The Jolly Fisherman, Skegness

click photo to enlarge

In the middle ages the Lincolnshire town of Skegness suffered from the depredations of the sea. Buildings were lost, and its continuance was precarious. But, it survived and its medieval church can still be seen. In the early nineteenth century the town gained some standing as a desirable resort for the well-to-do. However, most of Skegness's growth came after the arrival of the railway in 1876 when a conscious decision was made to develop the town as a seaside resort.

Under the direction of the major landowner, the Earl of Scarborough, the expansion of Skegness was planned on a grid and developed quite slowly, with wide avenues, tree planting and monuments. Only when the area fronting the sea was bought by the town council in 1921 did the brash resort that we see today begin to appear. Not that there hadn't been a concerted effort in the earlier years of the twentieth century to attract visitors.

In 1908 the London and North Eastern Railway company commissioned the illustrator, John Hassall, to produce a poster to advertise Skegness. His creation, for which he was paid twelve guineas, has become one of the best known seaside advertising posters in Britain. The "jolly fisherman" character that it features, as well as the slogan, "Skegness is so bracing", became so closely associated with the town they that have been used in the original form and in several updated-versions almost without interruption over the past century. Hassall's first, hand-painted poster is now displayed in Skegness Town Hall. The jolly fisherman continues to be used on many souvenirs and advertisements for the town, and in recent years has been made the centrepiece of a fountain in one of the sea-front gardens.I took this contre-jour photograph of the prancing figure on top of the cascading water, positioning myself so that the aircraft vapour trails framed the silhouetted fisherman like Hollywood searchlights. It's hard to predict the outcome with photographs that include the sun in the frame, but I've shot enough of this kind of image to know that even the big white orb and lens flare don't detract from the impact and drama that can be achieved by photographing against the light.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm
 F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Living with vapour trails

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One recent cold and frosty morning, as I went out into the garden to feed the birds, I chanced to look up and saw a curving vapour trail that was being made by an aircraft heading away from me. It was an odd route for a four-engined jet to be on, and as I studied the sky I noticed the remnants of a couple more such trails slowly de-materialising. Looking closer to the horizon I could see more curved trails whose positions suggested they were part of the same trails nearer to me: clearly one or more aircraft was flying in large circles over Lincolnshire and the nearby sea.

Some of the bigger RAF bases are in the county so unusual vapour trails are a common sight. However, it was immediately clear to me that there was only one four-engined military aircraft that would deliberately fly in circles, at great height. I took a pair of binoculars outside to get a better look and my suspicion was confirmed: a Boeing Sentry AEW1 (AWACS) with its large radome slowly revolving above it was flying in a circle that must have been twenty, thirty or perhaps more miles in diameter. It was clearly participating in some kind of exercise, monitoring and controlling other aircraft and perhaps shipping or land forces below. Either that or we were being invaded!

In one of my first blog posts (actually the eighth, in December 2005) I sounded off about vapour trails, calling them, as far as a photographer is concerned, aerial graffiti, and suggesting that "only rarely do they add something to the image." My view of them hasn't changed since then. I find them an unwanted intrusion much more often than they are an element that I want to include in a composition. But, I have made a few images where vapour trails are, I think, key to their success. This landscape and this semi-abstract of a fairground ride are a couple that come to mind.

However, vapour trails, I discovered recently, aren't always so obviously intrusive. In saying that I'm not referring to those that are so dishevelled that they look like clouds. A few days ago, after I'd taken a speculative shot of the moon through some nearby ash trees and a veil of thin cloud, I noticed near the bottom of the brighter part of the photograph, a wavy vapour trail. As I studied it I reflected that you aren't even free of the wretched things when you're photographing at night!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/10 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  -1.00 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Shooting the sun

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"Always take photographs with your back to the sun." That's the first piece of photographic advice I remember reading as a teenager. And useless advice it was too! Follow that rule when photographing people and you end up with an image of people squinting at the camera. Other subjects look floodlit, flat and boring. I soon learned that much better photographs result when you have the sun falling on your subject from the left or right giving shadows that model whatever it is that you are shooting. Later still in my photographic development I appreciated the value of getting the camera pointing quite close to the sun, and producing contre jour and silhouette effects.

In recent years, since the advent of digital photography, I've found myself deliberately including the sun in shots for the striking and slightly unpredictable effects that ensue. The sun in the image acts as a very strong compositional element, and can be a useful counterweight to a more tangible subject elsewhere in the frame, as here and here. I tried it again the other day as I walked through the Lincolnshire countryside below a cold sky filled with the graffiti of passenger jets. I tried a few different exposures, and settled on this one taken with a shutter speed of 1/4000 second, as the best of the bunch. It has quite a strong "starburst" around the sun, a couple of aberrations produced by light interacting with the glass, and an interesting mix of colours ranging from almost black at the top, through blues, whites and orange. It's not a shot that I can say I carefully organised before pressing the shutter, but its unpredicted qualities make for an image that I find quite pleasing.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/4000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Contrails and cattle

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The more we study global warming the more we come to appreciate the multiplicity of contributors to the phenomenon.

According to the UN the CO2 equivalent (methane) produced by cattle rearing exceeds the CO2 produced by transportation. Add in all the other sheep, goats, pigs, etc, that produce methane and the contribution made by livestock farming to global warming is massive. And, since methane is, by most measures, a significantly more harmful greenhouse gas than CO2, the case for reducing the scale of animal agriculture is compelling.

Consider too the vapour trails (contrails) that criss-cross our skies. Not only are they a pain for the photographer, they also increase the amount of high level cirrus in the atmosphere. This kind of cloud reflects less heat than it traps, and so raises the temperature of the earth by a measurable amount. Studies in the U.S. suggest that aircraft-generated clouds contribute an increase of somewhere between 0.36 and 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. That being the case, those calling for a reduction in flying seem to have a point.

This photograph of cows walking along the sea bank at Frampton Marsh, Lincolnshire, caused the disparate subjects of methane and air travel to come to mind. The silhouettes of the group of cows and the lone straggler, along with the vapour trails that had been "distressed" by high level winds, seemed a promising combination of the distinct and the diaphanous. In this flat landscape this ratio of land to sky suggested itself.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 76mm (152mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On