English and U.S. place-name confusion

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It was George Bernard Shaw who described England and the United States as "two countries divided by a common language." By that remark Shaw was highlighting the differences that have arisen between English as spoken by the two countries. And whilst there are nouns, verbs, adjectives etc that appear in one version of the language (sidewalk, thru, etc) and not in the other, or which mean different things in each country (trunk and boot), or which are spelt differently (curb and kerb) the fact is that overwhelmingly the vocabularies are the same: they have much, much more in common than that which is different.

The other day I was in Newark (full name Newark-on-Trent). And, in thinking about the truncated version of that town's name, I reflected that the use of the same placenames in the U.S. and England (or the wider U.K.) actually leads to more confusion than does the differences in vocabulary. To someone from the U.S. Newark is a place in New Jersey, just as Boston is a place in Massachusetts. However, to someone in the East Midlands of England those two towns are relatively near neighbours in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire respectively. The duplications between the two countries are numerous - Birmingham, Woodstock, Durham, Cambridge, Oxford, Springfield, Marlborough etc. For a fuller list see this Wikipedia page. This mattered little before the rise of the internet, but today it leads to confusion and great care being needed when searching, because otherwise much time can be wasted.

Today's photograph shows Newark's "slighted" castle, the River Trent and the Trent Bridge, a structure of 1775, still the main crossing in the town, with cantilevered footways and railings added in 1848.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Castle and River, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 31mm (62mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Welland, Nene and Rolls Royce

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Long before I moved to Lincolnshire I was familiar with the names Welland and Nene. A teenage interest in aircraft taught me that the Rolls Royce aero engine company usually named its turboprop and jet engines after Britain's rivers. Consequently I came to know the Spey, Dart, Avon, Tyne, and many others, including the Welland and the Nene. I read that rivers were chosen for these engines' names because they emphasised the steady flow of power that is a requirement when powering an aircraft. If that's true it makes more sense than the naming conventions of house-builders when they come to name the streets that they create. Poets, castles, trees, birds, flowers, warships, aircraft, bishops, generals, towns, villages, and yes, rivers, are just some of the inspirations I've come across. I'm waiting for sponsored brand names to make an appearance - it can only be a matter of time.

I think I've mentioned before in this blog that river names are some of the oldest words to be found in our language. Because of the importance of rivers as sources of water, food, soil enrichment (through flooding), defence and as territorial boundaries, the original name, given who knows when, has often continued in use, unchanged, to the present day. Which is more than can be said for the River Welland itself. Today, for much of its course, it is embanked and flows in a channel that is above the level of the surrounding land. Sections of it have been straightened to speed its flow. It has always been one of the rivers that drained the hinterland of The Wash, and today it is carefully managed to do that as efficiently as possible.

None of this is evident in my photograph of the Welland that was taken near Crowland at the end of November towards the close of an afternoon. I deliberately under-exposed the shot to increase the contrast and make more of the sky's details, the shiny ribbon of water and the delicate branches of the leafless willows.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 2000
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic chickens and eggs

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I've often wondered if people are drawn to photography because they notice things more than the average person, or whether its the act of engaging in photography that makes you notice things more. The likelihood is that photographers probably include both those types of people (as well as those who notice subjects that result in photographs of the type they've seen before).

I know that when I post a photograph such as today's that many people, to use the modern parlance, "get it", and many don't. And frankly, that doesn't matter a jot because enthusiast photographers should photograph what pleases them, what they notice, without regard for what other people might like or dislike. That's the joy of not being a professional!

I've always liked the way that rivers carve and mould mud. Here's another black and white shot of this subject that I took a while ago. For contrast, here's one in colour.

© Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 56mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f9
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

River names

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The names given to rivers are some of the oldest words to be found in the British Isles. Many of them are pre-Celtic in origin, belonging to a time of which we have little knowledge concerning the languages that were used. The river in today's photograph - the River Welland - is one such name. All we know of the word "welland" is that it occurs in the earliest written documents: we know nothing of its meaning. The same is true of the Lincolnshire rivers Ancholme, Humber and Witham.

When we come to rivers with Celtic names we are often in a position to ascribe a meaning, though sometimes this is no more than an educated guess. In Lincolnshire the name of the River Glen is likely to be of Celtic origin and probably means "the clean one", echoing the derivation of the Northumbrian river of the same name. The River Lymn is also Celtic and derives from the Primitive Welsh "lemo" meaning an elm tree, hence the river's name is "the place where many elms are found". The names of the rivers Trent and Nene are also thought to have Celtic roots.

Why should river names be among our oldest words? The answer is that rivers are important and enduring features of the landscape, a source of food and water, useful for transport and an effective and immutable boundary or defensive line. Such a significant geographical feature would be named before settlements, hills or perhaps even people.

I've photographed Deeping St James church and the River Welland from this location before at different times of year. It makes a fine composition and is an archetypal English rural lowland scene.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Failed searches and streamer weed

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Most web searches that I make are successful. A wide range of information is available on the internet, much of it in great depth, and often in at least four forms - text, images, video and audio. Moreover, I've gone out of my way to become familiar with a reasonably wide range of search techniques. Consequently it is relatively unusual for me to fail in a quest for facts about a topic. But failures do happen. Often this is because the subject is arcane. Or it may be obscure or of interest to only a very small minority of people and therefore little documented. Some failures appear to be successes until you discover that what you took to be fact turns out to be someone's unintentionally erroneous posting or just plain wrong through the poster's ignorance.

However, the other day I spent a long time searching for some information and drew a blank. I was trying to find out the name of the plant shown in today's photograph. It is a common river plant that I see regularly in many lowland rivers, and its very prominence suggest that it will be well documented. It probably is, but not in a form that allows me to assign it a Latin name. Fishermen call it (and several other plants that grow in a similar location and fashion) "streamer weed". That is descriptive of the ribbon-like leaves that undulate sinuously in the current. But, to fix its identity with the species' Latin name proved impossible for me. It may be a form of Ranunculus, Glyceria or some other equally common river-growing plant. The problem is that I can't match a photograph that looks like mine with any other reliably labelled image. Then there's the fact that most botanical illustrations use the flower as an identifier and this has clearly passed its flowering season. In fact, I've found very few shots of the plant that emphasise its attractive, twisting form, except a couple by other photographers similarly fascinated

From previous experience I imagine that I'll search again and a route to the right answer that was formerly closed, or which I missed, will open up. Until then streamer weed it is!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Froth, waterfalls and wild swimming

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Recently, as our walk took us past the waterfall that is Scaleber Force near Settle, I took a few shots of Stockdale Beck as it cascaded down the rock face. Strong sunlight didn't help when it came to getting the sort of shot I wanted, and the small offering today is the best of the very few photographs that I took. I'd gone down the sides of the ravine alone and my wife stayed at the top on a handily sited bench. While she was there a van stopped on the nearby road and some people came to ask her if she knew of anywhere nearby for "wild swimming". She mentioned Stainforth Force and they said that was their next destination.

When she recounted that conversation I was transported back to my childhood swimming in the River Ribble at Settle. We never called it wild swimming then; it was just swimming plain and simple. Since there was no purpose-built covered pool in the small market town (there is now) many local children, myself included, taught themselves to swim in the rock pools and deeper stretches of the river. We had a number of favourite spots. Probably the most popular for younger children was the stretch between the weir and the stone-built road bridge. Older kids preferred the longer, uninterrupted and more secluded stretch above the weir, downstream from Shed Mill which was called "six foot" in reference to its alleged depth at this point. A third location that attracted younger children was the deeper area of water below Queen's Rock near King's Mill.

As chance would have it we later walked past this stretch of rapids that marks the point where one of the Craven Faults crosses the river. Looking down from the footbridge I noticed an accumulation of froth - probably natural though perhaps partly man-made - and I seized the opportunity for my second photograph of this subject. My first shot, which I posted on the blog, was taken at the previously mentioned Stainforth Force. The example at Queen's Rock attracted me for the way that the rocks interacted with the froth to make a pattern quite different from the one in my earlier shot.

None of the areas I mention above where I used to swim would be suitable for the "wild" swimmers of today. On the other hand, I'm not so sure the dark and deep waters of Stainforth Force are either.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 23.8mm (64mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Look behind you

click photos to enlarge
A casual observer, watching me walk down the street or through the countryside may think that I'm paranoid, that I imagine I'm being followed, that I have a persecution complex or that I think everyone is out to get me. Why? Well, the fact is, I  regularly stop and look behind. The more perceptive observer would notice the camera or at least the camera bag, and would work out that I'm looking to see if there's a shot in the opposite direction to the one in which I'm walking.

I take most of my photographs on walks, and I learned fairly early in my photographic development that we tend to see shots ahead and to the side of us, but often forget to look for those that are behind. It's now November and we've reached the time of year when, if you are walking with the low sun behind and floodlighting all before you, there may well be a contre jour shot to be found by turning round towards the sun. Yesterday's blog post illustrates that quite well. Today's photographs show that this habit of looking behind you is also helpful if the sun is from the side because it reveals a composition that you might have missed due to your attention being fixed on the direction in which you were walking.

Both shots show part of the River Witham in Boston, Lincolnshire, that is known as The Haven, a stretch a couple of miles long where inshore fishing boats berth. I took the small photograph first, using the moored boats as foreground interest and the river bank as a line through the image leading to the short curved terrace of houses. On this photograph I was keen to minimise the amount of sky and to include the figure on the left. My second shot was taken when we'd walked further downstream to a point past the most distant boat in the small photograph and I looked behind me. This view - the main photograph - is dominated by the tall tower of the church of St Botolph with its lantern top, and that meant more sky needed to be included. But once again the same group of boats is important, and with the curve of the river and the buildings by the roadside, provides the main subject of the shot. However, though the subject remains the same, the differing viewpoints make for quite different images.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 75mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Humber Bridge and dog walkers

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One thing that is very helpful when you are photographing in large spaces such as the seashore, by a big river, in open fields or in any other expanse, is a sense of the size or scale of the view. The same is true when your shot includes anything large or something that is difficult to visually "read" in a photograph: cliffs are a good example. Scale in this sense is an understanding of dimensions. Anyone familiar with photographs taken by geologists of rocks or embedded fossils will recognise the importance of the often included hammer or short ruler in helping the viewer to appreciate the size of what they are seeing. Those items don't have much use in general photography. However, there are many things that can offer a sense of scale where it is needed. In the past I've used a bench, a fence, a tree, cows, sheep and much else. Anything that is familiar to the viewer and which can therefore be used as a size indicator is all that is needed. Of course, the very best of indicators is the human figure. Place a person in a photograph and not only will he or she often be the initial point of interest for the viewer, they will immediately lend a sense of scale to the depicted scene.

Britain is known for being a nation of animal lovers. I count myself as one, though not in the sense that it is usually meant. My preference is not for the cats, dogs and the other kinds of domestic pets that are far too commonly found on these islands. As far as they are concerned I wish they were much fewer in number than is the case; a sentiment not widely shared or welcomed. My liking is for wildlife. The existence of animals that kill wildlife in very large numbers (cats) or are significant disturbers of the it (dogs) is something that I regret. But, I have to admit that there is a time when I find the presence of dogs and their owners useful, and that is as objects offering scale in my photographs. Today's shot does, I think, benefit from the dog walkers and their animal by the water's edge. Those small figures underline the enormous size of the Humber Bridge arching across the river above them. Take them away and the sense of the size of the engineering is substantially lessened and the force of the photograph diminished.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Abstraction and the Pre-Raphaelites

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An exhibition of the work of the Pre-Raphaelite painters has recently opened at Tate Britain. It seeks to show the artists, in the words of The Guardian newspaper's arts correspondent, as "Britain's first modern art movement with rebellious ideas and revolutionary methods way ahead of their time." It seems to me that every few decades the Pre-Raphaelites are re-discovered, re-interpreted and presented anew to a public who have always been aware of them to a greater or lesser degree. And with each fresh look a different aspect of their achievement is highlighted. I've been to exhibitions that stress their medievalising, the way they were all-embracing (producing craft and literature as well as fine art), and that concentrated on their depiction of nature

It was the latter thread that came to mind when I reviewed my photographs of the surface of the River Witham where it runs through the Lincolnshire town of Grantham. Like many slow moving, lowland rivers,the Witham has a lot of weed growing in its main course. The long strands writhe in the flow, either as single strands or as bunches of aquatic tresses. The banks have lush grasses and reeds with overhanging trees casting dappled shade - willow, alder, black poplar and more. In places one is transported to the scene of Millais' depiction of the drowning Ophelia. The artist's eye lovingly shows the flowers, waterside plants and aquatic weeds of the Hogsmill River, a tributary of the River Thames, and one can easily get lost in the natural detail that his brush lingered over.

However, in my photograph of the River Witham I wasn't looking for a literal interpretation of the scene so much as trying to create a semi-abstract image that treats the reflections and weeds as lines, patches of colour and contrasting tones. It's an approach that in painting had to wait for Impressionism and later art movements though the seeds for the style were sown by the likes of Turner, Cotman and others. One of the things I like about photography is the way the camera can be used as a device to show the world in a literal way but can also represent it with an element of abstraction. It's a while since I've done a shot like this, so when I saw this interesting piece of water and weed below some overhanging trees my camera went straight to my eye.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 238mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 1600
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Humber Bridge

click photos to enlarge

For the 16 year period from its opening in 1981 until 1997 the Humber Bridge was the world's longest single span suspension bridge. It is currently the sixth longest though apparently retains first place among the longest suspension bridges that you can cross on foot or by bicycle! I've never crossed it on foot but I've done so several times on a bike.

During the years that the Humber Bridge was built we lived in the city of Hull (as Kingston upon Hull is more generally known) which is to the east of the northern point of the span. Before the bridge's completion the River Humber presented a barrier that could be crossed only by passenger ferry or by road via a circuitous detour of many miles, both of which we enjoyed and endured. The rationale for this major construction was to promote a wider area of economic activity that embraced both banks of the river. That never really happened. One reason was the debt that was incurred to construct the crossing, a figure that over the years grew instead of falling. An initial cost of £98 million had, by 1998, reached the enormous sum of £360 million. Despite write-offs it was still £333 million in 2008. It was the size of this debt that caused toll charges to be unfeasibly high. And, of course, high toll charges deterred many potential users, reducing income and making any reduction of the debt impossible. However, in 2011 the government agreed to write off a further £150 million. This allowed the toll for a single crossing to be halved from £3.00 to £1.50, a change that was implemented on 1st April 2012. It remains to be seen if this has any effect in terms of increasing traffic and promoting additional economic activity in the region or whether it is just too little too late. From a personal point of view it makes our visits to Hull a little less expensive than they were.

I took today's photographs from the "Water's Edge" visitor and business centre on the south bank of the river at Barton upon Humber. The smaller image is a crop of a shot taken with a lens at 300mm. As I was writing this piece I remembered that I'd posted a shot of the bridge in the early days of the blog. Here it is. I recall being particularly proud of the title I chose for this one!

photograph and text © T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Eau, the confusion

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet

A few years ago I read some research indicating that the further you go with formal learning the unhappier you are likely to become. Learning, the authors suggested, was characterised by an upward payback curve that stopped after a first degree and thereafter went downwards. If this is true then Pope's observation isn't entirely accurate - at least as far as happiness goes.

One could argue that it isn't true anyway because a little learning - if it is presented to the student well - is a catalyst for further self-directed learning that continues throughout life, and far from being dangerous, is life enhancing. The problem is that much education doesn't achieve this goal. It used to be a characteristic of English primary education. However, the introduction of the dead hand of the National Curriculum and the utilitarian and market demands placed on the already moribund secondary and higher education put paid to that.

Pope's famous lines and education in general came to mind when I looked at my semi-abstract photograph of Bourne Eau, a stream that runs through the town of Bourne in Lincolnshire. The word "Eau" is, today, usually pronounced like the French word for water that has the same spelling. However, this is, in the words of "A Dictionary of Lincolnshire Place-Names", "a spurious Frenchified form" of "ea" (prononounced as in "bead"), a word deriving from the Old English for a river or stream that was variously written as ea, eay, ei, ee etc. The spelling "eau" and the current pronunciation has come into use, presumably, due to the "little learning" of French in English schools that has been common for seventy or so years. The old, original pronunciation clings on in some parts of the county and with some older speakers. One wonders for how long.

It's often said that a successful photograph immediately indicates its subject to the viewer. However, this aphorism, like all such sayings, is subject to exceptions. Confusion can be an appealing quality in a photograph, with the subject not immediately apparent, and the component parts of the image requiring study for the viewer to make sense of what is seen. It was those features that I noticed in this watery scene.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Two eye-opening statistics

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Newspapers and the internet throw statistics at us all the time. A good number or a summary encapsulated in a figure is a powerful tool for grabbing your audience. But you have to be careful. Sometimes the statistics are a product of a journalist's innumeracy, are often simplified, extrapolated or taken out context from more complex data, rendering them inaccurate at best or fictitious at worse. So, it is with caution and an element of scepticism that I present two statistics that I came across recently. The first, on initial inspection, seems to have nothing to do with photography - but it does. The second is directly photography related.

In a recent Guardian newspaper article about data storage I read the following:

"DatacentreDynamics' research also reveals that British datacentres consume 6.4 gigawatts of power annually – enough to power 6m homes – and that is set to increase by 6.7% over the next year."

That is an awful lot of electricity, even allowing for the fact that a significant proportion of the data stored here is for overseas users. It also clearly underlines that cloud computing and electronic data are not quite the no-cost or even low-cost option, that we sometimes think. I used to be sure that photographs viewed on screens and stored on servers, and that blogs such as this one that exist away from the computer on which they are written, used less physical resources than prints and paper. But do they? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The second statistic that brought me up short was reported on the website, "Visual News", and is a graphic that purports to be "A Snapshot of the Photography Industry". It documents the rise of the phone camera, the consequent decline of the point and shoot camera, the dominance of sites such as Facebook and much else. It also includes the following:

"Today we snap as many photos every two minutes as humanity as a whole did in the 1800s."

In other words it takes us 120 seconds to accumulate the number of photographs that were amassed in the 100 years between 1800 and 1900. Which prompted me to think that the first statistic about energy use for data storage could well be accurate! It also made me consider whether ever higher pixel counts on cameras should be opposed on environmental grounds, something that hadn't occurred to me before. All of which has little to do with today's photograph, taken on an overcast day, of boats on the river at Ely, Cambridgeshire. Except these two further thoughts. Firstly, this shot represents yet another addition to the total data stored across the world. And secondly, I wonder how much electricity this one image uses in a year and at what cost?

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Olympics, money and kayaking

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It seems impossible to express indifference or opposition to the Olympic Games without having opprobrium heaped upon you, such is the fervour with which the alliance of sporting organisations, politicians, sponsors and the self-serving bureaucrats of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) stir up support for the nationalistic jamboree. For years I've been of the opinion that the Games has moved so far from its original and modern ideals that it has forfeited the right to use the word "Olympic" and should embrace the inevitable and sell the naming rights to a sponsor.

The absurd sums of money that host nations are required to spend mounting the Olympic Games invites ridicule. As do the demands of the IOC for facilities for their delegates: the designated traffic lanes for official cars and the rest of their gratis benefits are megalomaniacal and no country should concede them. Then there is the idea that new facilities should be built for a Games - for a fortnight's utilisation - and the wishful thinking that they will find "legacy" uses for decades afterwards. The record shows that this is rarely the case. Moreover, you have to question enormous public subsidies for sports that, day to day, find it difficult to find an audience and exist only through sponsorship, state handouts and the recognition that comes from being part of the Olympics. Now don't get me wrong, I have no objection to people indulging in or watching minority sports or in the principle of subsidies. However, I can see many more worthy recipients of public money, and in straitened times I object to the state supporting people's hobbies.

I think it is time for the Olympics to be returned whence it came, to a purpose built sports complex in Greece, one that could also be used in the periods between Games. Moreover, I'd like to see the number of sports reduced to an agreed and traditional range (probably a few more than the modern Games' original nine). This would have so many obvious benefits that I'll only mention one - it would provide much needed visitor and TV income for Greece on a continuing basis! Under my proposals kayaking, the subject of today's photograph, wouldn't feature in the Olympic Games. Nor would synchronised swimming, trampolining, mountain biking, taekwondo, table tennis etc etc etc.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 67mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Colour, fishing boats and aspect ratios

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"When you look at a colour picture you see the colour before you look at the message."
David Bailey (1938- ), English photographer

The quote above is taken from a recent interview that David Bailey gave to the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Being David Bailey, the interview is full of quotable utterances, some of them insightful, others outrageous and a few that are intended, I'm sure, to "take the mickey". But, sticking with this statement on colour, here it is in context: "...black and white gives you the message immediately. Colour’s a warning thing. Berries are red so that the birds know to eat them. When they’re green they don’t eat them. When you look at a colour picture you see the colour before you look at the message. " I don't agree with Bailey on the first part of this. Black and white can give you the pattern before the message. Moreover, sometimes monochrome overlays the artist's message with meaning that derives from the medium. But, I do think that the last sentence is often true, and I think it is a positive aspect of working in colour. Colours do seduce the eye, and it usually happens immediately, before subject, line, composition, and rest come into play. It happened to me this morning when I decided to photograph these fishing boats on The Haven in Boston, Lincolnshire. The sun was strong, the light was harsh, and there were no clouds in the sky - not my favourite photographic weather. But when I looked at the boats I saw three primary colours in a row - yellow, red and blue - and I thought that this sequence was enough to hang a photograph on, despite the countervailing circumstances.

However, there was one thing I knew I'd have to do wth this subject: change the aspect ratio from 3:2 to 4:3. I find myself doing it reasonably frequently with my current camera. It wasn't something that bothered me too much in the days of 35mm film, but having used a 4/3 digital camera for several years I have come to appreciate the less elongated shape of 4:3.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 75mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on the River Welland

click photo to enlarge
You're walking through the countryside and your path leads to a bridge over a river or a stream. You walk forward onto the bridge, and then what? Well, if you're like me, and just about everyone I've ever observed doing this, you stop in the middle and turn to look either upstream or downstream. It feels like the natural thing to do. We don't seem to be able to help ourselves. So what is it about bridges over water that make us stop and look, when discretion might be urging us to keep going until we're back with our feet fixed firmly on terra firma?

I suppose it's the pleasure that comes from surveying a stretch of moving water, no matter how small. And the curiosity about what it might contain - the fish, frogs, rocks, weed and the other things that we can see: and the lurking things we can't see, but wonder about, in the dark, still pools. Could it be a relic of our primitive past when a stretch of water offered the chance of fresh food? Or maybe it's an aesthetic urge to trace a river's course with our eye, following the banks, the depths and shallows, the brooding shadows and dancing highlights, the never still ripples and eddies, as they move towards us, under our feet, and away. Then there's the smell of the air above water, fresh clean and sharp from streams that flow quickly over rocky beds, slightly musty and dank from slow flowing waterways as they meander through the lowlands. And finally, there's the sound that varies from the crashing roar of a rocky river in spate, to the gentle swish and occasional plop of a slow moving stream.

The other day I stood on a small footbridge that spans part of the River Welland at Deeping St James. This is a fairly slow moving, quiet river, but at this particular point it was noisy because there was a man-made weir below me. I'd heard it from a distance as I approached the river, and found it, fast-moving, with spray, swirling ripples, and shooting water. I stopped half way across to take a few photographs, closing down the aperture to f22 to slow the shutter speed and blur the moving water. I've taken shots of this kind before, but here I concentrated on where the water tipped over the edge of the small weir and slid down an incline before hitting the pool below. The differing speeds of the water in each part of its journey gave differing effects, and I reflected that making images like this is yet another reason for pausing when your path leads across a bridge over water.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 106mm (212mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f22
Shutter Speed: 1/13 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Just mud and water

click photo to enlarge
"There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful."
John Constable (1776-1837), English landscape painter

People, in general, have little hesitation in pronouncing things "beautiful" - a person, some flowers, a sunset, an upland landscape - all will readily be awarded the title. Nor too, do people shrink from bestowing the word "ugly" - a graffiti-covered facade, overflowing bins, a weed-strewn urban wasteland, or a dead fox by the side of the road would all invariably be thought so. But John Constable said he'd never seen anything that is ugly. How do we account for this?

It certainly isn't anything to do with today's world compared with Constable's. What we would call ugly certainly existed in his time, possibly more so. No, it's more to do with what we see when we look at the world. The eye of the painter (and the photographer) looks at the world in the same way as everyone else, but often sees it in a different way. One of the principal aims of these people is to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, the marvellous in the mundane, and the beautiful in the "ugly". Sometimes it's difficult to explain why a photograph (or a painting) looks the way it does: to say why, in the eyes of some it is "boring", "simple", "empty" or "nothing". I can see those words being levelled at this photograph. After all, it shows just mud and water. Yet from the moment I saw this particular piece of estuary, revealed by the receding tide, I liked it. I'd hesitate to call my photograph beautiful, but I do think it has a certain attraction. I suppose what I like is the contrast between the "substance" of the flat, glistening mud and the dark, angular shadows of its broken edge, with the smooth, only slightly rippled sheen of the water. I like, too, the ragged line going up the centre of the image, and the way it curves away into almost nothing in the fog. I'm pleased by how the foreground mud and inlet give the composition a base, and I appreciate the tonality across the photograph.

Now, all that sounds a touch pretentious! But then trying to explain in detail what you like about a painting or a photograph sometimes tends to veer in that direction. Yet, it's worth enduring the risible remarks it can provoke because giving voice in this way adds more to our understanding than just applying the over-worked, over-rated, and frequently wrong epithets, "beautiful" and "ugly"!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Turbulent river

click photo to enlarge

I've said elsewhere in this blog that some subjects are best captured with video. Water is a case in point. The attraction of moving water lies in the eddies, swirls, undulations and waves, and in the way the light plays on the surface. Still cameras simply can't record the beauty of moving water. But that doesn't stop us still photographers from trying!

What we can do is use a fast shutter speed to freeze the movement of the water when, for example, it breaks over rocks, or when the crest of a wave is blown away by a strong wind, or as it slips like a glossy sheet over the lip of a waterfall. We can also select a slow shutter speed and record the scene with motion blur. Some photographers use a neutral density filter to get a speed sufficiently slow to make the water look like ice or fog. But a dark day, a small aperture and a low ISO will also do the trick, though with less blur. When we do this we allow the viewer to see that which the eye normally cannot, and in this respect, we produce images akin to those we make with a macro lens, which also reveals things we normally don't see.

My photograph shows the River Ribble in spate at Langcliffe, North Yorkshire, though it could have been taken on any fast moving, shallow, rocky river. Looking down from a bridge I selected a diagonal composition with undulating water and waves produced by barely covered stones, and used the "dark day" technique noted above. The highlights on the surface of the river have produced trails that give a sense of turbulent flow that a higher shutter speed wouldn't have done. I quite like the effect! You might like to compare it with a faster shutter speed used on a much slower moving river here.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 83mm (166mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f10
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on reflections

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Reflections in water are a popular subject for photographers. By and large, the better the reflection, the more likely it is that it will be captured by a camera. Snow capped mountains mirrored in an ice cold lake is a particular favourite. So too are reflected buildings in ornamental ponds or rivers. Or ducks on a still sheet of water, each bird with its inverted double immediately below. I've taken my share of these shots, such as this building, these trees, and this heron. Less popular is the reflection made by disturbed water, yet it has much to commend it.

The painterly effect that such a reflection produces can be very satisfying. The broken image, impressionistically rendered, with strokes that suggest the marks of a watercolour brush on wet paper have a pleasing quality. A few examples from my previous posts include this railway bridge , this fence, and this stormy sky behind sharply captured, newly emerged, water lily leaves.

My most recent foray into this area is shown above. It was taken from a bridge over the River Welland in Spalding, Lincolnshire, though it could be anywhere. The brief appearance of the sun through a small hole in an angry sky prompted the shot. I was looking for an image that drew its strength from the bright point in a tonally differentiated, but largely monochrome and fractured surface. Circular ripples made by either rising bubbles or fish kept appearing at unforeseeable points and intervals, so I waited for a few and included those too. Not a shot that will appeal to many I suppose, but it pleases me, and that's what matters!!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 36mm (72mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Thinking about fishing

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The other day, as I stood on a footbridge over the River Welland in Stamford, Lincolnshire, I thought about fishing - the sort that you do with a rod and line. Judging by all the newly created "fishing ponds" that I've passed in recent years, the number of people wanting to pursue this sport must exceed the water available. And, each time I see a group of fishermen sat around one of these ponds I wonder just what is the attraction?

Several years ago, when I was in France I watched, open-mouthed, as fishermen sat round a pond pulling massive carp after massive carp out of the water. They stored them in their keep-nets, then at the end of their session, put them back in the pond. Maybe they weighed them; maybe they kept one or two for eating, I don't recall. However, it looked like "shooting fish in a barrel". It seemed to require no skill on their part, and they always caught a "big un". The only time I've pursued this sport was for a year or so in my youth when I fished the rocky River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales and had a few goes on the River Lune near Kirkby Lonsdale. Here the skill was to find the location that held some fish (brown trout, grayling and salmon were the main quarry) then decide whether to use a lure, float or fly to catch them. The best areas to fish would change with the season and the height of the water. So, local knowledge and skill was necessary. I remain to be convinced that much of either is necessary when fishing a small pond that is stocked by man rather than nature. The incidentals that I enjoyed all those years ago - walking the bank, dodging the trees, wading into the shallows, standing on rocks, and watching the plentiful wildlife as I waited for a "bite" - also seem to be absent. However, there is clearly some pleasure to be had from casting from the edge of a pond or this pastime woudn't be proliferating. Perhaps the reason I can't see it is linked to the reason that caused me to cast aside my rod after such a short time. Truly, freshwater fishing can be a puzzling sport!

So why was I thinking about fishing as I surveyed this verdant river view. Well, try as I might, I couldn't see a single fish in the water. They must have been there, but hiding! I've pointed my camera at this particular view before but never taken the shot. However, this time the boats, the water, the trees, and particularly the light, made it work better as a photograph. So I pressed the shutter.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 48mm (96mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A Boston view

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In the Middle Ages the medieval coastline made the town of Boston, Lincolnshire, much closer to the sea. It thrived as a trans-shipment point for goods going up the River Witham to the city of Lincoln. In 1205 the port was second only to London in the levy that it paid, and by 1300 it was paying a third more than the capital. The Hanseatic League had a base there in the fourteenth century, as did the Greyfriars, Blackfriars, Austin Friars and Carmelites. Decline in the sixteenth century was followed by expansion in the 1700s, and steady growth in the 1800s.

Much of Boston's past can be seen in the town today. The medieval street pattern remains, as do timber-framed and stone medieval buildings. A fine collection of eighteenth century houses, an Assembly Rooms, and warehouses can also be seen. By the River Witham are interesting nineteenth century buildings, including the old Public Warehouse (now flats) - the tall white building in this photograph. And, towering over it all, is the the magnificent, mainly fourteenth century, church of St Botolph. The tower, at 272 feet, is the tallest in England (though there are taller spires), and the building, almost of cathedral proportions, is one of the biggest parish churches in the country.

Boston's past, together with its present status as a busy market town and a regional centre of south Lincolnshire, means that the photographer has no difficulty in finding subjects to frame with the camera. This view of the River Witham, taken from the bridge on John Adams Way, shows the back of the High Street to the left, a section of river frontage, and St Botolph's tower in the background. I have photographed it before, but the overcast sky with a little sun breaking through gave a nice contrast to the scene, and this is my best image of this view to date.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off