the water was making a scribble of lines out of those branches. I know the latter to be the case because my eye noticed a lot less movement than was recorded by the camera, and before I pressed the shutter I wondered if the composition would have enough interest.

It is said that the camera never lies, but, as I've said elsewhere in this blog, it's truer to say that the camera always lies, in one way or another. Sometimes the lies matter little, as when the perspective is altered by the focal length or the dynamic range is less than our eye can see. At other times it matters more, for example when colours are noticeably shifted, or what appears sharp to the eye is blurred, or a scene that looks deserted is only empty of people because you waited for a rare moment when no one was in the field of view. In fact, the camera induced effects that impinge on some photographs can make a shot what it is and sometimes it's worth deliberately trying to generate them: or at least be welcoming of them when they unexpectedly appear. Here are a few examples -silhouettes of ducks under an overhanging tree, the sun deliberately included in the frame, a sepia effect resulting from contre jour lighting and laser pen light and distorted colour (that radiator is white!) from a long exposure.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27.9mm (75mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Crystal, Royal Victoria Docks, London

click photos to enlarge
I returned yesterday from a visit to London and, as I sat looking through the photographs that I'd harvested during my time there, I fell to thinking about the metaphors that have been used to describe our capital city. The political reformer and farmer, William Cobbett, called it "the great wen" in his book, "The Rural Rides" that was written in the 1820s and published in 1830. A wen is a sebaceous cyst and Cobbett saw its rapid growth and the way it attracted people and money as detrimental to the country as a whole. For a couple of centuries centuries the city has colloquially been called "The Smoke" because of the amount it generated from its houses and industries. Economic geographers frequently refer to it as a "magnet" for capital due to the way it sucks in national and international investment.

What prompted these thoughts, and why was I pondering "black hole" as another suitable metaphor and rejecting it (there quite a bit that I like about London)? Well, it was something my son said as we walked past a shiny, angular, new building standing on the edge of the Royal Victoria Docks across the Thames from the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena). He commented that in most British provincial cities "The Crystal" - the building's name - would be a noteworthy, feted structure used to draw visitors, whereas here it was just another such building, one of so many in the London, that he'd never been in. It has been built as "a sustainable cities initiative exploring the future of cities". I imagine it's also a so-called iconic building intended to help with the regeneration of this area of former docks. The Crystal's origami-like appearance made me wonder whether Terry Farrell had a hand in its design because it put me in mind of his aquarium in Hull, "The Deep". But no, this building is the work of Chris Wilkinson of Wilkinson Eyre who says that its "crystalline geometry" is inspired by nature. There can be few natural objects that share this building's faceted exterior but I suppose some quartz formations do. For a photographer the building provides some striking shapes and reflections, and as my companions went to watch some wake-boarders using a fixed line at the edge of the old dock, I circled the building with my camera putting together a few semi-abstract compositions as well as one or two more conventional photographs.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19.1mm (51mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The photographic attractions of rain

click photo to enlarge
The other evening we were in the Lincolnshire town of Louth. Unusually I wasn't there with photography in mind. However, I was carrying my pocket camera. As we walked up Eastgate, dodging the showers and occasionally pausing in closed shop doorways as the downpours intensified, I admired the reflections of the car headlights on the wet road, the glow from the street lamps and the brightness of the windows that were still lit. Those features, together with the light that remained in the cloudy sky, suggested a photograph and so I took several quick shots. This is the best of the bunch with its balanced composition achieved by the road and buildings leading from the main point of interest, the prominent car on the right, to the secondary point of interest,the church spire on the left.

As we continued to the business that brought us to the town I reflected on how something as unpromising, and often unwelcome and unpleasant, as rain can change a scene so that it becomes a much better subject for a photograph. It's essentially those reflections on the wet surfaces of the roads and pavements that effect the transformation, multiplying the highlights against the dark background. It reminds me of the way the sea or any stretch of water magnifies the power of a sunset.

Over the years I've found rain both a fruitful subject in itself and a great enhancer of a subject. Raindrops on the window pane can make a fascinating subject when paired with good light and an interesting background. So too can raindrops on leaves or flowers. And familiar subjects can be transformed when bright sunlight and fair weather is eschewed in favour of a downpour, even if you are sheltering under an umbrella at the time.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24.1mm (65mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 1600
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Semi-abstract, man and nature

click photo to enlarge
When it comes to composing photographs of a semi-abstract nature I've always found it easier to use man-made subjects. By judicious selection I've often put together images that ignore the reality of what is on view and encourage the viewer to see simply colour, shape, line, tone etc. Living in close proximity to fairly large urban areas near the Fylde coast of Lancashire it was easier to find such subjects. Moving to rural Lincolnshire I've found it much harder and have had to re-think my approach. But, over the past few years, I've started to see possibilities in reeds, trees, water, ice, flowers etc.

On our recent shopping trip to King's Lynn I leaned over the quayside of the River Great Ouse, the RX100 gripped tightly in hand, and looked down at the incoming tide. The slowly rising river was gradually covering two banks of mud that had been exposed at low tide. On the surface of the water I could see the reflections of the clouds and blue sky, with shafts of sunlight making momentary appearances. The two areas of mud looked like a pair of amorous whales casting their eyes over one another, and so with the actuality of what I was seeing banished from my mind by the reflections and my imagination I took my shot. It isn't the best "natural semi-abstract" photograph I've ever taken. In fact I'd be hard pressed to describe why I quite like it and what qualities it has that make me think it suitable for posting. But then sometimes one doesn't have to explain why something appeals; a visceral feeling is quite sufficient.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mundane photographic subjects

click photo to enlarge
Some of my best photographs feature the most mundane subjects. This comes as no surprise to me because, having an interest in art and painting, I long ago observed that the same is true of many works that I like. What it does mean, however, is that it isn't especially easy to find such subjects because you don't usually plan for them in the way that you might for a landscape, portrait, architecture or other branches of photography. What often happens is that during the course of doing something entirely unrelated to photography, you notice a composition or item that looks like it might make a shot and you point your camera at it. Such an approach relies on you having a camera with you at the time and that's where a pocketable compact camera is so valuable.

Today's photograph was taken while we were gathering blackcurrants at the house of some friends. Many people in rural communities swap and share garden produce when they have a glut that is beyond their capacity to eat, store, preserve or freeze. It's a sociable and sensible thing to do. Having filled a couple of containers we were sitting at a textured glass table below a green parasol enjoying a soft drink when this composition caught my eye. Glasses and bottles have been the stock in trade of painters of still life for centuries, and the simple qualities of form, colour, shape, reflection and transparency that these objects presented to me had something of a painting about them. Perhaps it was the way the tinted, textured, opaque glass of the table top looked like it was composed of brush strokes. Or maybe it was the way the same surface turned the clouds into what looked like painted representations of clouds rather than reflections. Whatever the reason, I took my shot and I'm happy to say its modest, unaffected qualities please me more than most of the images I've posted on the blog in recent months.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21.5mm (58mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The co-operative public

click photo to enlarge
It's not often that someone who I want to include in a "street" photograph actually co-operates with me and poses. Usually I get my shots on the run, pressing the shutter at what I hope is the "decisive moment". And, truth be told, what I, and most other photographers who take shots in the street actually want is people to ignore the camera and go about their business. I don't do much in this field of photography but my best images - this one for example - have always come about in this way.

However, recently as I was passing a shop window I noticed someone inside decorating the display area. Moreover, a large, metallic mask was still on show. It occurred to me that the conjunction of the two subjects might make a shot, especially since the decorator couldn't be clearly discerned and the reflection of the street was adding an interesting depth to the composition. But, as he carried on with his work he went behind the mask a little too much and I couldn't get the shot I wanted. This was one that included a person reflected in the glass looking at what I was doing. But then the decorator looked up, and perhaps sensing my predicament, stepped to his right and posed perfectly allowing me to have the two people, superimposed, on the left of the frame and the mask on the right. This image won't be everyone's cup of tea I suppose, it pleases me, the slightly out of focus mask notwithstanding. It reminded me a little of a shot I took in Floral Street, London, a photograph that also includes a "real" person and someone who is reflected, but features a skull rather than a mask! That example is another image that I consider to be one of my better street efforts.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Democratic responsibilities

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Living under the benefits of a democracy confers rights as well as responsibilities. One of the duties, it seems to me, is to remain informed about politics and take part in it from a position of knowledge and principle. Sadly, our most recent county council elections demonstrate that quite a few electors show scant sign of such engagement. Moreover, these and other elections have shown that we are unable to expect it even from some of those who seek public office. As those from these islands might realise, I am thinking about the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) who garnered a significant number of councillors at the expense of all of the other parties, but from the Conservatives in particular.

One only has to read what pass for the policies (main UKIP website unavailable at time of writing!) of this party to realise that its position is broadly right-wing and populist, that its underlying principles are not developed in the way that we have a right to expect from serious politicians and that its national profile rests almost exclusively on the shoulders of its leader. According to a news report some senior UKIP figures recognise that the absence of policies is a failing and have considered buying them from right-leaning think tanks!

Those who voted for UKIP seem to have done so for a variety of reasons, few of which I find defensible. Some are attracted by all or individual policies - fair enough - but many are so undeveloped as to be no more than items on a wish-list. Many say they are fed up with the indistinguishable metropolitan elite who head the other parties, an argument I have some sympathy with but one that fatally and naively concentrates on personalities rather than policies. Others say it was to send the main parties a message that they are not giving enough attention to the matters that concern them. Perhaps such people should have been assiduously lobbying their MPs and government rather than relying on a single trip to the ballot box to express their concerns. Then there are those who voted for the UKIP leader because he is "different" from the other party leaders, more "human", more forthright, not part of the establishment. Anyone holding this view simply hasn't been paying attention. I find it hard to see much difference between the backgrounds of the present prime minister and the leader of UKIP. The latter is, apparently, the son of a stockbroker, someone who attended Dulwich College, a private, fee-paying school, and who worked as a commodity broker in the City before entering politics. That is a background, it seems to me, with more than a hint of the establishment and the metropolitan elite about it. As one observer humorously and perceptively noted, the UKIP leader's appeal and approach share a lot in common with that of the current mayor of London. To my mind that is not an endorsement but an indictment.

All this has little to do with today's photograph of a part of London on the south bank, in Southwark, called English Grounds. If I were to try and establish some sort of connection I would do it by saying that this view, like the political party discussed above, isn't entirely what it seems.

photo and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18.9mm (51mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Billingborough church at night

click photo to enlarge
Driving in the dark over the low hills between Folkingham and Billingborough the other evening, the church tower of St Andrew came into view. It caught my eye as its illumination made it glow like a golden lighthouse, a beacon for travellers heading down onto the Fens. As we drew into the village the tall, fourteenth century tower and spire seemed to be brighter still against the mottled sky, and appeared to be in competition with the moon to see which could best catch the eye of passers-by. It was a contest that, on this particular night, the church was winning. However, the effect of the full moon on the broken cloud was so pleasing we parked up and had a brisk walk to find some photographs that included these two sources of light. It was also, I thought, a good opportunity to try my new compact camera's iAuto+ mode, a setting whereby it takes several shots very rapidly and then merges them to make a single image with reduced noise and motion blur.

Of the cluster of photographs I took the main one is the image I like best. It was taken through the gateway of Billingborough Hall, a large house built in 1620 and modified in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This building is now a care home for the elderly. For my purposes it provided not only more lights in the form of lit windows to punctuate the darkness, but roof and chimney silhouettes and foreground illumination spilling onto the drive from a nearby streetlight. The tower of St Andrew glows in the photograph in just the ethereal way it did at the time, a dominating presence now at night just as it must always have been in the village during the day.

There is a pond near the west end of the church so we walked round to see if there was a photograph to be had that included a reflection of the church in the water. I came away with the smaller photograph and a few failed shots that included sleeping ducks on the pond's island. Billingborough church is an imposing building that is a fine exclamation mark in its village setting. It's a subject I've photographed several times - see, for example, this shot with the nearby Church Farm. I've photographed the pond before too.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: iAuto+
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 2000
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fishing platforms and films noir

click photo to enlarge
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