Unexpected photographic subjects

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A camera of one sort or another is with me wherever I go. Too many lost shots have taught me the lesson that, when you don't have a camera a great shot will inevitably present itself. Or at least it will be great in your memory as are so many missed opportunities. Consequently, on a recent short walk around the Lincolnshire fields and lanes near where we live I carried a camera, this despite the fact that it was August, the sun was high in the sky, and the chances of a shot were slight. And, my caution paid off. I didn't get a great shot, but I got a couple that I didn't expect of a subject I had never considered.

Stacked by the edge of a field were large rolls of thermal netting, the sort that is put over young brassicas in March in order to raise the temperature two or three degrees, give the plants a quick start and the farmer an earlier crop and therefore a better price. The ends of a couple of rolls were spilling down the stack, their stains and folds making a gauze-like, diaphanous texture that I knew would be quite appealing when a section was isolated in the viewfinder frame. Mercifully the end of the rolls next to the footpath were in the shade rather than the searing sunlight so I had no hard contrast to deal with. I made a several exposures, trying to come up with a composition that offered a little interest in terms of shape, line and colour. These two are my best efforts; not great shots but images with soft, quiet interest, delicate textures and subtle colours. And all the better, from my point of view, in being an unusual subject captured on a day of low expectations.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (63mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

New perspectives on familiar subjects

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It occurs to me that the title of today's post states one of the aims of most enthusiast and professional photographers. It is still possible to find subjects that haven't been photographed before, or haven't been photographed very often. But, photographers number in their millions, photographs in their billions, and inevitably most of the things that you and I point a camera at have been subjected to photography before. Consequently we daily try to see our familiar subjects in a different way from the way they've been seen before.

There are two ways of achieving this goal. You can set about the task consciously, adjusting your viewpoint, focal length, time of day, weather or any of the other variables that you can deliberately manipulate. Or, you seize the moment when serendipity offers you the opportunity of a less usual kind of image. On my Thames-side walks from Rotherhithe into the centre of London I've taken more than a few shots of Tower Bridge, a structure that says "London" to the world. Most of them have been ordinary, unexceptional, cliched, hackneyed, boringly familiar - choose your own description. I've posted only two of my images that have the bridge as the main subject - one from a less familiar location, and the other a deliberate attempt at a "different" kind of portrayal.

A couple of days ago I seized the moment when a shaft of late afternoon sunlight illuminated the bridge and made it positively glow against the dark clouds and deep shadows, and I thought this serendipitously taken shot, though not unique, was unusual enough to post.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photography and serendipity

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The word "serendipity" was coined in 1754 by the English writer and historian, Horace Walpole (1717-1797) from a "silly fairy tale" that he had read called The Three Princes of Serendip (Serendip was a former name for Sri Lanka). It means, "the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident" (OED), though over the years it has come to have a second, linked meaning of - "good fortune, good luck or happy chance or circumstance".

Since Walpole invented the word it has been used widely and has spread across the world, even crossing into other languages. Moreover, people have come to recognize it as an uncontrollable attribute akin to fate or luck, though its positive qualities endear it to people more than those fickle powers. In most walks of life - business, science, technology, medicine, the arts etc. - serendipity is recognized as that unforseen but fortunate happening that can be seized and used. I find that in photography it can play a significant role.

Take today's image. I was standing on the bank of the River Slea at Sleaford composing this photograph. To the right I placed the short section of fence - a bit of foreground interest among the nearby nettles and grass. I moved slightly so that the reflected trees fell to the left and right of the upright post in the water. Then, surveying the scene through the viewfinder I wished for a little more interest on the left of the composition. At that moment the inverted reflection of two walkers came into view, so I waited for them to reach the patch of blue sky above the reflected bank in the top corner then pressed the shutter button. Serendipity had struck again!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Serendipitous visual connections

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Photography has always made more of serendipitous visual connections than has painting. The fact that painters have a free rein when it comes to subjects, whereas photograpers have to root their images in something offered by the real world largely accounts for this. Surreal paintings, for example, can be anything that the painter can imagine, whereas the photographer's conceptions are limited by the subjects he can capture and the way they can be juxtaposed.

Today's photograph was taken at the same exhibition of underwear as yesterday's image. Here a group of mannequins modelling bras, corsets, briefs etc. were arranged on raised blocks in front of a wall. The curator had taken careful steps to theme the signs and props that accompanied the lingerie, even to the point of having a discreet "Please do not touch" sign painted on the backdrop in a red, cursive script. It was clearly meant to apply to the mannequins and their underwear. However, when framed by the camera alongside a headless, voluptuous female shape made of overlapping shadows it seemed to be less of a request for restraint and more an invitation to consider the nature of reality. Can you touch a shadow? Does a shadow actually exist in a corporeal sense, or in any other tangible way? How would you go about leaving a mark on a shadow?

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Serendipitous photographs

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One afternoon on my recent visit to Settle, North Yorkshire, I saw the bright yellow helicopter of the North West Air Ambulance descending into the valley, clearly intent on landing in fields by the river. Since our route took us near to the place that it uses we made a short detour to grab a couple of photographs. Fortuitously the path on the road bridge over the River Ribble gave a good vantage point from which to look down at the comings and goings around the helicopter, now at rest next to the town's football pitch. As I noted in an earlier post, the fun fair was in town, and unfortunately the showmen's lorries and caravans were parked near the bridge, slightly impinging on the photographs that I wanted to take of the helicopter on the ground.

But, serendipity is a wonderful thing, and as I stood with a few other onlookers, waiting for the helicopter and its passengers to depart, I spotted the shadows that we were making on the side of one of the large caravans slightly below us. The image I took is, to my mind, better than the shots of the helicopter that I intended to take. That's me on the right framing this shot!

I don't know about you, but I find that my best photographs are often taken in circumstances such as these. You know the scenario, you've a day to spend in an historic and scenic city, or you're going on a walk through some beautiful landscape, but all you come back with are boring and predictable shots of places and things that have been photographed to death by everyone. However, you also have a collection of much better shots of things that you happened to notice, such as street signs, fence posts, cafe chairs, people or brickwork, images that could have been gathered just about anywhere! Two of the important lessons I've learned during my forty years with a camera is that good photographs are available anywhere and everywhere, not just in the "special" places of this world; and, photographs often have a great way of finding you, rather than you always having to search them out.

photographs & text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 119mm (238mm/35mm equiv.) (40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.))
F No: f5.3 (f5)
Shutter Speed: 1/500 (1/1600)
ISO: 100 (100)
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 (-0.7) EV
Image Stabilisation: On (On)