Antiques down the ages

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There was a time when we regularly visited auctions and took an interest in the windows of antique shops. We were younger then, starting out in life, and the prospect of a bargain buy of an old piece of furniture to add to our home was something that appealed to us. In fact, we still have several of those purchases today including a lacquered and painted bamboo table, a chest of drawers, and some jade elephants. We retain them because they have served us well down the decades

I was reflecting on antiques the other day when we were in the Lincolnshire town of Horncastle. This is a place that has specialised in antique shops - it has many. Did antiques, I wondered, appeal to us more because we were younger? Did the age and character of the pieces offer us something that contemporary pieces didn't (apart from, usually, a better price)? In recent decades I believe that antiques have generally become less desirable than they were. They are not something I would go out of my way to buy today. But then, I have all the furniture I need, and am likely to need, so from our perspective that is certainly a difference from our younger years.

But, even though I'm not in the market for antiques, old habits die hard and I still have an occasional look at them through shop windows, on pavements, in yards, or wherever else they are displayed. Today's photograph shows a collection of pieces in a narrow yard at the side of a Horncastle antique shop. This section of the jumble of pots, statues, tiles, plants etc made a pleasing composition, and sepia with a vignette seemed a good way to present the shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 52mm (78mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Plough Sunday and Monday

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Traditionally the dates of Plough Sunday and Plough Monday fall on the first Sunday and Monday after Epiphany (Twelfth Night). In the eastern counties of England a church service was held that included a plough being brought into the building to form the centrepiece of the worship and for it to receive a blessing. Then, on Plough Monday, the ploughboys would return to work at the start of the ploughing season. Often on this day a plough was taken in a parade through the town or village and money sought from farmers and the well-to-do, welcome funds for workers whose employment was at a low ebb over the turn of the year. Sometimes these festivities were accompanied by morris or sword dances. Individual villages came up with their own traditions unique to their location. One such example centred on the fenland villages of Ramsey and Whittlesey. Every year they paraded a straw bear through the streets drawn by the ploughwitches!

These traditions continue. Sometimes it is in a revived form (as at Whittlesey today), but elsewhere it is an unbroken survival of a traditional custom. In the village where I live a church service, complete with plough, is held every year. This year it is on the Sunday 13th January when the thousand year old Norman building will once again echo to "We plough the fields and scatter".

Today's photograph shows what appears to be an early twentieth century plough. It stands next to a farm, a reminder of the days when ploughing in autumn for winter wheat wasn't the usual way, and ploughs were pulled by real horses rather than the horsepower of an enormous tractor. I took my photograph on a frosty morning when the sun was low in the sky. It seemed an appropriate subject for a conversion to sepiatone.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: 2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sepia, vignettes and the human touch

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Photography changes; it always has. Digital and colour are now dominant where film and black and white once reigned. Today images are most commonly viewed on screens but paper prints held sway for most of photography's history. People have always been the main subject matter. However, I have the feeling that a wider range of subject is now evident, though with the human form still ascendant.

Then there are the styles within pictures. Callotype, tintype, hand-colouring and much else fell away (except for the odd enthusiast) as straightforward, automated chemical processes for first black and white, then colour, appeared. But the ease, flexibility and immediacy of digital has allowed the qualities of the old styles to re-appear. I've always had a soft spot for sepia toned photographs. I see them as black and white with a warm edge. Similarly, the vignette has alway appealed to me for the concentration that it gives to the subject and the contrast that it can inject into what might otherwise be a flat scene. Of course, because these effects are perceived as "old" any modern use tends to give a patina of age to a shot. I wish it didn't, and perhaps if such effects were used more they would become simply common additions to the photographer's armoury, but sans the associations of history.

The other day I went into one of our bedrooms and, under the effect of partly closed curtains and morning light, the blinkers fell away. I saw afresh what I'd seen many, many times before. So I took a photograph of the edge of the bed, the bedside chest and my wife's sandals. I sepia toned it and added to the natural, curtain-induced vignette, some all-round vignetting, and then sat back and looked at my work. It was fine as far as it went, but it didn't go quite far enough. I felt it needed a dissonant note adding to the mix. So I added a human one in the form of my hand and arm, a little something to make the viewer, or at least one who hasn't read this explanation, wonder about the picture.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/5
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sepia, Sutcliffe and boats

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Every now and then I come over all Frank Meadow Sutcliffe. I blame this affliction on the book of his photographs that I was given on leaving a job many years ago. The most recent occasion when I was struck by the condition was as we walked by The Haven. This is the tidal section section of the River Witham below the Grand Sluice, that serves as both a mooring place and quay for pleasure boats and fishing vessels, and links with the dock of the Port of Boston. The usual varied selection of craft were tied up along the winding waterway, and as the river was low, a selection of ancient, rotting hulks, stained green and brown with weed and mud, were also visible. It was the latter that made me think of the great Whitby photographer, because the shape and style of some of them reminded me of the craft that fill the photographs he took of that town's harbour. Some of them may even have plied the coastal waters during his lifetime.

Among the well-kept yachts and utilitarian inshore fishing boats I saw a few of, what I call, "hobby boats". By that I mean craft that are past their best and have been bought by an enthusiast as a "project". Such vessels can often be identified by their paintwork (colourful), name (fanciful), lettering (amateurish), the slabs of marine ply that replace original timber, and the clutter of tools and other bits and pieces that litter the deck. I first became acquainted with such craft when I lived in Lancashire. The River Wyre and Skippool Creek near Poulton le Fylde had a few dozen such boats. The biggest was called "Good Hope". My wife and I called it "No Hope" because the speed of renovation never kept pace with the speed of decay.

The little group of craft in today's photograph look like hobby boats. Interestingly most of them are not Boston registrations, but are from nearby King's Lynn. Their styles and arrangement brought Sutcliffe to mind and I took my photograph. Later, back at the computer, I compared a sepia treatment with both colour and black and white versions and decided I preferred it. Sepia tone is often used in photography today to suggest the past, but I think it has merit of itself. The warm cast that it gives to an image is different from the colder tones of black and white and lends a different feel to a photograph.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 84mm
F No: 10
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation: -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The megapixels wars and dynamic range

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The rise in the megapixel count of compact cameras has become ridiculous. Models are routinely being sold boasting sensors with 14MP, and consumers are buying them thinking that they offer better image quality than the models with a lower number. Manufacturers know this isn't the case. Enthusiast and professional photographers do too. But, the camera makers, years ago, embarked on the "more is better" method of selling new models and seem unable (or unwilling) to depart from it. This has also started to infect DSLRs: witness the concerns over the Canon 50D (15MP) and the 7D (18MP).

Anyone who is confused by all this needs to know that the main factors in image quality are the lens (just as it always has been) and the processor that works on the image in the camera, but that possibly the most important factor is the density of pixels on the sensor. The lens on an inexpensive camera is usually fairly basic, but given that it's small is usually adequate. In-camera processors improve year on year, so that the images from this year's 10MP camera are likely to be better than the equivalent sensor/MP size of three years ago. Now, what about pixel density? Here are some examples from cameras available today:

Samsung TL240 - 14.1MP - 50MP/sq.cm.
Canon Powershot S90 - 10MP - 23MP/sq.cm.
Olympus E510 DSLR - 10MP - 4.1MP/sq.cm.
Pentax K-7 DSLR - 14.6MP - 4.0MP/sq.cm.
Nikon D3S DSLR - 12.1MP - 1.4MP/sq.cm.
Go to this page of DPReview to find out the pixel density of your camera.

The best image quality in that list will come from the Nikon (the one with the biggest sensor) and the worst from the camera with the highest megapixel count, the Samsung (which has the smallest sensor.) I could have chosen 5 different cameras and, by and large, the image quality would have been directly related to the sensor size and pixel density. Of course, when people ignore the megapixel count they tend to buy within a price range, and that's when choice and comparisons become more complicated. However, the truth is that usable detail, dynamic range, visual noise and all the other factors that make for a good image is closely related to the sensor size and pixel density, not the number of megapixels. In fact, most compact consumer digital cameras would today be producing better images if the manufacturers had stopped at 8MP.

Today's photograph was taken with my LX3 (10MP, 24MP/sq.cm.) and illustrates the second theme in today's "reflection." I'd trade dynamic range for megapixels any day. This shot was difficult for the camera because of the dark shadows of the street near the bright, sunlit clouds. I had to set the EV to -1.33 to control the highlights, and that introduced quite a bit more noise into the shadows which I had to clean up afterwards at the expense of detail. If digital camera manufacturers put less effort into increasing the number of megapixels and more into enabling their products to record the detail in both bright highlights and darker shadows, then images would be sharper and closer to what our eye/brain sees. Cameras that could do this would be easier to expose, and, most helpful of all, images would require less post-processing.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.9mm (37mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A Victorian photographic effect

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Over the past few years I've tried on several occasions to photograph the church of St Laurence at Surfleet in Lincolnshire. This medieval building is known for miles around for its mainly fourteenth century tower that leans westward quite dramatically due to subsidence. However, it is one of those buildings that is hemmed in by trees on the side where the best photographs can be secured, a problem that is present in about a third of all churches if my experience is anything to go by!

So, this year I determined that I would photograph St Laurence (and a few other tree-bound churches) when the leaves had fallen. As I passed the building the other day the autumn winds seemed to have done most of their work, so I looked for my shot. The best composition I could find was from my favoured position at the south-east corner of the churchyard. At Surfleet this gave me a view with a tree trunk to the left and right with a veil of thin branches between, all of which acted as a "frame". Looking at the image on the computer I reflected that this was a very traditional composition, of the sort that might have been taken by a Victorian antiquarian with his plate camera. And that thought caused me to experiment with sepia tone and a bit of white vignetting. As I've mentioned before, I'm not a great believer in photographic "effects", but this one pleases me for its quite authentic old fashioned look, and so I thought I'd post it rather than my original colour photograph.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bay leaves and homonyms

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Our store of dried bay leaves is getting low, so the other day I picked some more from the tree that grows in our garden. We are fortunate to have this particular specimen because eighteen months ago a high wind brought down a massive limb from a nearby willow that flattened it. Remarkably, after the fallen branch was removed, the 12 feet tall bay sprang back to almost vertical, and, after a few months of being tied upright to a stake, resumed its normal and vigorous growth.

I collected about a hundred leaves making no impression on the tree, and laid them out on wire trays in a cool, north-facing room to dry. Being a meticulous sort of person (well, sometimes anyway!) I arranged them in rows to maximise the number that the tray would hold. The following day, casting around for subjects for a photograph or two, I noticed the drying bay leaves and took several shots of them. The example above, with its contrast increased using a blue filter, then sepia-toned, is the best of the bunch.

Whilst I was taking my shots it occurred to me that the word "bay" is a homonym with quite a few meanings. Being a pedantic sort of person (well, sometimes anyway!) I decided to see how many such meanings I could find. My researches uncovered about 14 distinct definitions. "Bay" can mean: a type of tree, a small ball (obscure), an indentation of the sea into the land, an indentation of the land into the sea or into a range of hills (both obscure!), an opening in a wall (especially the space between two columns), a recess in a building, prolonged barking or shouting, the stance of a hunted animal, an embankment, a particular branch of an antler, the old word for baize, a reddish brown colour (especially of horses), to seek with open mouth (obscure). Being an inquisitive sort of person (always!) I wonder if anyone feels their life is a little more complete knowing trivia of this sort?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Minsters and monstrous packaging

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As I sat at my desk and processed this photograph of Southwell Minster, Nottingham- shire, I was surrounded by a pile of debris that made me despair. It was there because the other day I ordered a 4GB compact flash card online, and expected to receive just that. How naive I am!

The card came in the small, useful, protective, plastic case that will be familiar to anyone who uses these devices. That's what I expected. However, I also received:
- a small padded, zipped, nylon case with a keyring, packaged in a cellophane bag;
- a mini-CD with data recovery software (inside its own sleeve);
- a 24-page User Guide, in multiple languages with warranty details;
- three further pieces of card and paper that advertised the manufacturer's range of memory cards, urged me to buy Capture One Pro image processing software, and told me how to responsibly dispose of the card;
- a strong, sealed, moulded clear plastic package holding most of the above;
- a colourful box (with hidden security tag) holding everything.

Why the manufacturer thinks I need two containers for one card I really don't know. The sole effect of the recovery software was to make me wonder about the reliability of the product and the value of its lifetime guarantee! As for the card enclosures, whilst the warranty information is doubtless a legal requirement, the rest of it was of no use whatsoever: and a User Guide for a memory card is laughably pointless. The plastic package was of the sort penetrable only by a small nuclear device (or a very strong pair of scissors), and yes, once again I got scratched by the sharp edges as I fought my way into it. As I looked at the glossy box that contained all of the above I idly wondered how many memory cards it would hold. So I measured it. The answer is about 95! If they were in the small, useful cases it would still hold 32! Am I alone in thinking that the packaging a product has should have a teeny bit of correlation to the size of the object it holds? I imagine the producer of this device has an environmental policy that it proudly trumpets to shareholders and any member of the public that asks about such a thing. But it's not worth the paper it's written on if it sells its products in such an environmentally unsustainable way.

I gave another glance at the pile of rubbish on my desk as I processed my photograph and noticed on the box, under the name and logo, the company's slogan - "Store your world in ours". I reflected that therein lies the problem. There aren't multiple worlds, there's only one, and it's a world that we all share. The danger in being driven solely by your own view of the world, whether as a company or as an individual, is that you follow your own selfish interest, lose any sense of the absurd, forget the duty we owe to each other and the planet, and neglect the steps that are necessary to sustain us. Oh, and supply compact flash cards in a ludicrous amount of packaging!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off