Hull and Humber

click photo to enlarge
I lived in Kingston upon Hull for several years in the 1970s and 1980s. Having been raised in the Yorkshire Dales I found moving from the hills and the drizzle to a port city in drier, brighter Eastern England quite a contrast. Hull has a range of industries along the two rivers on whose banks it stands, and I found a lot of interest and good photographic opportunities in them, as well as in its historic "old town" and docks.

Residents of this Yorkshire city invariably call it by the name that derives from the narrow river on which it was built - the River Hull. The grander version of the name bequeathed in 1299 by King Edward 1, in preference to Wyke or Wyke upon Hull, is favoured by official bodies but eschewed by the locals. On a brief, recent visit to the city I walked around the area at the confluence of the River Hull and the mighty River Humber into which the lesser river flows. The old pier head remains, but the Humber Bridge did for the "Lincoln Castle" paddle steamer that used to be the means of crossing the Humber from Yorkshire to Lincolnshire. At the junction of the rivers, on a point that once was empty of buildings, a large, futuristic looking new aquarium sits. New crossings span the River Hull, and it was as I stood on the pedestrian bridge over the water that the "Rix Eagle", a fuel bunkering lighter, passed under the tidal barrier, then beneath me, and headed out past "The Deep" into the Humber and downstream towards the commercial docks.

I photographed the long, barge-like ship as it passed below the tidal barrier, then turning, took another shot as it headed into the Humber. The latter photograph, with a very bright sky, works better in black and white, but the first shot benefits much more from colour.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

King's Lynn buoys

click photo to enlarge

Earth colours and subtle, matching hues are all very well, but sometimes, for a photographer, there's nothing better, than to happen upon some good, strong primary colours. I did just that the other day when I visited King's Lynn in Norfolk. I'd been to the particular location before, and knew that it was the place where buoys used in the River Great Ouse and The Wash are renovated and re-painted (see previous photographs here and here). However, nothing prepared me for the brilliance of the colour I encountered. Perhaps it was the deep blue of the sky, itself accentuated by the soft, white clouds, that gave the yellows and reds of the buoys their extra "punch". Or maybe it was the newly painted examples sitting on the boat, ready to be taken to their turbulent moorings. The fresh green and the battered green added to the effect, giving me the opportunity to take a photograph that was as much about the colour as it was about the subjects depicted.

Over the years I've often found myself, toward the end of a cold, dark winter, craving the colour that a sun higher in the sky, and the season of spring itself, promises. My bee-line to the first flowers in the garden usually beats the real bees, and the flowers that my wife buys to arrange in our vases during this period are also a draw. This year, in mid-February, I found myself manufacturing the effect of sun shining through the petals of a flower. I even stole the title and sentiments of George Harrison's "Here Comes The Sun" as a hook for the "reflection" as well as for the title of the post. However, in mid-August, after a summer that has had as much, and possibly more, sun as the average English summer, what excuse can I profer for gleefully photographing some brightly painted buoys. I can only plead a surfeit of rural vegetative greens and browns. It's true that Lincolnshire's landscape is punctuated by roofs of orange pantiles, and the over-arching sky is often of the deepest blue, but my photographic diet in recent weeks (quick trips to bustling Lincoln and the glitz of Skegness notwithstanding) has been pretty much one featuring rural "earth colours". So, like a schoolboy whose sweets have been confiscated, I was craving the sugar of primary colours, and I took the opportunity to get my fill in King's Lynn.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On