Not worth a glance?

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As we sat in the centre of Seville a guide passed us followed by a small flock of tourists. Gesticulating at the building behind us he explained in English with a Spanish accent, and without breaking step, that it contained only "documents, documents, documents", implying that it wasn't worth a glance. What he was airily dismissing as they pressed on to the next highlight of their tour was in fact one of the three buildings in Seville that have been granted UNESCO World Heritage status (along with the cathedral and the Real Alcazar). It was the Archivo General de Indias, a former merchant exchange dating back to the 1580s that has, since the eighteenth century, housed the archives of the Spanish Empire's discoveries and involvement in the Americas and the Philippines.

Admittedly, the building's exterior is somewhat severe with main elevations that differ in only minor ways. However, the interior has a fine courtyard, imposing main staircase and rooms and corridors with fine marble floors, coffered barrel vaulted ceilings, sumptuous bookcases and interesting paintings. Well worth seeing and a subject that I thought cried out for the widest of my wide angle lenses.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Archivo General de Indias, Seville
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 9mm (18mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:1250
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV

Enforced phone photography - colour

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On our most recent visit to London my camera stopped working properly and so for a few days I had to use my phone for photography. Despite the rapid improvement in phone cameras to the point where many are "good enough" for a limited range of photography, I still prefer the flexibility and quality of a purpose-built camera. I should also add that my phone was bought knowing that I wouldn't use it a great deal and so I chose on price rather than features.

All that notwithstanding, it takes photographs, and in some circumstances for some purposes the images it produces are quite good. It doesn't have real zoom or course. Nor does it handle low light well. Its dynamic range is somewhat limited, and you have to make a conscious effort to hold it still. In fact, the latter is the most frustrating feature because a few of my shots that are compositionally quite good, when enlarged show distinct blur caused by my hand movement. As far as basic ergonomics for photography goes the shape of the average smartphone seems deliberately chosen to induce blur.

Today's photograph is one of the better shots I got. It shows the platform at Cannon Street station in London. We've become quite familiar with this location following the closure of London Bridge station. However, our regular route means a walk to Bank station to get the Northern line tube, and interesting as that is, I'll be glad when London Bridge reopens in 2018 and I don't have to do it so often.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photograph: CannonStreet Station, London
Phone photograph

Pigs, shadows and symmetry

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The low, wood and steel buildings designed for pig-rearing are not the most promising of photographic subjects. At least that would have been my thought prior to passing some of these industrial-looking units the other day. However, on a late November afternoon, with the sun low in the sky, the shadows deep, and the gleaming metal, clean timber and pristine concrete of the recently erected buildings catching my eye, they seemed entirely suitable for a shot or two. It's a truism that good photographs can result from the most unlikely subject because in photography the subject itself is often less important than the way it is presented by the photographer. I don't make any great claims for this pair of images, but perhaps they do, in some small way, serve to illustrate that point.

We passed these buildings twice on our walk as the different position of the shadows indicates. They are two of several sheds arranged in a barracks-like row. I took my photographs from a gap in a hedge next to a footpath, so my room for manoeuvre was limited. The treatment I've applied to both photographs is to increase the contrast to deepen the shadows and thereby emphasise the repeated forms of the buildings. Clearly I've converted one to black and white (and applied the digital equivalent of an orange filter). I also, consciously, took shots that were symmetrical and asymmetrical. For reasons that are rarely clearly articulated photographic advice frequently advocates avoiding symmetrical compositions. My view is that symmetry is fine if the subject is symmetrical but that it rarely works well if artificially introduced by the photographer. Moreover, symmetry in images is rarely mirror-like, and the best "symmetrical" photographs often feature a dissonant note that mars the perfection. Here the shadows interfere with it sufficiently to prevent it mirroring at the central vertical line of symmetry.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: 6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Looking up No. 2

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"Looking Up" was the title of a blog post that I made in May 2008 featuring the same subject as today's entry - the underside of the tower, together with the ceilings of the nave, chancel and transepts of Peterborough Cathedral. As part of my workout that aims to make me familiar with my new camera's strengths, weaknesses and peculiarities, I've been photographing a range of subjects, some that I've shot before, using different lenses, apertures, shutter speeds, ISOs and EV settings. This shot is with my unstabilized 17-40mm lens, and the shutter speed of 1/10 second is about the limit of what I can successfully hand-hold. Viewed at 100% this shot is pretty sharp. Of course, the ISO of 3200 is what makes the image possible. You might wonder why I didn't open the lens up, but I find that some corner softness appears at its maximum of f4. This isn't too much of a problem with, say, a landscape, but with the straight, sharp lines of architecture - even the several hundred years old variety - it can be noticeable.

The centre of today's image shows the timber lierne vault on the underside of the central (crossing) tower of the cathedral. The other ceilings are also timber. This is not unusual with the wide spans of a Romanesque building of the twelfth century. The ability to throw stone vaulting over such a distance hadn't been developed at that time, though it was used in the narrow aisles here. The hierarchy of decoration that can be seen in the four main ceilings reflects the relative importance of each  part of the cathedral. Thus, the painted, closely coffered ceiling, with decorative bosses, flanked by vaulted coving over the chancel (on the right), that dates from the fifteenth century, emphasises the liturgical centre of the church, the place where the clergy worked, and the location of the high altar. The painted nave roof with its elongated diamonds each with a central figure - kings, queens, saints, fantastic animals etc - dates from about 1220. Pevsner calls it "a precious survival". This is over the part of the church devoted to the laity. The other two ceilings that roof the transepts are also original, and though the wood is again laid in diamonds, it is not painted, and they are definitely subsidiary to the main two.

I often think that photographs of this subject, taken from directly below with symmetry, have something of the look of a kaleidoscope image, and this one is no exception. For more views of vaulting and the underside of towers see these photographs from Louth and Ludlow, Morton, Brant Broughton, Pershore, Boston, Norwich, and Ely.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: 7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

A cricket pavilion and a puzzle

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A cricket pavilion in a village or small town often has to fulfill a number of purposes. It is a meeting place for a team and its supporters; a vantage point (often raised) from which to sit and watch the game; a place in which to change into cricket "whites"; somewhere that refreshments can be prepared and served; and often it includes a scoreboard or box in which the progress of the match is recorded, and a clock.

But, whilst the functional aspects are clearly most important attributes of this type of building, cricket pavilions are often designed with aesthetic considerations in mind too. Often they are symmetrical, with centrally placed steps out of which the players issue. Gable ends and decorative barge boards frequently feature in their make-up. So too do clock turrets, bay windows (for a good view) and balustrades. In fact, they sometimes seem to combine the details of a bungalow and a miniature town hall! And then there are the thatched pavilions! Thatch pretty much died out as a first-choice roofing material in the seventeenth century when clay tiles began to be more widely available and affordable. So one wonders why it re-appeared in the early twentieth century on quite a few houses, barns and, yes, cricket pavilions. The answer lies in the Arts and Crafts Movement which sought to revive traditional techniques and materials, but use them in a modern way.

This pavilion at Uppingham, Rutland, even though it was built as late as 1923, shows the influence of Arts and Crafts ideas in the plain white walls, the simple, vertical, closely spaced windows, the half-height glazing to each side of the entrance door, and in that thatched roof with its thatched bell-tower. There are two further interesting aspects to this pavilion. Firstly, most such buildings have a front facing the field of play - as this one does. They also have a definite "back" that is utilitarian in character because it is often close to the field boundary. The location of Uppinham's pavilion, at a corner where two roads meet has led to the architect giving it a second front at the back - the one in my photograph. The second aspect that puzzles me is this. Why, when so much effort has gone into making the facade (and its landscaping) symmetrical, is its perfection broken by the single small window on the left?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

750th post

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I just noticed that yesterday's post was a small milestone - the 750th PhotoReflect post. Add the 60 posts under the PhotoQuoto heading and that makes 810 posts since December 2005. All of which begs the question, "How many more posts will I make?" Recently I've had the feeling that I may be drawing to a conclusion with the present format, or that perhaps I need a new direction. Well, we'll see.

Today's pair of photographs show a couple of contrasting buildings with slightly different photographic approaches. The first is a piece of Victorian showmanship from 1856 by the Lincoln architects, Bellamy & Hardy. Corn Exchanges in England are often wilfully odd and awkward looking buildings that take enormous liberties with the Classical vocabulary. Hull's is relatively sedate in comparison with many, and, its original purpose long past, is now part of a museum. For this image I stood in the narrow High Street, positioned myself at the centre of the building, pointed the camera up, and took this symmetrical shot which echoes the symmetry of the structure.

The second photograph is a detail of the corner of the north facade of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, a work of the 1720s by Sir John Vanbrugh. It is also a strictly symmetrical design, and in my earlier photograph of a detail of the centre of the building I acknowledged this. However, in this image I was looking for balanced asymmetry, and so placed the pair of heavy columns slightly off-centre (though with one in the centre anchoring the composition), and included the angular cornice-line and sky, as well as the differing windows, as elements of imbalance.

Perhaps it's because of my interest in painting, architecture and architectural drawing (see yesterday's post), but representing buildings with strongly converging verticals doesn't come naturally to me. It's always seemed to me to be a convention exclusive to photography - which I suppose it is! When I'm photographing architecture I find myself aiming for shots that keep the verticals properly upright, and only after I've done that do I look for shots of this sort.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Image 1 (Image 2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (11) (32mm (22mm)/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1 (5.6)
Shutter Speed: 1/320 (1/500)
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 (-1.3) EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Institute, Deeping St James

click photo to enlarge
As I passed this Victorian building on Church Street, at Deeping St James in Lincolnshire, two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was, "That's an interesting way of dressing up a facade." The second concerned the wire that stretches from the top left to the centre, then drops down to disappear into a hole above the doorway. It occurred to me that it had been positioned with all the sensitivity of a tattoo on the end of a person's nose.

I photographed the building, known as "The Institute", mainly because of the unusual yellow brickwork designs that form both the quoins to the left and right, and the surrounds for the tall windows and the door. However, once I'd got my photograph onto the computer, had corrected the converging verticals, and began to study the facade, a lot more details caught my eye, and quite a few questions came to mind. For example, why did the builder or architect place a large piece of stone at the bottom left and bottom right corners? Why did he use stone for the sills of the three windows rather than wrapping the brickwork surrounds underneath? Why does his design for the "shoulders" of the door surround differ from those of the windows? Why is the band of yellow brickwork that crosses the facade at the level of the window sills flush with the wall and hence barely visible?

The building's style borrows from that of a church or chapel (tall and pointed openings), and from classical precedents (the brick plinth, quoins and hints of "Gibbs surrounds" in the work around the windows and doorway). It is Classical too in its severe symmetry: note that even the bootscrapers are doubled up, one on each side of the door, lest the building become even slightly unbalanced. The use, almost exclusively, of brick, and the vernacular touch of a dog-tooth corbel just below the eaves, betrays its provincial origins, lower cost, and lower status. Despite its relatively elaborate decoration it is still quite a utilitarian building. I haven't been able to find out much about its origins. Was it always an Institute? Was it a non-conformist chapel originally? Whatever its past, its present includes housing the Parish Council of Deeping St James, and offering more than a little interest and intrigue to passers-by who care to stop and stare.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Repetition and symmetry

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Repetition and symmetry are key characteristics of classical achitecture. The Greeks and Romans who were responsible for this style created an architecture that emphasised man's intellect, and his dominance and control of nature. It was these two devices that allowed their buildings to stand apart from the "messy" natural world. The idea of taking the same form and repeating it across a facade, as here on the ground floor and first floor of the north front of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, began with the repeated columns of Hellenic temple porticos and spread into the serried arches of Roman architecture, most notably in the Colosseum. Renaissance architects both copied the ideas of the ancients and elaborated upon them.

Gothic architecture, however, especially in its Victorian incarnations, had more time for asymmetry. In the position of entrances and towers, for example, and also in the arrangement of floor plans, they frequently proclaimed the virtue of a more practical and studied irregularity. When they sought "balance" in a building it would sometimes be achieved by the careful disposition of different forms, rather than by multiples of the same form on either side of a line of symmetry. However, Gothic and other "Romantic" styles of architecture continued to value the virtues of repetition and even symmetry, as the Perpendicular Style of the fifteenth century, and nineteenth century industrial architecture in England frequently testifies.

It's interesting to speculate whether the repetition of forms in building came about for aesthetic reasons or for convenience of manufacture and construction. We are, of course, unlikely to know the answer to that question, but the designers and workmen of ancient civilizations must have found it easier to replicate and erect several columns that were identical, or move supporting wooden formwork between arches that were all the same size and circumference. Those advantages were certainly not lost on the Victorians who often made and assembled windows and ornament off-site. This is an aspect of classical architecture that I've never seen discussed anywhere, but which occurred to me as I was photographing this facade. The drawings for the design shown here date from 1722, making it one of the last works by Sir John Vanbrugh who died in 1726. Nicholas Hawksmoor may have completed his structure. It's inconceivable that the main entrance of this elevation would be placed anywhere but the centre, and the fountain could only ever be placed in line with it. Even the gardeners, when positioning their planters of topiarised box obeyed its imposing symmetry and repetition, so I decided that I must do that too, in my photograph.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

High windows

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"Rather than words comes the thought of high windows;

The sun- comprehending glass,

And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows

Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless."

Philip Larkin (1922-1985), English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

As I looked at my photograph of No 1 London Bridge, a monolithic office block pierced by large apertures, Larkin's final words from the title poem of his 1974 collection, "High Windows", came to mind. This powerful, characteristically dour work is, after "The Whitsun Weddings", Larkin's best known poem. It starts with a viscerally shocking observation that appalled many at the time, leads into a reflection on religion and life, and ends with the feeling that death is perhaps a welcome release from temporal concerns. I remember reading at the time of its publication that the poem was inspired by the ranks of faceless high windows he saw when he visited the Royal Infirmary at Hull, the city in which he lived and worked.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) is reported by his biographer, Boswell, to have said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Many people find that a visit to a hospital has a similar effect. Poets are no exception to this feeling, and use the thoughts such a visit provokes about their own mortality very effectively in their verse. One of the well-known poems of John Betjeman (1906-1984), "Before the Anaesthetic or A Real Fright", was inspired by a stay in the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. It dwells on themes similar to those found in Larkin's poem, but revolves around the anguish of the poet's belief in Christianity.

The image above, one of several I have taken of this building, is cropped square, and is essentially symmetrical. I liked the overlapping reflections, the contrast of light and shade, the angularity, and the clouds glimpsed through the hole in the structure. When I looked up to take the shot I had no thoughts about life, death or religion. However, in a photograph of this building posted a while ago I did say it reminded me of a deeply boring Channel 4 (UK) station ident!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Courtyard living

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Courtyard living got a bad name in the nineteenth century. Cheap housing was thrown up around narrow, badly lit courtyards. Their purpose was strictly utilitarian - to let in light and air, with little thought given to proper planning. These were torn down in the slum clearances of the twentieth century, often to be replaced by equally poor public housing in the form of open-plan estates or tower blocks. But courtyards hadn't always been so reviled.

In the eighteenth century individual dwellings were often grouped in this way. In the big cities and provincial towns the higher densities that this type of building allows was put to good use, with proper space between front doors, and attractive shared spaces where neighbours could meet and children could play, detached from the busy bustle of the nearby street. Furthermore, courtyard developments were built for all classes of buyer, not just the poor, so there was no stigma attached to the arrangement.

Spain Court in Boston, Lincolnshire (above), dates from the late eighteenth century. It was never high cost housing, but the two-storey terraces facing each other across the cobbles offer a modest, relatively quiet, private space, with no immediate passers-by, near the heart of the town. The development has been sensitively refurbished, with proper regard for the uniformity of the dwellings, and "chinoiserie" fretwork, a motif favoured in the eighteenth century, in the arch at the end of the vista. Is there a place for this kind of development today? Or is the desire to own your own bricks and mortar inextricably linked to owning the space around it too?

The choice with a photograph of a place like Spain Court is to either stand to one side and emphasise one elevation more than the other, or go for symmetry. And, in the interests of injecting a little more "unpopular" symmetry into photography, I did the latter!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Symmetry

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Photographers don't like symmetry. Nor do painters, graphic artists or sculptors. But architects and designers do, and always have done!

Symmetry in building is a manifestation of the Classical mindset. Greek and Roman architecture is highly symmetrical, and so are the Renaissance styles that took their inspiration from the antique. However, the rise of the Romantic movement pushed all this to one side. The love of the wild, the untamed, the natural, all led to an admiration for architecture and design that eschewed symmetry. Thus, in landscape gardening, out went formal French parterres, and in came "informal" English parkland with its serpentine paths and lakes, and asymmetrically placed "eyecatcher" follies. Out went Palladianism, and in came asymmetrical houses and villas like Nash's Cronkhill House and Philip Webb's Red House. Interestingly Gothic architecture loved both symmetry and asymmetry. Romantic painters favoured asymmetrical compositions, and Modernists continued this love affair. Photography seems to have adopted its position by reference to painting: balanced asymmetry is in, straightforward symmetry is out.

But I like a bit of symmetry now and again! Today's photograph is of Boston Baptist Church, built in 1837, a time when English church architects had dumped Georgian Classicism, and were casting around for a new style. This rather spare Gothic characterises the period before 1840. After that date the writings of A.W.N. Pugin and the Oxford Movement pushed churches towards a Gothic based on archaeolgical principles and the careful study of real medieval buildings. The design above is interesting, but owes nothing to Pugin, and verges more on the hysterical than the historical!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off