Wet café chairs, apps and art filters

click photo to enlarge

I don't watch many of the TV programmes that people who know me expect me to see. The reason is that I'm prepared to devote only a very limited time to television. So, by the time I've watched, over the course of week, a couple of films, a couple of old, made-for-TV comedy shows, and one or two other programmes, I'm done. With that amount of viewing I've used up the time I'm willing to give to television, and good or bad, I won't watch more. To do so would deprive me of the time I want to give to my other interests and pursuits.

For the same reason I'm currently unwilling to join the majority of the population of Britain in owning a smartphone. It's not that I'm a Luddite, or that I don't think they have some uses above those offered by a traditional mobile phone: they do (though fewer than many would have us believe). The fact is I spend quite a chunk of my week at a computer screen and extending this further via the tiny display of a smart phone would - you've got it - "deprive me of the time I want to give to my other interests and pursuits". However, I'm enough of a realist to accept that the way mobile communications are going the day may come when I will need (rather than want) one.

There is one thing about smart phones that I do rather like, and that is the greater capabilities of the built-in cameras. They are not yet as good as even a basic compact camera, but for some purposes they are good enough. Moreover, currently appearing on the market is the Nokia Pureview 808 with a 41 megapixel camera outputting 2/3, 5 and 8 megapixel images, incorporating a useful zoom facility, offering the opportunity to achieve bokeh, and the capacity to record HD 1080p video. These are the sort of specifications that enthusiast photographers will find appealing. The images that I've seen look very good indeed.

Of course, there is a downside to smartphone cameras and that lies in the "apps", especially the "Instagram" variety that offer "effects" that people find irresistible. I came across this article on PetaPixel recently - "Iconic Photos "re-taken with Instagram" - and concluded that such effects, by and large, represent a pretty good method of ruining a shot whilst at the same instantly consigning it to a big subset of other smartphone shots. All of which brings me to my wet café chairs. After converting from colour to black and white I applied digital versions of traditional processing effects - increasing contrast, burning and dodging. In other words it was hand-crafted, insofar as that is possible with a computer! So why do I think it looks like a commercial pin-hole or Holga effect? It seems that digital camera "art filters" and smartphone "apps" that include both these options are starting to impinge on our consciousness and affect how we see photographs.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 99mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Stacked chairs

click photo to enlarge

One of what I consider to be my best photographs shows part of a stack of cafe chairs. In the past few years I've taken shots of other stacks of cafe chairs without improving on that first one, and without adding anything different or better to the image. It seems that, just as first time life experiences that you treasure can't be repeated, neither can photographs.

However, the success that I felt I'd achieved with that photograph did encourage me to take pictures of other chairs and benches, and some of these I have liked. In fact, I was recently reviewing my images and discovered I'd shot examples of this type every single year, with some years having multiple images.

The other day I was a Lincolnshire church and a pile of stacked chairs in the corner caught my eye. In the UK there has been a trend in recent years of removing some (and in more than a few instances all) wooden pews from churches. This has been done because of falling congregation numbers  - there isn't the requirement for all that seating. But other factors have been the demand for greater comfort (particularly from an ageing church membership) and the need for more flexibility in how much seating is put out, and where it is placed. Many churches now have a mixture of pews and individual, cushioned seats. Often these are stackable, especially where the church offers community activities such as musical concerts. That was the case with the seating in today's photograph. It was made of very thin, but seemingly strong, chrome tubular steel, and the cushions were either red or blue. The repetition and angles that they produced when placed together offered an interesting semi-abstract composition, so I left off photographing the architecture, took out my pocket camera and grabbed this shot.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On