Dumped in the canal

click photo to enlarge
On a recent visit to Newark in Nottinghamshire we were thwarted when we tried to cross a footbridge to walk by the canalised spur of the River Trent that flows through a small, formerly industrial area. A barrier had been put up to prevent the bridge being used, but no explanation had  been posted. Only when we went to a bridge further downstream did we find the reason. Apparently the section in question was undergoing maintenance and that included draining the stretch between the lock gates.

We were able to stand on a bridge and survey the work taking place. We could also see the objects below the bridge that were revealed after the water had been drained away. It's a cliche in many cartoons and pieces of writing that such locations are the watery grave for old bikes and supermarket trolleys. And guess what? It's true - these were the most common items dumped in the canal from the bridge. Today's photograph shows a  cluster - there were more!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:640
Exposure Compensation: 0EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Social television and other rubbish

click photo to enlarge
Occasionally I read something that makes my jaw drop so far that it hits the table and rattles my teeth. That happened the other day when my newspaper introduced me to the concept of "social television".

Now you may know all about this up-and-coming trend, but I lead a more sheltered life, consume relatively little television, and so hadn't been introduced to the novel format. Apparently what it involves is watching a programme - factual, fiction, "reality", it matters not what - and at the same time submitting your comments and reading those of other viewers through the magic of Twitter and Facebook. These can appear either on your laptop or phone that you have beside you as you watch television, or on the TV screen itself which is then split between the progamme and the comments.

Perhaps I'm too "last century" but I think that if you are able to give your attention to making or reading comments as you watch a film, a series, a documentary, any programme, then you're probably viewing worthless drivel whose sole function is to generate money for those who conceived it, and is doing no more for you than waste the short time you have between birth and the grave. The fact is, if a TV offering does not fully engage you then it isn't worth watching. Moreover, aren't we, by the very act of viewing rubbish, by reading the comments of other people about that rubbish, and making our own contributions to the puerile dialogue, in danger of self-defining ourselves as vacuous, grasshopper-minded divots? I will admit to never having engaged in this kind of thing, but I have read the email and text comments solicited by TV news programmes, and the comments that online newspapers now invite. Many - probably most - of these remind me of the outpourings of what a UK politician once famously described as "the green ink brigade": that is to say the fevered, bilious letters of the angry and slightly deranged, written in coloured inks designed to catch the reader's eye and make the writer's points more forcibly. It seems to me that the kind of "participation" that "social television" offers is meaningless, does nothing to improve the quality of TV, and is as significant and ephemeral as litter.

Speaking of litter, that's the subject of today's photograph. A few days ago I came across what appeared to be a strip of plastic used in vegetable packing that had escaped its confining warehouse and found a new purpose decorating dead weeds and a piece of metal on some nearby waste ground. Having recently taken down our Christmas tree this wind-shredded plastic strip looked to me like a grim version of the tinsel that I'd help to unwind, and so I took this shot.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dumped TVs and fanciful imaginings

click photo to enlarge
On a warm and sunny afternoon we had a cycle ride that took us through the flat Fenland landscape in the vicinity of Donington, Lincolnshire. In many areas of Britain the countryside starts to get a slightly unkempt look at the beginning of autumn. Not in the Fens however. This intensively farmed area receives constant attention from man and machine as crops are planted, tended, and harvested, at which point the soil is prepared for the next crop. And, since maximising output is the aim, just about every acre is well-tended and tidy.

So, as I cycled alongside a field where regimented ranks of winter wheat shoots were just starting to appear, you can imagine my surprise at coming upon an old TV resting upright on the carefully manicured soil near the road. What kind of low life would drive into the open country, open their car door and throw an unwanted television down the bank on to a field? Especially when the local council's "amenity sites" (waste dump) will receive and recycle such articles at no charge. Sometimes I despair of the selfish irresponsibility of my fellow citizens.

However, rather than dwell on the disfigurement of the countryside by the oaf who dumped this article I thought I'd see the discarded TV as an "opportunity", and took this photograph. Remembering Marcel Duchamp's dictum that anything can be art as long as it is taken out of context, it occurred to me that the unwanted television was a "ready-made", not unlike his bicycle wheels and urinals, and consequently I pronounce my photograph to be a work of art! I'm thinking that, if I can secure a sponsor to help me develop my theme then today's image will be the first in a series that will comment on the "the condition of mankind." My next image will have a man buried up to his neck in the field with his head inside the TV (screen removed), and arms sticking up to left and right. Then I'll move on to life-sized straw figures standing in the ripe wheat and caught in the act of hurling the TV at an oncoming combine harvester. Yes, that TV has definite possibilities... Or maybe not!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On