Popular house names

click photo to enlarge
In 1988 the Halifax Building Society concluded from a study of its computer database of 15 million investors that the most common house name in Britain was "The Bungalow" with 4,485 properties carrying this very boring designation. In second place was the equally uninspiring, "The Cottage", with 4,049 references, and third was the slightly more colourful, "Rose Cottage", with 2,936 properties given that name.

Tradition weighs heavy in the name that houses are given, and once given they tend to linger. I have the complete list of the 150 or so most frequently used names, and I have to say that I must have seen most of them at one time or another and none are surprising. Such names tend to be descriptive in one way or another. "The School House" is fourth in the list and always refers to a house that was formerly the abode of a teacher or headteacher when such jobs came with living accommodation."The Vicarage" (in 12th place) is a name that arose in similar circumstances though that name usually implies that the local cleric still uses it as his (or her) home, with "The Old Vicarage" usually indicating a former vicar's residence, often sold because it was too large and too expensive for the church to maintain. Trees abound in house names - "The Hawthorns", "Oak Dene", "Beech House", "Conifers" and "Holly Cottage" are just a few arboreal names found in the list. The building's location is another favoured hook on which to hang a name - "Windy Ridge", "Brookfield", "The Mount", "Fair View" and "Corner Cottage" are examples.

Today's photograph could well be from a "Rose Cottage" because properties with that name frequently feature a climbing rose near the main entrance, around a window or on a sunny wall. However, it is a second photograph from my visit to Lower Brockhampton Manor House in Herefordshire. You can see the rose on the left of the main building in my photograph of the other day.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 30mm (60mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Colour popping

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I'm not a fan of colour popping, the trick of converting a colour photograph to black and white and deliberately leaving an area of (usually bright) colour. It seems to be a technique of the digital era: I certainly don't remember seeing it in the days of film. Image editing software such as Photoshop make it a fairly straightforward thing to do, and boy, has it been done in recent years. In fact it's been done to death.

I see it regularly on photography websites. Clearly some people are very taken by the technique, however I'm not. It has always struck me as "gimmicky", and I can't recall a single image that was improved by having this done to it. That said, I imagine you're wondering why I've done it to today's photograph. The answer is, "because the subject suggested it."

I was passing Quadring church in the fog, and stopped to take a photograph of this fine medieval building. I've photographed it a few times - see here, and here - but lately I've avoided doing so because that scaffolding on the spire has been there for months, an abcess on a thing of beauty. During my visit the fog was giving the scene a drab grey look, and I thought it was sufficient reason to overcome my dislike of the enduring scaffolding. But as I walked to my favourite position for photographing this church I came upon a bunch of the brightest, pink roses that I've ever seen. My first thought was that they were artificial flowers made of silk or some such material, but they proved to be the genuine article. The roses had been placed near a newly dug grave (just out of shot), probably yesterday, and their fresh, bright, summery radiance looked very out of place on a cold, foggy, February day. "Colour popping!" I thought, and took this photograph which I then converted. My first essay in the style is likely to be my last.

Looking at my image, and digging deep for justification, I suppose I could say that the colour popping device emphasises the unseasonal incongruity of the bright, fresh roses in this dull, dank, setting. What do you think?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On