Old and new cultivation

click photo to enlarge
Only a few minutes before I took today's photograph we walked across a pasture that showed clear evidence of medieval cultivation. The surface of the field undulated due to centuries of ploughing using oxen and horses. Generations of ploughmen had gone up and down each selion (a strip in a furlong, which themselves were aggregated into large open fields) in the same direction each season. As a result the ploughshare had made each selion into a long, straight, low bank that curved to the left at each end where the plough was turned. Our passage across the field rose and fell as we went over each ridge and furrow.

The contrast between this traditional method of cultivation, one that prevailed for over a thousand years, with the sight that greeted us as we crossed a recently harvested wheat field, could not have been greater. A single man in a large tractor pulled a machine that was preparing the land and sowing the next crop at the same time. He would accomplish in a few hours that which formerly took many men and animals weeks to achieve. The driver gave us a wave as passed by - such work today is a solitary undertaking - and as we went on our way back to Folkingham I reflected on the way today's cultivation contrasted with not only the distant past but what happened for much of the twentieth century.

Nowadays, as I understand it, there are essentially 5 approaches to preparing a wheat field with the next crop:
1 Conventional ploughing - plough the straw in deep, cultivate the seed bed, then drill and finally spread fertiliser
2 Shallow cultivation - plough the straw in deep, drill and fertilise in one pass
3 Minimal tillage - till the straw in shallow with cultivator, drill and fertilise in one pass
4 Shallow tillage - turn straw over in the surface soil, drill and fertilise in one pass in this layer
5 Direct drilling - no soil tillage, simply drill and fertilise in one pass leaving the straw on the surface.

However, I'm no expert, so watching the man and machines at work I was unsure which method of 3-5 was being used. I think it's 3 (minimal tillage) but I'm happy to be corrected.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm (157mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tractor work

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The other day I watched a tractor as it began to break up the surface of a field that had given up its wheat crop a few weeks ago. As the driver began his work I watched with incredulity as the vehicle reared up, stallion-like, on its large rear wheels, the front pair resting on nothing but several feet of fresh air. Clearly the weight that had been fixed to the front of the tractor was insufficient for the job in hand. After a few moments the tractor set off again and once more its front wheels went high in the air. The driver's tinkering with the front counter-balance weight was followed by a couple more less spectacular "take offs", and then, after a final adjustment that seemed to bring it under control, it settled down to slowly working up and down the field. As it got nearer to me I noticed that the weight had been moved well forward from the front wheels so that it offered a greater counter-force. Presumably the driver had miscalculated when making his original setting.

As I returned to my own work I reflected that it was only a few days ago that the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) was abolished by our incompetent and divisive coalition government. This organisation had the power to set the minimum pay rate and conditions for agricultural workers. It had done so successfully for many years, but this was not good enough for our deregulating government. From 1st October 2013 the national minimum wage and general employment law applies to agricultural work. The AWB was originally established because of the distinctive conditions of employment that apply to agricultural workers - for example, tied housing, the need for irregular hours and seasonal work. Watching the tractor driver I was reminded that statistics usually show agricultural employment (after fishing) at the top of any list of the most hazardous areas of work. Part of the reason for this is that people are often working alone with big, powerful machinery - such as tractors - or managing large, unco-operative animals. In many of the occupations that are placed lower on these lists, such as policing, the rate of remuneration reflects the danger of the job. As of this month that's very unlikely to be the case for farm workers, if indeed it ever was.

The tractor in today's photograph is resting after its days work. Presumably it wouldn't fit in the barn and the farmer seems to be using it as a barrier to prevent the theft of whatever else he's got in there.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.2mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/4
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Obsolescence, repairs and tractors

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My web browser bookmarks include a folder marked DIY. It lists sites and web pages that I've found useful when it comes to fixing things or undertaking jobs around the house.With a bit of internet help I've managed to repair the cooker, heating radiators, the car, computers, plumbing, a camera and much more. To be able to do such things gives one a sense of satisfaction, saves money and does something for the environment by extending the life of objects.

However, during my lifetime the number things that are repairable has seemed to become ever fewer. Obsolescence appears to be built into more and more products. Items are made difficult or impossible to open without breaking something, spare parts are unavailable or deliberately expensive, non-standard screws or worse still, glue, are used to fix components together, and records show that often the same component lasts the same limited life-span in a particular product - usually a month or two after the expiry of the warranty! It really looks like some manufacturers construct products to fail after a relatively short time, and make them irreparable by the user or even a technician, in the expectation that it will result in another sale. This marketing ploy is additional to the regular "product-upgrade" cycles whereby the latest and greatest additional features are drip-fed into new models on an annual (or more frequent) basis.

A website I sometimes use for repair advice is iFixit. It ranges fairly widely in its coverage, but is particularly useful for electronics. The staff frequently do what are called "teardowns", i.e. the opening up of new products to see how they are made. Then they pass judgement on their potential for repair. Recently the website published a list of ten electronic devices that are almost impossible to repair. A model of the Apple MacBook Laptop with Retina Display was judged worst in this regard. There were five other Apple product in the list (and two Nikon DSLR cameras). Interestingly their ten easiest to repair electronic devices, published earlier, also included an Apple product.

The sight of this old Fordson Major tractor triggered this line of thought. It's a model from when? The 1960s? I don't know exactly, but it's a good few decades old and still giving service in the harshest of environments: sand and salt water are a recipe for mechanical problems. It is used to haul a crab boat into and out of the sea and its basic, rugged construction, the availability of parts, and the opportunity to improvise or make them where they are unavailable (check out the seat and radiator grille!) means it still works after all these years. I like products that are user-serviceable and user-repairable: they are good for the individual and good for wider society. It would be great if more manufacturers took this into account when they designed their products.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Inshore fishing, Hornsea

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The inshore fishing industry of England's Holderness coast, an expanse that stretches from Flamborough Head in the north to Spurn Point in the south, has changed out of all recognition down the centuries. In the middle ages the summer fishing was centred on herrings, but by the eighteenth century it was a selection of whitefish - cod, haddock, ling, skate and halibut - that were hunted using lines baited with shellfish. Herring continued to be caught, and were sold salted, or were smoked to produce kippers. Crab and lobsters also formed part of the regular catches by the small boats that went out from the coast's towns and villages.

However, the development of larger, powered trawlers meant that by the twentieth century over-fishing had so reduced the whitefish stocks of the North Sea that a change of emphasis was necessary, and today the small inshore fleet specialises mainly in brown crabs and lobsters, with a very few flatfish and cod being caught. And small the fleet is, the number of boats/men/pots being as follows: Bridlington 42/97/33,750, Hornsea 7/14/4,440, Tunstall 2/4/250, Withernsea 9/18/4,850, Easington 2/4/1,100, Spurn Point 1/2/500.

On my recent brief visit I saw the reltively new compound and buildings at Hornsea where the seven inshore boats are based, and watched as one was recovered from the sea by its tractor. I grabbed a few quick photographs of these developments that had grown up since the time, twenty five years and more ago, when I regularly visited this coast. Looking at the crew bringing their boat in on a bright and relatively warm March day, the prospect of fishing the coastal fringe of the North Sea appears to have its attractions, but on a cold, grey, gale-swept January day I'm sure it would be decidedly less alluring.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hornsea beach tracks

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It occurred to me the other day that during my life I've flip-flopped from one side of the country to the other. I was born in Westmorland (now Cumbria) and raised in the western Yorkshire Dales, moved to the city of Hull for a while, then went back to north-west England for many years, and latterly re-located to Lincolnshire. During all but my early life I was a keen photographer, never specialising in anything in particular, but rather dipping my toe into many of the recognised genres. I suppose that architecture, landscape and natural history have figured large in my output, and of course, down the years I've shot many thousands of family snaps.

In the past decade, as I've spent more time with my camera, I've deliberately selected a few specific subjects and begun building collections of images. Examples of this include spiral staircases, motion blur, and the subject of today's photograph, tracks in the landscape. Lincolnshire's man-made landscape is the place where I began to notice these man-made intrusions, and where the sinuous, sometimes semi-abstract quality, that they impart first impacted on me.

Wheatfields and barley fields offer good opportunities for this kind of photography. The former sometimes provide intriguing examples that appear to have no beginning. But pasture can have good tracks too, and land freshly prepared for a salad crop offered one of the craziest examples I've come across. I've also photographed these tracks on sandy beaches where they temporarily hold a record of cleaning vehicles or the launching of boats. Today's photograph is an example of the latter that I took on a recent visit to Hornsea in East Yorkshire. This seaside resort on a long, sandy coastline, has a small fishing fleet that specialises in brown crabs and lobsters. The boats are launched and brought in by tractor, and this recovery offered an opportunity to add another shot to my "tracks" collection.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Giving the wrong impression

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I've said elswhere in this blog that I think "the camera ALWAYS lies" is a truer statement than "the camera NEVER lies." I've also come to realise, over the years, that photographs often deceive unwittingly. In fact, "lies" is frequently too strong a word: "give a false impression" sums it up rather better.

This misleading comes about through the way that we compose images. Photographers are usually selective of the view before them, deciding what will be included in the shot and what will be left out. Sometimes they are less careful than that and are so fixed on what they want in the photograph they simply don't care or notice what is omitted. And, when this happens, the image can give a viewer who doesn't know the subject that we are presenting, a false impression.

Today's image is an example of this. It shows a tractor hauling a couple of disc harrows, one with tines, over a field that has been cleared of wheat. The scene is in Lincolnshire, a county that is considered by many English people to be sparsely populated, flat (or flattish), treeless, with few hedges, and devoted exclusively to arable agriculture. This photograph reinforces every one of those ideas which are, in fact, misconceptions. It was taken in a part of Lincolnshire where the Fens give way to low rolling hills (there are also higher rolling hills - the Lincolnshire Wolds). If I had not wanted the sparse composition that I did and had shown a wider view it would have included more of these hills and trees and hedges (just out of shot). Had I panned left I'd have photographed an old manor house surrounded by trees with adjacent pasture, paddocks for horses and small copses, with further away, some cattle. The stereotypical image that I have produced gives a false impression of the area in which it was taken.

For another (compositionally similar) example of this, and similar comments (in the last paragraph), see here.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 104mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Deere and turtle doves

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A while ago someone I know told me that her farmer son had taken delivery of a new combine harvester. "What colour is it?" I asked. When I heard it was green I said, "Tell him he bought the wrong colour!" I have no interest in the make of farm machinery, so my observation wasn't prompted by any loyalty to, say, Massey Ferguson over John Deere. It's simply that, as any photographer knows, a red combine harvester munching its way across a field of wheat makes a better photograph than a green one: red has more visual punch, and even a distant shot of a combine painted red has weight in a composition.

And, what goes for combine harvesters goes for tractors too. I took a few shots of this green tractor pulling its harrow of tines and discs across the stubble of a harvested Fenland wheat field, but only in those photographs with the machine relatively near the camera did the tractor have sufficent visual weight to give compositional balance for the dominant wind turbines.

That afternoon's photographic outing produced little of worth in terms of images, but did prove interesting ornithologically speaking. Driving along a dead straight drove road I came upon a wood pigeon and what appeared to be a couple of collared doves that were reluctant to take flight from the tarmac. As I got nearer the colours and markings of the smaller birds revealed them to be turtle doves (Streptopelia turtur). In the UK this species is the most rapidly declining farmland bird. Numbers have fallen by 70% since the mid-1990s. The intensification of farming and continental hunting are thought to be the cause of the reduction in numbers. Consequently I was thrilled to see this pair, quite late in the season in the intensively farmed Lincolnshire Fens just before they depart for warmer southern climes.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rusty relics

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In a recent post I was pondering the attraction of decay, and the reasons why photographers are often drawn to scenes of dilapidation and dereliction. Look at any online galleries by enthusiast photographers and you will usually find examples of this genre. Moreover, if you look carefully you will also see photographs that constitute a subset of the category, namely the abandoned vehicle. Photographers in the United States seem drawn to shooting rusting cars and trucks abandoned in rural areas, vehicles thirty, forty, fifty years old and more, that are gradually succumbing to the weather and the weeds. Such images are certainly taken by people in the U.K., but I get the feeling that they are relatively far fewer, and I have sometimes wondered why this should be.

It's probably to do with land area and the density of population. In our small, crowded islands, space is at a premium, and waste ground where it does exist, tends to be put to a fresh use quite quickly. Many farmers (though by no means all) are obsessively tidy and dispose of old vehicles fairly promptly. Then there's the scrap metal price that attaches to such things. I've always thought that these are the reasons for fewer abandoned vehicles and hence fewer photographs: the luxury of unused open space of the sort that exists in the United States simply militates against it.

This open shed, stuffed with the gleanings of decades, shows what happens to a few old vehicles: they get put to one side, collected with other odds and ends that might be useful or that could be renovated in years to come. The two old tractors and the small car tucked away at the back appear to be about sixty or so years old. Those wheels on the right look like they might be from traction engines. And the old lawn mower appears to have been stored with the intention of being repaired, and then forgotten. Whatever the reason for the collection I thought it might make an interesting photograph to pore over.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Co-existence

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Co-existence has been one of mankind's greatest challenges ever since he stepped out of the cave: co-existence with nature, co-existence with other tribes, races, religions and nationalities. Then there's co-existence between the rural and the urban. I was pondering these things as I photographed a tractor planting brassicas in a field next to a Fenland wind farm and electricity sub-station.

The vehicle was slowly travelling up and down, a canvas planter behind filled with half a dozen workers rapidly putting small cabbages into the machine that set them in the ground in ruler-straight rows. Behind walked a man, occasionally stooping as he put right any seedling that was imperfectly placed in the soil. There was a certain incongruity between this task of basic food production, a job that despite the modern tractor and planter, was in most respects just the same process that has been undertaken for centuries, and the modernity of the towering turbines, pylons and wires of electricity generation. "Co-existence", I thought, "Each activity admits the continuation of the other."

A little earlier I'd watched a tree sparrow flying to and fro with food for its nestlings that were hidden behind the tile-hung side of a small pumping station. It too was co-existing with the intensive agriculture of this lowland area. As were the two pairs of lapwings that had found a field that was growing a root crop and had managed to fit their nesting and chick rearing into the period of time when the field surface most closely resembled their favoured pasture. And then there was the cuckoo flying across the nature reserve that had been created around the sub-station in the middle of the wind farm. It must have found a host for its eggs, and it seemed to be finding plenty of food as it "hawked"over some scrub and a small pond.

Co-existence requires give and take, and a recognition of the rights and needs of everyone and everything that shares our planet. It's vital to our continued survival, and it produces some odd bedfellows like these farm workers and their giant companions. But, unless we learn to live side-by-side with each other, in new and evolving ways, then our future is not assured.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm (100mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Birds, man and the plough

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Today I was looking at the bird box in my willow tree. I placed it there two years ago in the hope that a blue tit (Parus caeruleus) would nest in it. Unfortunately it has been spurned each season; as was the other one I put in the cherry tree. So I've decided that I'll enlarge the hole to make it suitable for the slightly larger great tit (Parus major): I've had better luck with that species in the past.

Those thoughts prompted a short reflection on the way in which birds have adapted to man. Our obsessive tidiness has reduced the number of naturally occurring holes that the blue and great tits formerly used, and nest boxes now provide a significant number of the sites favoured by these species. House martins (Delichon urbica), as their name suggests, have also found man to be a useful provider of nesting places. They get their name from the habit of building their cup-shaped mud nests under the eaves of houses. Before man built houses with eaves these birds built their nests under overhangs on cliffs. I'm only aware of one location in England where that still happens - Malham Cove in Yorkshire; everywhere else man-made structures are preferred. So too with swallows (Hirundo rustica), a bird that I've never seen construct its nest anywhere other than in a building. In the UK one of the key bird habitats is the man-made suburban garden, those that naturally frequent woodland edges finding it particularly to their liking. The food that friendly households put out for them is also a big incentive to hang around dwellings, especially in the leaner winter months.

Of course birds aren't infinitely adaptable to the activities of man, and many species - particularly those of open farmland - are in steep decline. However, today I saw a scene that must have been replayed every year since a farmer first ploughed a field: black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus) (and rooks) following the tractor, picking up the morsels revealed in the turned soil: a symbiotic relationship if ever I saw one. It being February a few birds were showing their breeding plumage of a full head cap of chocolate-brown feathers, though none would be ready for nest building for another three months. I took a couple of shots of the tractor and plough working the Fenland field, one as it headed towards me, and this one that shows the birds to better effect after it had turned away and started its next set of furrows.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Harvest done, swifts gone

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Towards the end of my third summer living on Lincolnshire's Fens may be a little early in terms of formulating theories about the region, but one did occur to me yesterday.

I've been watching the cereal harvest come to its end. Over the past few weeks wheat and barley fields have been falling to the combine harvesters, and already quite a few have been turned by the plough. Here and there the odd field is still being cut, but with less urgency than earlier, giving the tractor drivers who haul away the grain the chance to get out of their cabs and have a chat, as in my photograph above. The summers of 2007 and 2008 were much wetter than this year, and the harvest continued well into September, with machines kept off the sodden ground until it had dried. Cereals were left standing to enable them to get as dry as possible, and when they were harvested the grain sheds thundered to the sound of the electric dryers.

However, this year Eastern England has experienced much more typical weather with light but regular rainfall and fine weather. As the harvest winds down at the end of August I've been watching the skies trying to note when I see the last of the swifts (Apus apus). This interesting, fast-flying bird arrives in the UK in May and leaves at the end of August. It is a species that spends almost all its life on the wing, even eating and sleeping as it flies. Its stay in our country is long enough to raise a brood in its nest under eaves and in church towers, the only time it spends on terra firma. So what is my theory, you may be wondering? Well, perhaps it's the case that, in this part of the world, in a typical year, the end of the harvest and the departure of the swifts coincide. Not an earth shattering theory, I'll grant you, but one that I'll test each year. Incidentally, after two "swift-free" days I saw a lone bird yesterday when I took this photograph.

Note 1: The church on the extreme left of the horizon is St Mary, Swineshead, that features in yesterday's post.
Note 2: Today the wheat field opposite my house was cut and I saw one swift.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dreams, holidays and hats

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I sometimes can't decide which is worse - listening to someone telling me about their holiday or hearing someone recount the dream they had last night. On balance I think I'd rather be exposed to the workings of a person's subconscious because then I might hear something that I haven't heard before; something that is unexpected, unusual, odd, weird or surreal. Though it has to be said that frequently dreams are none of those things and are just plain daft. But holidays, well, people invest so much in them in terms of cash and expectations that their reports tend to emphasise how wonderful it all was. But hearing the minutiae of travelling, sightseeing, eating, and the rest, as someone who wasn't there, makes watching paint dry seem interesting. Only occasionally do you hear a report that takes the opposite tack, that the holiday was terrible, and they wouldn't go there again. But, it's even rarer that anyone says what is usually the case - that it was everything that was expected i.e. entirely predictable.

It seems to me that much of business is involved in selling us entirely predictable experiences. Places like Macdonalds or Starbucks, and manufacturers like Coca Cola or Cadburys have business models whose very aim is to do just that. People seem to want this, and are prepared to accept the safety and certainty of the anodyne, the tedium of the foreseeable, rather than enter into the possibility of getting something worse, or better. The same is true of holidays, with travel companies, businesses and national tourist authorities in holiday destinations striving to ensure that every traveller has their expectations met. You're going to East Africa? Then we'll make sure you see lions and elephants. Spain? Flamenco dancers will be provided. Scotland? Pipers in kilts will feature at major sight-seeing venues. Travellers are complicit in this cult of predictability, wanting to tick off the mental checklist of places, sights and "experiences". Even those who make their own travel and accommodation arrangements, seeking to rise above the derided "package tour", nonetheless, tend to seek out the expected and predictable when going their "own way".

I don't imagine that the three men in today's photograph were discussing either holidays or dreams. I photographed them last year at an event where old farm vehicles were being used and displayed. Perhaps the conversation centred around the steam threshing machine, or one of the old traction engines. Whatever it was, they were bringing not only their collective wisdom to bear on the issue, but also a fine collection of hats!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

A conglomerate of collective nouns

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What has one of the first successful women authors to do with this flock of gulls? More than you might imagine!

Dame Juliana Barnes, sometimes spelt Berners or Bernes, is traditionally supposed to have been the prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell near St Albans. In 1486 her treatise on hunting was published in the "Book of St Albans". Despite the fact that it was printed with worn out type discarded by William Caxton it proved very popular. A later edition that included her "Treatyse on Fysshinge with an Angle" sold even more copies, and the book was in and out of print until the nineteenth century. Included in this work was a long list of collective nouns for animals. Some of them were those used widely at the time: others were Dame Juliana's own poetic, and often very fanciful inventions. Because they appeared in a book that had a wide readership for such a long time all these collective nouns went into general circulation. Consequently, whilst we are likely to know (as the fifteenth century did) a gaggle of geese, a flock of seagulls, and a pack of wolves, now, due to Dame Julianas efforts, we also recognise "a murmuration of starlings", a "charm of goldfinches" and "a murder of crows". Some, such as a "shrewdness of apes" and "a cete of badgers" do, thankfully, seem to have fallen by the wayside. If you look up the collective noun for seagulls you will find, besides "flock", the word "screech". Where did that come from I wonder? Was it one of Dame Juliana's constructions, or did someone invent it at a later date following the principles that she used when coining her own nouns of assembly?

I spotted this flock of gulls following a tractor that was ploughing a field near Bicker in Lincolnshire. Later, as I looked at the photograph on my computer, and reflected on the words we use for groups of animals I wondered if any bright spark had come up with a collective noun for tractors. A quick "Google" found others wondering the same and suggesting "a Massey" and "a traction". Neither will do for me, but I can't come up with anything better. Can you?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On