Mundane photographic subjects

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Some of my best photographs feature the most mundane subjects. This comes as no surprise to me because, having an interest in art and painting, I long ago observed that the same is true of many works that I like. What it does mean, however, is that it isn't especially easy to find such subjects because you don't usually plan for them in the way that you might for a landscape, portrait, architecture or other branches of photography. What often happens is that during the course of doing something entirely unrelated to photography, you notice a composition or item that looks like it might make a shot and you point your camera at it. Such an approach relies on you having a camera with you at the time and that's where a pocketable compact camera is so valuable.

Today's photograph was taken while we were gathering blackcurrants at the house of some friends. Many people in rural communities swap and share garden produce when they have a glut that is beyond their capacity to eat, store, preserve or freeze. It's a sociable and sensible thing to do. Having filled a couple of containers we were sitting at a textured glass table below a green parasol enjoying a soft drink when this composition caught my eye. Glasses and bottles have been the stock in trade of painters of still life for centuries, and the simple qualities of form, colour, shape, reflection and transparency that these objects presented to me had something of a painting about them. Perhaps it was the way the tinted, textured, opaque glass of the table top looked like it was composed of brush strokes. Or maybe it was the way the same surface turned the clouds into what looked like painted representations of clouds rather than reflections. Whatever the reason, I took my shot and I'm happy to say its modest, unaffected qualities please me more than most of the images I've posted on the blog in recent months.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21.5mm (58mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Sweet peppers

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I can take only a relatively small amount of credit for the produce that grows in our greenhouse. Most of the work there is done by my wife though I do help to get it ready for the growing season, clear it after that period has ended and I also do maintenance jobs periodically on the structure itself.

The food crops that we regularly grow in it are tomatoes (Gardener's Delight has been our preferred variety for many years) and green peppers (we've tried quite a few varieties but not settled on one). Each year, alongside these staples, something different is given a try; this year it was other varieties and colours of sweet peppers, chili peppers and aubergines. Of course, the greenhouse also holds quite a lot of flowering plants and is used for bringing on flowers and vegetables that are to be planted out in the garden or vegetable plot.

2012 has been a year of mixed fortunes in the garden and the greenhouse. Dull, rainy and unseasonal cold weather in spring and early summer doesn't usually result in flourishing plants. So, in the greenhouse the tomatoes haven't been as good as usual. However, the peppers have done quite well. When my wife brought a collection into the house recently she suggested they might make a photograph. Not being one to miss an opportunity I waited until she'd cleaned and polished the peppers then I put them on a shallow glass dish and photographed them on a sheet of my favoured black vinyl. The deep colours show off well against black. I used a sheet of white vinyl as a reflector to get the natural light just as I wanted it.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Lincolnshire strawberries

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Not just any Lincolnshire strawberries, but OUR Lincolnshire strawberries! Until we moved to the east of England we'd never grown this particular plant. We'd tried and been successful with many vegetables and quite a few fruits, but, apart from the ornamental Alpine variety, strawberries had never featured in our gardens. From a modest start with four plants three years ago we now have a very productive bed, complete with a netted frame for protection from birds, that gives us countless pounds of fruit. Such has been this year's crop that we have had plenty for ourselves, have made a big batch of jam, and there's still been a lot of punnets for friends and neighbours.

The fact that we have had (and continue to gather) a great crop of strawberries when the exceptionally dry spring has reduced and even obliterated the local "pick your own" fields is surely testament to the necessity of the water that we applied during the hottest, driest spells. In fact, our raspberries have been equally prolific, and must also have benfitted from our watering.

I took these photographs of a few of the recent pickings at my wife's suggestion. I chose to show them against traditional blue willow pattern because the red of the fruit and the green of the leaves always look good against the blue of the small, re-used plastic boxes that we collect them in. The main photograph was quickly taken hand-held, but the smaller one was a little more considered, and featured the tripod as the camera data suggests.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo 2)
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority (Manual)
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f7.1 (f16)
Shutter Speed: 1/80 (1/4)
ISO: 320 (100)
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV (0 EV)
Image Stabilisation: On (Off)

A composition and bad manners

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This morning I went to answer the phone, and as I did I looked at the LCD display to see the caller's number. There wasn't one. Instead it showed the word WITHELD. I don't know about you, but I am seriously tempted to ignore any phone call where the caller does not allow their number to be shown. Why? Well, I consider it to be downright rude. With any phone call we take it on trust that the person who speaks is who they say they are, and that they are being honest. I am MUCH more likely to believe this to be so if they are not hiding their number from me. The fact is, I don't conceal my number when I phone someone, so I don't expect others to conceal their number from me. That sort of openness, give and take, call it what you will, is just good manners. There will be reasons why companies do this sort of thing, all of them in the interests of themselves rather than the customer. But there will also be those who do it because they want a dialogue only on their terms, with no opportunity for the customer, once they have collected their thoughts, to get back to them. As I say, witholding your phone number is bad manners.

In my experience this has spread from telephone advertising into more reputable companies, and is being extended into departments of government. This is unfortunate because, were I to follow my inclination and refuse to speak to anyone phoning me from a "withheld" number, I'd be cutting off my nose to spite my face. Yet, how else am I to get the message across that this practice is unacceptable.

I mention this in the accompanying text to a photograph of a vase of flowers in a sunlit room with deep shadows because I was processing this image around the time I took the call. It's one of my wife's quick and effective arrangements in our living room. As we were talking on the sofa we both saw the possibility of a photograph in the composition. I had thought to convert it to black and white, but then I tended to lose the yellow of the flowers, and it is this, alongside the very sepia-like colours elsewhere in the shot, that make it for me.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm (110mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Faded flowers and Charles Rennie Mackintosh

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The reputation of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) has never been higher than in recent years. It's difficult to go into a bookshop, a "craft" store, or a jewellers without coming across his name. Books, brooches, posters, mugs, picture frames - it seems that his Art Nouveau designs can adorn just about anything. And yet, this decorative work, as exemplified by the stencil patterns he used in the Willow Tea Rooms, Glasgow, is only a small part of his ouvre.

Mackintosh studied at the Glasgow School of Art, and in the 1890s he painted, did graphic work and metalwork that showed Art Nouveau influences he'd probably picked up from reading The Studio, a publication which began in 1893. However, his name really came to prominence when he won the competition to design a new building for the Glasgow School of Art. His was a thoroughly modern conception that was influenced by Voysey and Scottish baronial architecture. It mixed the sharply rectilinear with the fluid lines of Art Nouveau, and deeply influenced continental, particularly Austrian, architects. Mackintosh went on to design other fine buildings and furniture. However, he was a man who alienated customers and fellow architects alike, and in 1913 he left his Glasgow practice and moved to Walberswick in Suffolk, where he concentrated on his paintings. During his time as an architect he had painted flowers, and in Suffolk he threw himself into this work, producing wonderful images of, principally, wild flowers in a combination of pencil and watercolour. He later went to live in Mediterranean France, and in the final years of his life painted landscapes and cut flowers in vases.

This latter work came to mind a few days ago when I was in a Leicestershire church. On the octagonal font cover, lit by strong light from a nearby window, was a vase of hydrangea flowers. The person who had placed them there had carefully selected a variety of coloured blooms - pink, blue, purple and white. But, the colours were fading fast as the flowers died. Their slow decline from bright, cheeriness to a pale memory of what had been, reminded me of the poignant beauty I once saw in a Mackintosh watercolour of 1905 that depicted faded roses. With that inspiration in mind, I took this photograph.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 6.3mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.2
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 320
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Home-grown produce and flashguns

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I own three flashguns but I've never liked using flash. Every now and then I used a T20 with my Olympus OM1n, usually for family snaps, but occasionally for church interiors. I have an old Nissin 360TW that has both a small fixed flash and a large moveable head. I used that on the OM1n too, and on a couple of other film and digital cameras that I've owned, for portraits, architecture and more creative images. And finally, a few years ago I was given an Olympus FL-36. I suppose for some that might seem an embarrassment of riches as far as flashguns go, and you might be wondering why I have that number despite my protestation that I don't like flash.

The truth is, I think I should be able to take advantage of the possibilities that flash offers. The fact is I don't, in fact can't; and for two reasons. Firstly I'm not very keen on, in fact I'm hypersensitive to, noticeable flash effects. The shadows that a flashgun can produce spoil many images for me, as do the unnatural highlights. Bird photography is particularly susceptible to the latter, and can make a shot look very artificial. It's something you see less of with the better high ISO performance of cameras, but it's still around. The second reason I don't like them follows on from the first: because I'm not keen on the effects I don't use them often enough to improve my technique. I recognise that some photographs aren't possible without flash, and I used them for that reason in the past. And, if you trawl the photographs on thos blog, you'll find examples - often still life images - where I've worked at improving my handling of flash. But, by and large, I prefer natural light.

The other evening I turned on the lights in my kitchen and a beam shone into the adjoining utility room and illuminated some vegetables and fruit that we'd picked from the garden. A photograph suggested itself so I got a reading lamp and a flashgun. I took several shots with both, and found I preferred those lit by the reading lamp. It was more directional, with deep shadows and contrasting highlights, more Caravaggioesque, and so I prepared a shot for posting on the blog. The following day I looked more closely at the flash shots I'd taken, all of which had the light bounced off a piece of white corruflute. Closer inspection showed them to be more subtly lit, with more detail, better colour accuracy, and more attractive. Most importantly, they didn't look like they'd been lit by flash. I processed one of them, increasing the contrast a touch, and I have to say I'm very pleased with it. It is, of course, no longer Caravaggioesque, but is more of the Dutch school; perhaps van Beijerenesque. Which is quite appropriate really since I now live in the area of Lincolnshire known as Holland!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro, (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
Flash: Olympus FL-36

I have eaten the plums

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Development in the arts often seems to follow the principle of Newton's Third Law of Motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Thus, Post-Modernist painting eschews traditional oil paint, technical proficiency and representation. In their place we find elephant dung, dead animals, diamonds and running men (among other materials), with teams assembling an "installation" or "piece" under the artist's direction, and works being described as "ideas". Similarly in music, the Minimalists led by Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass cast aside the complexity of Modernism for austerity, small ensembles and repetition.

In poetry, the British and American poets of the Imagist school of the early twentieth century reacted against the "genteel" style, florid description and imagery of the Victorians and their imitators, preferring pared down verse that captured the instant and used the natural object itself rather than an abstraction. This condensed poetry is best exemplified by Ezra Pound's work that (according to the author) began life as a thirty-nine line poem, was cut to half that length six months later, and a year afterwards achieved its final form as a single sentence:

In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

However, it wasn't Pound that came to mind when I was photographing the bowl of plums above, but another Imagist, William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). This, probably his best known poem, features that particular fruit:

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums... (click for full poem)

This work is also one of the most parodied of poems, particularly in schools, where pupils are frequently asked to write their "own version". What a dull task!

Oh, and yes, I have eaten the plums!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1.3
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Another vase of flowers

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Yes, another vase of flowers! Why? Well, this simple subject allows you to play with the essential elements of photography in the comfort of your own home! Composition, colour, tone, light, line, texture - it's all there in a vase of flowers. Moreover it combines the natural with the man-made, and allows the photographer to be part of a centuries-old artistic tradition.

When I think of the still-life painters of vases of flowers that I've admired over the years: people like Chardin, Odilon Redon, Mackintosh, Dutch-School masters like Van Husum, Kalf, Van Beyeren and de Heem, and greats of the order of Cezanne, I realise that I'm still at the rudimentary stage of still life creation. In recent months I've tried subtly elegant, minimalist where it's all about the colour, and traditional (including fruit). Today I'm trying "straggly with deep shadows!" And a restricted, somewhat subdued colour palette!

If you aren't keen on this type of photography then I have bad news for you. I'll be doing more of it in the coming months!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

The subject often isn't important

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There seems to be an inverse correlation between the number of TV channels that we are able to view, and the quality of the programmes that are broadcast. I say "seems", because it probably isn't the case, it just feels like that! Unlimited air time has led to so much of it being filled with cheap, populist drivel that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the pieces of fruit in this doughy pudding. So, many people, including me, have pretty much given up trying.

This situation is, in some ways analogous with photography. The spread of digital cameras, combined with the rise of the internet, has led to an explosion in the number of photographs being taken, and the quantity available to be viewed. It sometimes seems that photography is becoming flooded with snaps, and that the more considered images of enthusiastic amateurs and dedicated professionals are being buried in this deluge. In fact, I think there are more good photographs being taken today than at any time since the invention of the camera; it's just that they're so much harder to find amongst the avalanche of images.

I get the feeling that as photography increases in popularity we are seeing a smaller proportion of shots that are thoughtfully produced, and more that are the result of a subject interest, hobby or technical fascination with photographic equipment. For example, bird photography has increased exponentially in recent years, cars feature much more heavily than formerly, macro shots of insects proliferate with the arrival of spring, and holiday shots burgeon across the warmer months. For many the interest in a photograph is inextricably linked to the subject that is depicted. That isn't a problem in itself, but it can limit photography to a supporting role in the pursuit of another pastime. So, this is a plea for people not to forget what painters discovered a few hundred years ago - in a good image the subject is often less important than the treatment it receives. Many of the still-life paintings that proliferated from the seventeenth century onwards are living proof that imagery, lighting, composition, colour, texture, contrast, etc are not only the tools of much art, but are often the end in itself, and the vases, flowers, fruit and skulls that are the nominal "subjects" are only convenient means to achieve this goal. If photography (and photographers) aspire to the status of art then this is a truth worth remembering.

I certainly don't claim today's photograph is art. However, it is a considered image in terms of composition, colour, light, contrast and materials. I processed the shot to achieve something of the feel of a pastel drawing. It was working on this still life featuring Viburnum opulus, apples and plums, that sparked the mangled thoughts set out above.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Late Christmas or Early Easter?

click photo to enlarge

I'm thoroughly confused about this cactus. Which isn't surprising because this is a pretty mixed up cactus! Let's try and unravel the confusion by starting with what I know. This plant is a direct descendant of one that came into my house thirty three years ago. Over that time its grandparents, parents and this specimen have annually produced these pleasing pink flowers.

Now I've always called it a Christmas Cactus. And, sometimes these flowers have coincided with Christmas. But occasionally they've appeared before the season of jollity. However, more often it's been after that period, and now and then they've delayed their showing until Easter. Which has made me wonder. Is it a late Christmas cactus or an early Easter cactus? This year I've tried to find the truth. I think it's a Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera bridgesii), not to be confused with the fairly similar Easter cactus (Hatiora gaertneri) - though I'm not alone, apparently, in mis-identifying one for the other. However, in my researches I came across a description of these plants that does away with any confusion whatsoever. You simply call them all Holiday cactuses! No more sympathetic looks when you get it wrong, because you're always right! The trouble is I just can't bring myself to use the name. It reminds me too much of those cards (U.S. inspired I believe) that wish people Happy Holiday instead of including the season or particular celebration in their greeting. It's illogical I know. But then so is a Christmas cactus in full bloom on Valentine's Day!

This is my third recent attempt at a plant still life. Here I've tried to increase the deep shadow, and once again I used natural light.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 8.0
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

What goes around comes around

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No one who knows me would say I was at the leading edge of fashion. I search out boring, sludge-coloured clothes and moan if I can't find the same garments from one decade to the next. And yet, I was wearing trainers as casual footwear in 1970! I suppose someone will tell me that wasn't unusual back then, so to bolster my credentials (I think!) I will say they were white with turquoise stripes, were made by Dunlop, and they definitely weren't black and white baseball boots (which were quite fashionable at the time).

That's probably the last occasion I was in fashion. However, I do notice fashion, even if I don't wear it, and I'm now old enough to see styles and colours coming round for the second or third time. I went to buy a lampshade the other day. The shop I entered offered any colour you liked as long as it was beige. On display nearby were cushions in various shades of brown, cream, or brown and cream. Ah, I thought - we're back in the 1970s again! I'm also old enough to know that an object becomes fashionable as soon as everyone's got rid of the old, out-moded version. I predicted that stained glass details in house windows would make a come-back in the 1980s and 1990s, because in the 1970s people were throwing the Victorian and 1930s versions away with great disdain. But, I wouldn't have predicted the re-appearance of the mortar and pestle in kitchens. I'm sure there is a high-tech kitchen gizmo that whines and grinds and produces what this old-fashioned pairing does. Yet, many kitchens I know have a copy of the original article, including my own! Truly, what goes around, comes around.

The other week, I thought I'd combine 1970s colours with a shot of our mortar and pestle. I set up this still-life to provide an assortment of textures, colours, tones and shapes. As with recent images I put the collection on a mirror, and lit it with an on-camera TTL flash bounced off a home-made reflector. I used a 70mm macro lens (35mm equivalent), with the camera set to Aperture Priority (f18 at 1/80 second), ISO 100, with -1.0EV.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen