Photos from hill and dale

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph was taken on 1st October on an unseasonally warm and bright day with scarcely a cloud to be seen. We were walking from Settle to Knight Stainforth upstream alongside the River Ribble. The water was lower than is usual for this time of year due to a dry spell and with very little by way of breeze its surface was quite mirror-like. Looking at my photograph you could almost imagine it was high summer, such is the brightness of the light and the clarity of the scene. Only the hint of the trees turning to autumnal colours reveals the later date in the year. Weather of this kind isn't what I usually look for when I'm out with my camera; I prefer more interesting skies. And yet this light on this scene was sufficiently attractive for me to take the shot.

As I reviewed the photographs taken during our time in the Settle area I realised that a couple of days before I took this photograph we had been on the limestone above the Ribble Valley near this point. A shot I'd taken of the valley side with its medieval terrace remains emphasised by the slanting light also included this stretch of river and the prominent tree (the first of a line of five or so). If you enlarge the small photograph and look near the centre you'll see the location. What I find interesting about this pair of images, from hill and dale, is how the second photograph contextualises the first and shows the topography of the setting.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Seasonal colour

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Recently, as I was looking through my 2012 collection of photographs, I got to thinking about basic natural, seasonal colours. It seems to me that in a country such as ours green, blue, grey and white are colours that are constants throughout the year. Grass, sky, clouds and snow provide those. To these three staples winter adds the black of wet trees and the brown of dead vegetation. Spring injects the yellow and yellow-green of new growth into the mix. Autumn adds the tints of yellow, brown, orange and red of turning leaves. But it is summer when nature deploys the fullest colour palette. To all of the colours of the other seasons are added every other colour that nature offers. But more than that, it offers them in deeper hues. Consequently when in September autumn makes its presence first felt in subdued tones, longer shadows and the first chill in the air, I look at the colours around me with a sense of what I'm about to lose.

On a walk in mid-September at Market Deeping I stopped on the bridge over the River Welland and looked downstream at the trees overhanging the shallow water. The sun was shining and the light was bright and clear revealing every detail.  The colours were deep and glowing with a touch of autumnal brown in some of the leaves. The view offered little in the way of a main subject but the mix of colours was beautiful and evocative of the summer that was beginning to pass out of reach. So I tried to hang on to it through the photograph I took.

A week earlier we'd been in Grantham and I took another photograph. It offered a nice contrast between the sharp angularity of the building and the irregularity of the planting. But it too offered that memory of summer. Here the flowers were starting to turn and the first fallen leaves of a silver birch were littering the grass. In a few short weeks the leaves would be gone and the flowers too. But the scene retained the essence of summer whilst at the same time prefiguring the autumn to come.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Unusual winter blooms

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The flowers in today's photograph are both common and unusual. How so? Well, they are Peruvian Lilies (Alstromeria) that are often found blooming in English gardens between June and November. When the firsts frosts arrive they usually fall over along with many other summer and autumn blooming plants that develop from rhizomes. However, these flowers were picked in mid-December, such has been the winter in my part of eastern England. What early frosts we have had have not been very hard, and consequently it is unusual to have these flowers from the garden on display in the house in early January.

We noticed another odd occurrence yesterday. Some of the white flowers known as spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) are coming into flower before our snowdrops (Galanthus); usually it happens the other way round. I'm told by the Meteorological Office that the weather so far this winter is "normal" and anyone thinking it is particularly mild has had their perceptions warped by the last two winters that were much colder than usual. Maybe, but that doesn't account for phenomena such as these that haven't, to my knowledge, happened in other "normal" winters.

I thought I'd record these late bloomers with the camera, and so I placed them in some filtered sunlight that was coming through a window and put a sheet of black vinyl behind them. The macro lens did the rest.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm macro
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 100 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Seasonal expectations

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Sometimes I think I'm out of step with the world: other times I think the world's out of step with me. Take the buying of winter clothes. I expect to be able to go into a shop in February or March and buy items suitable for the season. However, too often the things I want have been removed and replaced with summer wear. Apparently late winter and early spring is the time to buy summer clothing! Or how about Christmas food. You might expect it to be available in the days immediately before Christmas. And some certainly is. But not the full range - that is long gone because it has been on sale from late September!

But it's not just the minds of retailers that are determined to thwart my seasonal expectations, so too is Mother Nature. Today's photographs were gathered on the last days of October and today, the first day of November. The shot of fallen leaves from my cherry tree is just the sort of image I expect to be able to take in early November. But how about the wild flowers. These are all in full bloom too. The cornflowers are having a second flush, and I saw the chamomile in summer too. But this variety of ragwort seems to be making its first appearance, and a photograph of flowers such as these is not what I expect to be shooting just now. Then there's perhaps the most surprising photograph of the three images  - it shows a wild grape vine growing in a hedgerow in Lincolnshire, and producing fine looking grapes. Not too out of season perhaps, but certainly out of place in England: it's a first for me. As I say, not quite what I expect to see given the season.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Victoria plums and natural light

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If, in a simplistic kind of way, we divide the year into four equal length seasons, and we assign three months to each of them, then technically the arrival of September brings autumn. Yet early September, especially when, as recently, the days are warm and sunny, not only feels like summer, it IS summer (albeit the tail-end). Consequently we are not yet into Keats' "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness". Except, in terms of fruit trees, we are. Most confusing.

We've had a few calls recently - in person and by phone - asking if we'd like some plums. This year's harvest is exceptional, and anyone with a plum tree seems to have more than they can manage. We've got one, and consequently the kind offers have had to be declined, and we have spent some time furnishing friends and neighbours with our own surplus fruit.

Today's photograph shows part of a basket of our Victoria plums in the utility room. Some of them were given to visitors, the rest turned into puddings or frozen. I saw the plums illuminated by the early morning sun filtering through the Venetian blinds, and the deep colour and lustrous surfaces simply cried out for a photograph. As I've said elsewhere in this blog, though I possess three flash guns, my strong preference whenever possible, is to use natural light. There are those who are sufficiently skilled with artificial lighting that they can simulate (or almost simulate) natural light. I'm not one of those: I have neither the technique nor the desire. Moreover, natural light is often so wonderfully captivating, one of life's pleasures in fact, that I can't see the point in trying to replicate it with a flash or other lights. Perhaps if I made my living by photography and was subject to external pressures to deliver I'd see it differently. But fortunately I don't, and I can point my camera at whatever takes my fancy - including these plums of late summer. Or is it early autumn?

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Times of transition

click photo to enlarge

The seasons of spring and autumn are times of transition. In the case of spring, it's from the seeming death of winter to the bursting bounty of summer, whilst autumn takes us from leafy fullness back to the cold, bony hardness of winter. Birdwatchers prefer these seasons because migration is at its peak, and a greater variety of species can be seen. And, if you ask a photographer which is their favourite season the chances are that they too will vote for either spring or autumn. Why is that?

Well, photographer's aren't blind to the fresh, newness of spring, with its changing landscapes. But it's more than that which attracts them. The days' cold edge often makes the light sparklingly clear, the clouds are frequently at their most interesting, and the surface of the earth has a vivid greenness that just invites looking. Autumn, on the other hand, presents us with days that are misty and indistinct, making big shapes out of clusters of detail, throwing unlikely colours before us, and then surprising us with deep blue skies and dark shadows. The high sun of summer and the dull, flat light of winter can't compete with our seasons of transition.

I was thinking about this as I walked round my garden, looking at the fading plants. Round the pond the hostas were dying back, the tips of their limp leaves ragged and brown, the centres yellow, and the part near the stalk still fresh-looking green. The low afternoon sun was shining through some contorted leaves that had their edges faced skyward, so I got down on my stomach to take shots of these glowing surfaces with their emphasised veins.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On