New Year Honours and the Limehouse Link

click photo to enlarge
There's nothing wrong with a society recognising those who make an exceptional, selfless contribution to their community. Unfortunately few societies manage to do this well, and the UK does it exceptionally badly, shrouding the whole process in secrecy and frequently using it as a reward or bribe for politicians and their supporters. This year's New Year Honours List has recently been published and is no different from those of previous years - a mixture of the deserving, the unexceptional who are rewarded with status for doing what they get paid for, and a sickening list of gongs for the establishment's boys (and girls). It's the latter group that the list exists for, and the former are there simply to make the cronyism and paybacks by the government to those who work for it, bankroll it and publicly support it, appear less obnoxious and more legitimate.

The whole system, as I've said before, stinks, and it is only the fact that some principled people turn down the chance to become a Dame, a Lord, a Sir or to have anachronistic letters after their name, that makes the whole thing bearable. So today, rather than despair about the thirty or so members of the Conservative Party who received honours, or Lynton Crosby who "masterminded" the election of the current government and is rewarded with a knighthood (as well as the fat salary he received), or actors, actresses, sports people and the rest who leaven the unsavoury pile with a sprinkling of populism, I await a Freedom of Information Request that lets us know who turned down the baubles of the Queen and the Government in this round of honours giving.

Today's photograph was taken in the Limehouse Link, a 1.1 mile long tunnel that runs from the Tower Bridge approaches to the northern edge of Canary Wharf. It has the distinction of being the most expensive stretch of road in Britain (£50,500 per foot at 2011 prices). Interestingly, this is simply a relief road tunnel constructed, as its rectangular section suggests, by cut-and-cover methods, and not one that passes under the River Thames.

Happy New Year to All.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Limehouse Link Tunnel, London - Out of Focus
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:800
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blurred Blackwall Tunnel, London

click photo to enlarge
Though image stabilisation and improved high ISO performance has greatly improved the low-light and night-time capabilities of cameras, these conditions can still produce shots with motion blur. Low shutter speeds may result in blur caused by camera movement, and this is not usually an effect that a photographer wants (though it can be, and it can be deliberately induced to good effect). On my recent trips through London's Blackwall Tunnel several of my shots taken there exhibited this kind of blur, and it prompted me to try for photographs with the other kind of blur - focus blur - as an alternative to the sharp shots I'd been seeking. I've made quite a few exposures in recent years with the camera deliberately out of focus, and I knew that the night-time points of light against a dark background had the potential to be interesting and perhaps beautiful.

The image above is the one I took that I like best. If you didn't know what the subject was you might not guess it, so you'd judge it solely for its abstract qualities - colour, shapes, composition etc, and here, I think, the convergence on the cluster of bright points of light works well in this regard.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Blurred Blackwall Tunnel, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:1250
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blackwall Tunnel, London

click photo to enlarge
Today's photograph was taken on the 26th December, a day known to many in the Christian church as the Feast of St Stephen, and to people in the United Kingdom as Boxing Day. I've often wondered what visitors to our country make of this name for the day after Christmas Day. It has nothing to do with the pugilistic arts, but refers to the giving of a present (or "Christmas Box"), by wealthier people to their servants and tradespeople with whom they had dealings.This custom dates back to the seventeenth century but the name itself only became widely used during the Victorian period.

My visit to the capital was brief - only a couple of days - and was entirely devoted to family matters. However, I took a camera and decided to see what shots I could get on our trips under the River Thames and to the nearby play park. This photograph was taken in the Blackwall Tunnel, a pair of tunnels that passes under the river to the east of the centre of the city, between the edge of Canary Wharf and the O2 arena in Greenwich. It is one of a couple of dozen I took and the one that best achieves the convergence lines and colours that characterise driving through these underwater tubes. I should add that I was a front seat passenger when using my camera!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Blackwall Tunnel, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:1600
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Futurology

click photo to enlarge
I have said elsewhere in this blog that I think I could have been a futurologist. It's a job with little responsibility - I mean, honestly, how many people really believe your predictions? Moreover, you know for a fact that much of what you foresee will never come to pass, so failure in your job is a given. However, it would definitely be great fun (for a while at least) to get up each morning and sit at your desk trying to discern trends; extrapolate the present into the future; and make inspired (or otherwise) guesses about things that will come to be that don't yet exist, even as a figment of someone's imagination.

This thought went through my mind as I walked down the London Underground pedestrian tunnel shown in today's photograph. Though I've travelled on gleaming, stainless steel escalators and moving "walkways", none of them said "future" to me in the way this tunnel did. Perhaps it's because it looks like a glimpse of the future as dreamed up in the 1960s. The concealed lighting, muted colours (only the blue handrail and matching blue flecks on the wall enlivened the whites, greys and earth tones), circle segments and converging lines could be a set on the 1968 Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

As we used the tunnel to move from one section of the network to another I paused a moment, letting my companions continue ahead to provide some mid-ground interest, set the LX3 to its widest angle (24mm at 35mm equiv.), and took this shot. The original colour version of the image isn't especially colourful, but when I looked at it in black and white I liked not only the way it emphasised the converging lines but also the "looking at the future from the past" feel described above.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On