Walkie Not Talkie

click photo to enlarge
I've never been a fan of the telephone. There's something about talking to a disembodied voice that doesn't appeal to me. Moreover, I spent too much time speaking to people on the phone during my working life. That's not to say I don't appreciate their utility, and of course, I do use phones. With that in mind you might think that the rise of the smartphone would be something I'd welcome because it offers communication without the necessity for speaking. In fact, I wonder if these days such devices aren't more used for texting (SMS), email, social media communication etc, than simply speaking to people. But the fact is, though I recognise their multiple uses, and though I use my wife's smartphone, I haven't succumbed to one myself because I have enough computers of one kind or another and the idea of having one to use on a regular basis when I'm out and about is simply too much to contemplate.

I sometimes wonder what smartphone users would do if they had their device surgically removed. What would they do with their hands, their eyes, their ears and their brains? Would they have to look about them, make their own entertainment, fret because they don't know what their friends and acquaintances are doing, organise their time and social interactions better because there was no phone to make last-minute adjustments? I do wonder whether smartphones will turn us into lobster people who carry massive smartphones as evolution causes us to develop massively over-sized thumbs from countless keypresses.

I recognise that my relative antipathy to smartphones isn't widely held. On reflection it probably comes from the deep enjoyment I get from looking at our world, finding out about it and reflecting on what I see. A smartphone would get in the way of that - and it would encourage me to use an inferior camera!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 63mm (126mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0
Image Stabilisation: On

Design, phones and fishing boats

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There's a widely held belief that the design of objects improves with each passing year. That certainly seems to be the case with, for example, cars. Today's models are more comfortable, safer, more fuel efficient, and more rust-free than ever. But there are many objects where design doesn't follow that upward curve of improvement.

I've mentioned before the new teapots that can't pour without dripping despite the fact that the solution to this failing was discovered centuries ago. Then there are shower controls. You'd think that the means of regulating the flow and heat of potentially scalding water would be either standardised - like headlight switches on cars - or at least made blindingly obvious to the first-time user of the shower. But no, it seems that every time I step into an unfamiliar shower I have to try to work out how the controls operate and then risk being burned by hot water. This appears to be because shower designers are more interested in the appearance of the controls than in safety of the user.

I recently bought a pair of new cordless phones from a reputable manufacturer. However, after a couple of weeks I discovered that there was a fault that necessitated me returning them. But, I'd have returned them anyway because the clarity of the voices I heard through the earpiece was simply not good enough. When I, temporarily, plugged in a corded phone - a low-cost model from a no-name manufacturer - voices could be heard as clearly as anyone could wish. Of course, the old-style phone didn't have a light-up display, a choice of ring-tones or a built-in directory. Nor did it show me the name of the caller and the time etc, etc ad nauseam. No, it simply fulfilled its primary function of letting me hear my callers clearly, something that many modern cordless phones seemed to have relegated to a secondary concern behind a cluster of inessential gimmicks. I bought a replacement pair of cordless phones from a less well-known manufacturer, not quite as feature-laden, but which made a selling point of audibility. They work fine.

I was reflecting on progress (or lack of it) in design when I was looking at inshore fishing boats recently in Boston and King's Lynn. Among the steel hulled craft were a few, older timber-built boats dating from the the 1960s (according to the searchable database of UK Fishing Boats LN95 in the smaller photograph was built in 1969). Were the newer vessels, I wondered, better designs than the older boats? Would they last as long and give as good service? I don't know the answer to those questions but I do know that it isn't a given that they will be better in every respect.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (49mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A composition and bad manners

click photo to enlarge

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