Concrete pantiles

click photo to enlarge
The first flat clay tiles (plain tiles) in England were probably those introduced by the Romans. They manufactured them here too and examples can still be found in the cities, towns and villas that were built during their time in these islands. Medieval masons found them and incorporated some in their walling, though they increasingly manufactured their own plain tiles as a fire-proof replacement for thatch.The pantile with its "S" shaped curve was introduced into England from the Low Countries in the seventeenth century. Its name derives from the old Dutch "dakpan" (roof pan) and the German "pfannenziegel" (pantile). They quickly became popular in the eastern counties of our country where thatch predominated and roofing stone was scarce. In these areas, by the eighteenth century, pantiles were the roof covering of choice for anyone with a reasonable amount of money. Today they are still manufactured, still used for roofs and there are still examples from the earliest times to be seen on roofs, continuing to protect the buildings that often date from centuries ago.

Twentieth century manufacturers of concrete tiles weren't slow to realise the beauty of pantiles and the ease with which they are laid, overlapping each other and hooked over wooden battens. My garage, a modern structure, is roofed with a variant of this design and the tiles have weathered to a quite pleasing dark, mottled hue that in every aspect, except south-facing, grows a patina of moss and lichen. In spring and summer the low parts of the undulating roof surface are favourite spots for house sparrows to sun themselves. When the snows arrive the tiles are quickly covered. However, I always look forward to the thaw because pleasing patterns are made by the retreating snow. Squally March snow showers have afflicted us recently and today's photograph shows the roof after a spell of sunshine had begun to do its work.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37.1mm (100mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fen not steppe

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A casual viewer of today's photograph could be forgiven for thinking that they were viewing a shot of the Russian steppe, that vast, flat, treeless plain of south-eastern Europe and Siberia. The featureless sky, the level, equally featureless white foreground and the snow-blasted houses, trunks and branches of the tree-shrouded village all point in that direction. But appearances can be deceptive and the camera doesn't always tell the truth. In fact, the photograph is a winter shot of the village of Bicker in the Fens of Lincolnshire.

This ancient settlement - the Norman church's embattled top can be seen just right of centre - had just experienced a heavy fall of snow and low temperatures, something that happens often January or February, though with nothing of the frequency and ferocity of the snowfalls and temperatures of the  Russian plains. And, though the village looks isolated and in winter's grip, a main arterial road, gritted and clear runs not too far away, linking it with larger villages and towns. Moreover, though snow and low temperatures of this sort can present immediate difficulties, in Britain they tend to be transient and a thaw is often not too far away.

Consequently, the photographer who wants to record the landscape and buildings held in this kind of icy grip has to move quickly because in a few hours, or at most a couple of days, the covering will be gone or slowly retreating, leaving branches black, not white, fields black and green and roads wet and muddy. I came upon this view of the village as we negotiated a small lane on a walk through the snow. The strip of detail, distinct and indistinct, spread across the blankness of land and sky appealed to me and so I framed my shot and pressed the shutter.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Repetition and photography

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"My greatest fear: repetition"
Max Frisch (1911-1991), Swiss author and critic

I find it hard to understand the point that Max Frisch was making when he wrote the remark quoted above. If it's the simple fear of repeating oneself inadvertently, or even knowingly because the creative juices have stopped flowing, then fair enough. But that makes it such an obvious point that it's hardly worth the utterance. The fact is that much art, whether writing, visual or musical, depends on varying a theme, and themes inevitably involve an element of repetition. This is a subject that I touched on in my 2011 post, "Mining the seam", so I won't elaborate here. However, what I will say is that this desire to avoid "repetition" is something that seems to afflict photographers rather more than some other visual artists. Painters have no hesitation in returning to a subject repeatedly - see Monet and Rouen Cathedral, Cezanne and Mont Saint Victoire or Diego Rivera and the calla lily flower. Most, though certainly not all, musicians tend to work within a tightly defined genre and instrumentation. But photographers, well, they too often forgo the learning and refining that repetition can offer, and search instead for ever new subjects and approaches.

I repeatedly take photographs of the water lily leaves in our pond because they offer interest and difference across the year. The church in the village of Bicker is another subject that I photograph regularly. Why, you might wonder? Well, not only is it conveniently located for me, but it is a particularly fine building in a setting that, like those water lily leaves, changes with the time of day, the weather and the seasons. I've photographed it in fog, summer, and snow more than a few times (see here, here, here and here).That being the case, you might wonder what mileage there is in another photograph of the church on a snowy morning: in self-imposed repetition.

In fact, I've set myself the task of documenting this church. I'm looking for variations determined by the weather, the time of day, the season, the viewpoint, the lens, the processing, and any other variable that I can introduce into my photography. On this occasion the warm note of the early morning sunlight contrasting with the cold blue/white of the light covering of snow and the hoar frost on the trees offered something different. So too did the slightly more distant viewpoint that introduced the veil of branches across the top of the image. There's more mining of this seam yet to be done!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

War Memorial, Boston

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It's always gratifying to see  the respect that is widely given to war memorials. But it isn't everyone who gives them, or what they represent, the recognition that they deserve. I read recently about the prosecution of some despicable people who had forced the brass plaques recording the dead of two world wars off a memorial and sold them to a scrap metal dealer! Thankfully such low-life are very much the exception and most people know that our remembrance of those who fought on our behalf is important and should be accorded respect.

Today's photograph shows the war memorial and its enclosing garden of remembrance in Wide Bargate, Boston, in Lincolnshire. It is fairly typical of a town war memorial with its stone column, a base recording the dead of the town, and a surrounding area to receive the tributes of subsequent generations. What does make it slightly different, however, are the two rows of small, inclined and engraved marble tablets seen on either side of the path leading to the memorial. Each of these shows the name and insignia of an arm of the military, a regiment or an associated organisation. It is a place for representatives of these bodies to place a wreath on Remembrance Day. The wreaths of civic bodies and others are at the base of the memorial. I took my photograph in late December of last year, five or six weeks after the poppy wreaths had been laid, and they were still where they had been placed, undisturbed by weather or any person. One other thing that distinguishes the Boston war memorial site is the steel entrance arch. This graceful construction that terminates with Art Nouveau-like flourishes is sometimes a little lost against the background trees, leaves and buildings. However, on this frosty morning with a thin layer of snow covering everything, it stood out, clear and elegant, a perfect frame for my shot.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO:80
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sorting out the salixes

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Like many people I have a deep curiosity about the natural and man-made world around me. I like to know why things are as they are, what things are called, what differentiates them etc. My curiosity knows, almost, no bounds. However, there are some aspects of the natural world about which I have a long-term confusion.

For example, despite my early deep interest and lingering, life-time less deep interest in bird life, I still have some difficulty differentiating the less common waders. The fact that their plumage can be very similar and that it often differs according to the age of the bird or the season doesn't make the task easy. The same is true of the many varieties of willow tree that can be found growing in the Britain. In my garden I have a large white willow tree (Salix alba) of the weeping variety growing next to a stream. In fact, it's not quite as large as it was. Just over a year ago I had it pollarded because it was outgrowing its space. It's a very common and distinctive tree that has either an upright habit or a pendulous (weeping) habit. That's the Salix variety I have no trouble identifying. However, when it comes to the Goat Willow (or Sallow), the Eared Willow, the Grey Willow, the Creeping Willow, the Caspian Willow, the Common Osier, the Crack Willow and the Bay-Leaved Willow I confess to being lost. I know they exist, I know something of where they are found and the uses to which they can be put. But, I can't distinguish them one from the other. It's not just that many of them are quite similar (some are distinctive), it's that I haven't really committed to studying and learning the differences.

So, I've set myself the task of increasing my knowledge of this group of trees and working out how to identify them. I don't imagine I'll unravel them all, but if I could distinguish the commoner varieties I'd be very happy. It was photographing the trees above by the raised bank of the River Welland near Crowland in Lincolnshire that triggered my determination to do this. As far as these three go I can say what they're not, but not what they are. I think they are a variety of willow, but I may be wrong. So, I've been reading up on the subject, learning about each willow's winter, leafless silhouettes and the characteristics of their leaves and flowers. The warmer weather will find me out and about, testing my knowledge and photographing them. Roll on spring!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The west's debt to the east

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Today's blog title might look like I'm going to reflect on the role of the "tiger economies", China in particular, and their role in keeping the shaky western economies ticking over. In fact I've been thinking about some earlier indebtedness that is owed to that part of the world.

The debt that the Renaissance owes to ancient Greece and Rome is widely known. What fewer people are aware of is the extent to which this European movement drew upon technologies from India and China. These were transmitted in one of two ways. Either the invention and process were taken and copied (and often improved), or the idea was reported in the west and that was enough for it to be developed there. Gunpowder and paper are generally known to have come to Europe to the east. However, the range of borrowed technologies is much more extensive and includes the horse breast strap, silk, the stirrup, segmental arch bridge, canal lock gates, mariners' compass, printing and business techniques including book-keeping. The rapid growth and change that Europe undertook in the Renaissance would have been significantly slowed without these and many other contributions from the other side of the world.

The contribution of China and Japan to the arts is also not widely known. However, as trade expanded in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the decorative arts of the east became available and admired in Europe and even prompted fashionable trends. The "chinoiserie" of these centuries influenced painting, English landscape gardening, porcelain design, architecture, and interior decoration. In the nineteenth century artists such as James Abbot McNeill Whistler, the American-born, British-based painter, were heavily influenced by Japanese and Chinese prints and fabrics. Whistler amassed a large collection of such things and artists as disparate as Degas, Van Gogh and Aubrey Beardsley  show the influence of the traditional ukiyo-e style and its major Japanese exponents such as Hiroshige and Hokusai.

It's hard to imagine that Western paintings lacking perspective and shadow, that featured flat areas of colour, had strongly asymmetrical compositions and made a strong feature of empty space, would have arisen in the way that they did without the influence of eastern art. And where painters lead photographers follow, even humble amateurs such as yours truly. My photograph of the grass stems and leaves poking up through the snow wouldn't have been one that I would have thought worthy of making without the august precedents described above.

Addendum:

The photograph I had thought to use today was this one showing a Valentine's Day display at a flower shop in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire. The fine Regency bow window links with my recent posts on that period's architecture, and the subject is topical. However, my newspaper, the radio, the internet, and for all I know the T.V., are awash with ever more tenuous pieces on Valentine's Day and the associated razzamatazz - much more it seemms than in previous years - and I felt the last thing needed was yet another. So, here's the photograph and not another word on the subject.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hoar frost and forecasters

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After the cold winter of 2009-2010 people expected that the winter of 2010-2011 would be milder. When those hopes were dashed and the January proved to be every bit as cold, the expectation then became that, after two successive harsh winters, the winter of 2011-2012 was almost bound to be better. And, for a while it looked as though it might be. However, late January and February have put paid to that theory, with last night being the coldest of the year, and Lincolnshire recording the lowest temperature (-16 Celsius) anywhere in the country.

In fact, there is no rational reason to suppose that a bad winter presages the next being milder, nor that a succession of cold winters increases the likelihood of the subsequent one being more equable. What we can expect, however, is that if the weather forecasters suggest that the minimum overnight temperature will be -5 Celsius, then we have no reason to suppose it will be anywhere near -16 Celsius. Last night the Meteorological Office got their predictions drastically wrong. For many that can be a major problem because they wouldn't necessarily have taken the precautions that they otherwise might. From my perspective as a photographer it was O.K. Why? Because we had a wonderful, unexpected hoar frost on top of the previous night's fall of snow!

We had a few of these frosts in the cold weather at the end of December 2010 and in early January 2011. I was thrilled to see another one this year and made a couple of morning forays with the camera to gather a few shots of the dramatic trees. Today's photograph was taken in the village cemetery. The white covering of the hoar frost combined with a shot against the light made a rather banal subject into something a little more interesting.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Aspect ratios and letterboxes

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When, in 1839, Rowland Hill was given a two-year contract to run his proposed postal system with its "penny post", standard delivery rates independent of distance, post boxes and the rest, he cannot have known just how it rapidly it would be taken up across Britain, but also by the rest of the world. Nor can he have appreciated the employment that he would give to carpenters, joiners and handymen, and the changes that these tradesmen would wreak upon the country's front doors. Because the fact is, letters delivered to private addresses need to be left there securely regardless of whether or not the householder is at home. So everyone, in the fullness of time, needed a letterbox, and this was (in Britain at least) usually a metal framed slot with a hinged flap in the front door.

This kind of letterbox remains the most common way of receiving letters. Moreover, the word has become a generalised description for many things that have that distinctive shape that is much wider than it is tall, including photographs. In moving film terms it is used to describe widescreen shown as a "slot" in a deeper screen such that there is a border at top and bottom. In still photography it generally means a format or crop wider than 16:9 (widescreen) and closer to a panorama format (though that is a fairly elastic term.)

I think of the format of today's cropped photograph as letterbox-shaped. In fact, its not quite wide enough to copy the shape of a door letterbox, though it is wider than 16:9. In print and on the web this kind of shape is widely used. It enables an editor or designer to place an illustration where the space for the more common 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratio photograph is limited, and it offers a graphic element that can form a segment of the overall page layout rather than be an insert into a portion of it. I value cropped, letterbox-shaped photographs because they are sometimes the best way of forming a composition out of a larger image. My original shot of Morley Lane in Bicker, Lincolnshire has too much empty white snow at the bottom right, too much of the upper branches of the trees above, and doesn't make enough of the two distant figures. The letterbox crop helps to alleviate those problems.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Fost and frog...

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...is what sometimes comes out of the weather forecaster's mouth when delivering his or her predictions in front of the TV camera or radio microphone. This spoonerism of "frost and fog" is as much of a verbal trap for such people as "It is customary to kiss the bride" coming out as "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride" is for a clergyman. Though the latter has got to be apocryphal, hasn't it?

The cold weather that has affected much of Europe in the past week has been felt in Britain, though thankfully to a lesser extent. Night time temperatures have been well below normal for early February and these have been followed by first a light and then a heavy and widespread fall of snow. It doesn't take much of the white stuff to get me out and about with my camera. However, mist and fog accompanied the first morning and my photographs reflect this.

Today's shot shows a derelict barn surrounded by a few trees out in the ploughed fields. The fog has done its usual trick of isolating the foreground and mid-ground from the background. This shot on a clear day would have the houses, trees and church spire of a distant village breaking up the horizon and detracting from my subject. As it is, there is no horizon to speak of and only the hint of what long ago ceased to be a useful agricultural building.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 249mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  +0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Early evening sun, snow and mist

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It's surprising how much of the detail of what you learn in school stays with you throughout your life. I was looking at a cup of cold tea the other day and into my head popped the phrase "colloidal substance". A colloid, as I recall, is a substance dispersed evenly throughout another substance. The word was explained to me by my teacher by reference to, among other things, cold tea. The following day I was looking for a late afternoon/early evening photograph while walking along a track past the village of Bicker when mist started to roll in from the north west. As I started to take my photographs of the trees and church tower with the bright disc of the sun above, the mist started to thicken and the whole of the horizon gradually disappeared from view, the landscape becoming enveloped in a thick fog.

On my journey home I tried to remember the precise difference between mist and fog as it had been explained to me in geography lessons. I recollected that the density of water droplets and the consequent degree of visibility was what separated one from the other, and it was in the hundreds of yards (metres today I suppose), but I couldn't recall the precise figure. So, later that day I looked it up. The current definition of fog is visibility less than 200 metres. However, if you are a pilot it is less than 1000 metres. That latter fact wasn't one I knew and puzzles me somewhat. Do pilots have enhanced vision? As far as mist goes, it is the discernible presence of water droplets with visibility greater than 200 metres.

So, by my reckoning this photograph, which incidentally was taken from near the point where I took this one the other day, shows mist. What it doesn't show is how cold that afternoon was. The temperature was about -8 Celsius (not cold in world terms, but quite nippy as far as the UK goes), however the perceived temperature was a good bit lower due to the wind. The time I had my gloves off to change lenses was as long as I could stand it, and I haven't felt that cold for a few decades - in fact, the last occasion would probably be when I was at school learning about colloids, and the difference between mist and fog!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 228mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Gates and Thomas Hardy

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On December 31st 1900, Thomas Hardy wrote what has come to be one of his best loved poems. Apparently it was published in The Times newspaper on the following day, a fact that I find remarkable.* The original title was By the Century's Deathbed but today we know it as The Darkling Thrush. As I took my photograph of this field gate that leads into a pasture in the village, it was the first line of Hardy's poem about a bleak and wintry landscape that came to mind - "I leant upon a coppice gate when Frost was spectre-grey". Of course my gate wasn't the entry to a coppice, nor was the sun "the weakening eye of day" - it was rising. My mood wasn't quite as sombre as that of the poet either, perhaps because it was morning light that I surveyed as opposed to his end-of-day gloom.

In some respects this is an unusual poem to have achieved such popularity, and it must surely be not only its accessibility, but also the introduction of the thrush's song and the note of hope that it brings, that makes it so well liked. I don't know if this is the last of the snowy morning photographs that I'll post, but Hardy's poem makes me think I need to get out at the end of the day and take a few more downbeat images.

*Addendum: The poem had been published in The Graphic some time before Hardy added a note that it was written on 31st Decemeber 1900, so publication in The Times the next day isn't so remarkable after all.

For anyone who doesn't know the poem, here it is. Hardy died in 1928 and so his work is now out of copyright.

The Darkling Thrush
 I leant upon a coppice gate
    When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
    The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
    Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
    Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seem’d to be
    The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
    The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
    Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
    Seem'd fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
    The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
    Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
    In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
    Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carollings
    Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
    Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
    His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
    And I was unaware.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.6 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A drought then a deluge

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When this present spell of snow came I eagerly went out into the lanes, fields and village hunting for photographs. For four consecutive days I came back with shots on my memory card, none of which were any good. I find that I sometimes have periods like this when I can't see the images, and the more I try the less I succeed. But, I've been involved with photography long enough to know that if I carry on looking and shooting, eventually things will come right.

And so it proved this time. On the fifth day I gathered a clutch of minimalist images, and on each subsequent day I've been happy with at least one shot I've taken. Today's was taken on the same day as yesterday's image, when the light seemed to brighten but the fog thickened to the point where the horizon began to be difficult to discern, and earth and sky started to merge. It gave me a landscape that included very little, and so I needed a focus of interest. And what could be better than my wife in her bright red jacket, a small point of brilliant colour against the almost monochrome background!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: +0.6 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

On the other hand...

click photo to enlarge

...I have five fingers.* What I meant to say before that joke intervened was (with reference to yesterday's thoughts on what morning light can bring to your photography), "On the other hand you can go out in the afternoon and just deal with what ever fate sends your way". A couple of days ago fate dealt me snow with fog sufficiently dense that the other side of a very large field could barely be seen, but not so thick that the sun wasn't making its presence faintly felt every now and again. Looking at the scene I immediately thought of Whistler's paintings - his tonalist style, his nocturnes and his waterscapes. Or perhaps Mark Rothko, a painter who said there was no landscape in his works.

I probably wouldn't have taken the shot but for the sun. Its brave attempts to force its way through the murk gave a weak and watery spot of interest to the sky. That seemed to be just enough to work with the snow covered field with the odd pieces of earth showing, and the hedges, trees and buildings of the village on the horizon. So I framed a 1/3:2/3 split and took my photograph of not very much.

Minimalist photographs, "photographs of nothing", appeal to me, but aren't always easy to spot. Here's another one that I took last year by the sea where they can more often be captured, and here are some more thoughts on the subject from an early blog post.

* A Steven Wright joke.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: +1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Early morning light

click photo to enlarge

As I said in one of my early posts on this blog, I'm a morning person. Of all the times of day the morning is the one that I value most. It seems to hold in its grasp the promise of the day to come, to have a freshness that afternoon and evening cannot match, and the first light of the day is incomparable. It has been said that if you want to take photographs that catch the viewer's eye, then go out with your camera in the early morning. If the sun is present, with or without clouds in attendance, its low angle allows you to make silhouettes, add drama, and simplify your images. Those three things are important in making your photographs noticeable. Often when you include the sun in the image the results are not quite what your eyes see, and can be quite unpredictable, but that's part of the fun!

The other day I strode out into the snowy morning just as the sun was rising. The temperature was -8.5 Celsius but there was no wind, and the crispness of the air was matched by the sharpness of the light. I set off down a lane that I don't use very much, largely because it holds less visual interest than others that I favour. However, at this time of day it allowed me to walk towards the rising sun. Hares scattered as I walked along, their feet throwing up powdered snow as they dashed away, and I stopped periodically to frame trees against the ever brightening sun. The photograph above is one of the best I took. It's not much of a subject, but for me (though maybe not for everyone!) it demonstrates the power of light to transform the ordinary into the interesting or extraordinary. I liked this one because as I progressed down the lane a bank of fog made an appearance, and it added a diffuse quality to the image that contrasts with the the harder outlines of the branches.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Football, journalism and snow

 click photo to enlarge

Does the journalism that we consume through our newspapers, TV, radio, the internet and the rest reflect the way the general public sees things. Whilst each medium clearly is a mouthpiece for its owner and the chosen editor, it should surely seek to mirror, in some way, the views of the intended readership. I pondered this question as I glanced at the column inches devoted to the fact that the UK is not to host either of the next two football (soccer) world cups. The build up to the FIFA vote was headline news across the country, as was the "dream team" of Prime Minister David Cameron, Prince William and David Beckham, who were all wheeled out to promote the bid. Then there was the sub-plot to the main story - a programme on BBC TV that exposed the "money for votes" corruption and the self-serving nature of the whole selection process - which the papers saw as an unpatriotic "spoiler" that had the potential to scupper the UK's chances. In the event the UK had no chance, got nowhere near being selected, and after that fact became known the newspaper stories turned to either the heartbreak and anguish of it all or to the perfidy of the process.
 
None of this reflected my feelings, or as far as I'm aware, the feelings of anyone I know well. A great many people were as indifferent to whether or not we hosted the world cup as they were to the Olympics being here, and certainly felt that greasing the palms of narcissistic FIFA was demeaning. The whole episode did offer a little humour in the area of journalistic fawning however. The example that made me laugh out loud was the BBC radio presenter who, before playing a recorded clip of David Beckham's words of support, described it as "eloquent". Now David Beckham has been, and may still be, a good footballer, but eloquent he ain't. And so the extract proved, each sentence seeming to include a "you know" or an "obviously", or both, the whole passage a jumble of unremarkable and awkwardly assembled thoughts.


As I thought abut what I might do with my day I decided not to join my fellow citizens in an orgy of wailing and teeth-gnashing as we ponder a world-cupless future for the UK, and instead went for an afternoon walk with my wife and my camera in the hope of securing at least one reasonable snowy photograph. These were the best I came up with - my wife "Nordic walking" across the fields, and a shot of some old fleur-de-lys topped railings around a grave in the local churchyard - the latter a shot similar to one of the same subject covered in hoar frost that I posted a while ago.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo 2)
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm (300mm)
F No: f8 (6.3)
Shutter Speed: 1/500 (1/320)
ISO: 100 (800)
Exposure Compensation: 0 (+0.33) EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Weather forecasting and entertainment

click photo to enlarge
In an ideal world the mission of any television station is to entertain and to inform. Pretty much every channel thinks it does this, but we know that many are ditching the "inform" bit, and many more are failing with the "entertain" bit even though that, nominally, constitutes most of their output. The BBC has a reputation for achieving this dual focus as well as any broadcaster does, but there are times when I think it simply loses the plot through trying too hard.

Take weather forecasting. You'd think that here the main aim would be to inform the public what the weather was likely to be, both where they lived and elsewhere in the country. I imagine the BBC fondly thinks it does just that. Well, I'm here to tell you and them that it fails miserably in this simple task. Firstly, its presenters not only talk too much so that people stop listening, they also talk gibberish. I swear that my wife will put a plant pot through the screen the next time a presenter talks about "treacherous roads", and I'm likely to burst my lungs screaming at the next mention of "an organised band of showers approaching from the west." Organised by whom? God? The Meteorological Office? And how can a road assume human attributes? Then there's the ridiculous graphics that involves us lurching drunkenly over the British Isles as if in a wayward satellite as the presenter hurriedly tries to make what they are saying correspond with the region in view. In spring they punctuate bulletins with "Spring Watch" and invite viewers to call in with their sightings of the first primroses or swallows. What's that got to do with informing us about the weather? It would make as much sense - maybe more, and could be more entertaining - to invite first viewings of T-shirts, short sleeves, or bikini tops. But what irritates the most is the persistent attempts to make the weather forecasts entertaining. Instead of accepting that weather just is what it is, they seek to magnify it and make it appear a malevolent force. So, we have alerts and warnings about wind, rain, sun, fog and snow, exhortations not to travel unless absolutely necessary, furrowed brows, grimaces and anthropomorphising. They don't appear to be trying to alert us to inclement weather, so much as scare us stiff with their cataclysmic visions of what might be. In recent days the weather forecasters have not only got it wrong, saying that the snow will get worse before it gets better: they've also fomented a clearing of supermarket shelves by viewers who have been panicked into stocking up for the next spell of "white hell". In the event a thaw has started!

My suggestion for remedying this state of affairs is to do away with the Jeremiah forecasters, and replace them with a screen divided into four. This would show the country's weather at the time of the forecast, then six hours later, then 12 hours later and finally 24 hours later. Will such a thing happen? No chance.

Today's shot - my last church image for a while you'll be glad to hear - shows St Swithin* at Bicker after the most recent heavy snow fall. I'm aiming for the definitive snowy photograph of this building, and I'm confident I'm getting closer to it. This one was taken about half an hour after the snow had ceased, and there's nothing nicer than getting out in it before too many footprints have marked the perfect whiteness.

St Swithin*/St Swithun: this church styles itself using both spellings, so I follow its example!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Snowy teasel

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The plant known as teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) has one of the most attractive seed heads that manages to retain its shape and interest for most of the winter months. I've photographed them before, here, and blogged about how the needle-like bracts were formerly used to "tease" i.e. pluck or raise, the nap or pile of cloth to give a soft finish. In fact, the variety known as Fuller's or Cultivated Teasel (Dipsacus sativus) was the plant favoured for this purpose.

Since I wrote that piece I've read more about this interesting plant that is commonly found along the edges of Lincolnshire's water-courses. The first part of its Latin name means a little cup for holding water. This derives from the cone-shaped depression at the base of its leaves where rain and dew collects. Long ago it was called the "Venus Basin", and girls would dip their finger in the water gathered there and dab it on their warts, wrinkles and freckles hoping that it would remove these blemishes. Others believed water from the teasel was a remedy for poor eyesight. In the days when teasel growing for the textile industry took place bee keepers would place their hives amongst them to benefit from the distinctive honey that its pollen produced. In such fields the teasel pickers would harvest about 200,000 heads per acre, distinguishing between the biggest "King Teasel" that grew at the top of the main stalk, and the smaller "Queens" found on secondary stalks. The introduction of metal combs has confined the use of teasels for napping to the craft industries, and today we know them mainly as distinctive and attractive wild plants growing in uncultivated margins.

I took this photograph of a "King Teasel" as I enjoyed a snowy walk down a track between fields of wheat and vegetables. The dead seed heads of teasel and yarrow seemed to make up the majority of the tall stalks, and all of them had been plastered with snow by the driving wind. The January midday sun was producing the odd bead of water as it melted the ice. I took this shot with a long lens to throw the snowy background well out of focus, thereby emphasising the detail of the seed head.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Snow-fallen angel

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By my calculation this area of Lincolnshire has had only one day since 18th December when snow hasn't covered the ground. Now that may be an inconsequential length of time compared with what can be expected in Canada, Finland and Siberia, but for this corner of England it's both long and unusual. Most years, after a snowfall, the weather warms sufficiently for it to melt away within a day or two. Sometimes it lingers for a week, with the odd top-up falling, usually during the night. However, this year the weather seems to have got stuck in a cycle of easterly and northerly winds, with some heavy or light snow most days recently. The first snow to fall wasn't accompanied by strong winds, so it was relatively pleasant. In recent days the icy blasts have made going out much more of an ordeal. Not that it has stopped this photographer, of course. But my radius of action has shrunk considerably, and the car has made only a few forays down the slippery roads.

Today's photograph shows a churchyard angel that I came across after a recent heavy bout of snow. She usually stands, looking quite imperious, gazing eastward, holding on to her anchor lest the winds or temptation should seek to bring her down from her pedestal. In the snow she looked to me like someone had poured the contents of a bag of icing sugar over her head, which seriously undermined her usual dignity. From memory, I think this is the only large monumental figure sculpture in this churchyard. Some of the eighteenth century graves have small cherubs and relief sculptures, but that's about it. In fact Lincolnshire churchyards contrast strongly with those I've been used to seeing in Lancashire where nouveau riche Victorian businessmen often constructed ostentatious memorials with angels, neo-classical weepers and the like.

For this photograph I was torn between a close-up of the angel's upper body and this contextual view. My final choice was clinched by the "white-out" of the trees behind that allowed the lichen-encrusted green stonework to stand out in a way that it wouldn't in less snowy circumstances.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 98mm (196mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Thinking about snow

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The coldest, snowiest weather that I recall occurred in 1963. I was growing up in the Yorkshire Dales at the time, and the fact of snow laying on the ground from Christmas to early March was something special. It meant "sledging" (i.e. using a small sleigh) whenever we wanted, snowball fights anytime the snow wasn't too powdery, and the ability to make slides on the ice day after day. The River Ribble froze hard enough to walk across it. On the hills Scaleber Force (a waterfall) froze producing icicles longer than a man. High winds made snow drifts several feet deep, and it was great fun to jump off low limestone cliffs into them - except for the occasion when my knee hit a rock hidden below the snow. I don't remember growing tired of the snow during that period, but I'm sure my mother grew tired of the wet footwear, gloves and other clothing that I kept producing.

Over the years I've experienced snow fairly regularly - in East Yorkshire, North Lancashire and now in Lincolnshire. And, as I've grown older, my liking for it has definitely diminished. I still get great pleasure from a day or two (perhaps three) of snow. I enjoy the visual and auditory transformation that it brings. I like walking in it and photographing it. But, after a few days it starts to become an inconvenience: travelling is more difficult, walking locally can be more dangerous, and essential tasks like shopping lose their tedium and instead become fraught as roads and car parks suffer the effects of freeze/thaw. The recent snow that fell before Christmas and lingered for over a week disappeared with some heavy rain. However, light snow and low temperatures have returned, and the weather forecasters are holding out the prospect of some more heavy falls.

Looking through my shots of a few days ago I came across the one above. It shows snow that had slumped down my greenhouse roof as the sun started to melt it, halted by an overnight freeze, and the small icicles that had formed extending down until they start to meet the frost on the glass rising up the panes from below. I quite liked the horizontal layers the subject presented - the blue-tinged snow with a fur-like look that shades to white at the bottom, then the jagged line of icicles against the dark background, and at the bottom the feathery-edged frost.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Using the horizon

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I grew up in an area of hills, mountains and valleys in North Yorkshire. I currently live in a flat area of Lincolnshire. (Note to UK residents who have never been to Lincolnshire - contrary to popular belief much of the county isn't flat!) One of the things you find when you're making landscape photographs in an area of flat land is the importance of the horizon.

In recent weeks I've taken a few photographs that have used the device of a ragged horizon punctuated by a church spire, specifically those of Sutterton, Helpringham and Donington. In the case of Sutterton the main subject is supported by the details of the incoming clouds. The horizon in the Helpringham shot is helped by the colour gradations in the sky and the detail that is still discernible in the foreground fields. In the Donington photograph the foreground offers little interest, but the soft pink/orange of the sky prevents the image being too monochrome, and gives a little warmth. Those three images emphasise something else that you learn photographing flat landscapes: a good sky and finding foreground interest is really important. In hilly areas you can shoot upwards, downwards and across, and can often change your height relative to your subject to give emphasis or to create a composition. In the flatlands you are usually shooting across, and generally raise or lower your camera only to increase the relative importance of sky or foreground.

I was thinking about this the other day when I took another "horizon" shot, also featuring the church of St Mary and the Holy Rood at Donington. Remembering my previous early evening shot I looked for a different composition. The sky wasn't offering much so I positioned myself behind some snow-swept reeds that offered foreground interest. I took a couple of photographs. The first had the church in focus. However, I preferred my second attempt (above) with the reeds in focus and the church out of focus.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 110mm (220mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On