The chimneys at Melton Ross

click photo to enlarge
We periodically travel from our Lincolnshire home to north of the Humber on family business. Our route to the Humber Bridge, the crossing that takes us over the river from Lincolnshire into Yorkshire, is always the same, though our route home is frequently varied to include the opportunity for shopping, a walk and photography.

Travelling north we always drive past the chalk quarries at Melton Ross. Chalk has been dug in this location for nearly two hundred years and chimneys of one kind or another must have been a feature here since whiting first began to be produced.Today a variety of lime products and services keep four large chimneys and assorted smaller ones sending very visible plumes into the north Lincolnshire sky. I've photographed part of the works (click photo for extra large image)before - also on a damp, overcast day - but this time I went to the summit of the road bridge that goes over the nearby railway to get my shot

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title:Chalk Quarry Chimneys, Melton Ross, Lincolnshire
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 56mm (112mm - 35mm equiv.) cropped
F No: f5.5
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Winter trees

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Winter trees - at least the deciduous variety - are different from the trees of spring, summer and autumn. In the more benign seasons they appear genial, softer, friendlier, more welcoming, a complement to their location. In winter, however, these trees seem to have a split personality. Looked at on a cold, clear day, with blue sky above, or seen against the warm glow of a sunrise or sunset, the tracery of twigs, branches and boughs charm the eye with their beauty and invite us to look more closely at them and admire their delicacy. However, on a cold, damp, grey foggy day, the wet, black, skeletal silhouettes can assume a severe, malign, even depressing, appearance.

I was thinking about this as I pointed my camera across a piece of waste ground in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, framing some factory chimneys and the smoke or steam that was issuing from them. The billowing, white clouds were being distressed and dispersed by the wind as they climbed from the stack and trailed across the dark clouds above. Should I move to my left and exclude the trees from my composition, or should I include them? I briefly tossed those thoughts back and forth in my head and decided that the trees, on this occasion, added a desolate touch that intensified the slightly grim prospect before me, and I took my shot. In summer they would add a welcome greenness, softening the location, offering towers of natural beauty in this urban setting where housing abutted the towers of industry. But, on this late November day, despite the sun breaking through the cloud cover, that welcome verdure was only a memory and a promise.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

If it ain't broken...

click photo to enlarge

This blog has a Site Meter hit counter. It tells me how many visitors I have, what they look at, where they come from, any search term they used in arriving here, and much more, though nothing, I hasten to add, that can be tracked to an individual. Over the past two days Site Meter "updated" this counter, incorporated flash, and made a useful tool virtually useless! Features that I used regularly became unavailable, or only accessible by multiple clicks, new features were not what I needed, and the whole process became painfully slow. I looked on the internet to see if others felt the same as I did, and the "noise" around this change showed that they clearly did. So, hearing this, Site Meter immediately posted a notice saying they would roll back to the original offering, and followed up by saying any further changes would be fully beta tested and incremental. In fact, having fouled up, their behaviour was then exemplary: to their credit Site Meter listened to their customers and within 12 hours we had the hit counter back to its old, useful, self.

I wish the BBC TV weather forecasters would learn from Site Meter. A few years ago they introduced a new "chart" that the camera swoops over whilst the presenter prattles on, telling us what we can already see from the animated weather on the screen. The overview of the weather should be presented with stationary graphics, and doesn't need any talk at all. But now a simple summary takes a couple of minutes as we lurch from region to region. People are mainly interested in what's going to happen in their area or the place they are to visit, and don't want to know about the rest of the country. But, the software has other ideas, and the forecasters are dictated to by its features, rather than using it to illustrate what they want to say. Because of this we don't routinely get a forecast for 12 and 24 hours ahead - there isn't time! Moreover, the animations have a spurious accuracy, suggesting that patches of rain and cloud will affect very specific areas across the country for carefully measured amounts of time: they rarely do! Nonetheless, the precision of the display beguiles people into that belief. Then, later in the day anger and frustration set in when the weather proves to be different from that which was predicted. Consequently the forecasts are less useful than those which preceded them, and the new, all singing and dancing graphics are no improvement at all! However, contrition of the type shown by Site Meter is conspicuously absent at the BBC and they press on with their wretched "forecasts."

All of which has very little to do with my photograph of a traction engine driver at the Bicker Steam Threshing weekend. Except that he knows what Site Meter and the BBC seemingly don't - namely, if something is working well, leave it alone. Or, as it is often phrased, "if it ain't broken, don't fix it!" Despite the smoke from the engine's funnel blowing all around him it was powering the threshing machine beautifully, leaving him the time to survey the people and activities around him from his high, warm vantage point.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 137mm (274mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On