Old style wheat harvesting

click photo to enlarge
The Bicker Steam Threshing & Classic Car weekend held in the Lincolnshire village each September features a vintage Foster threshing machine powered by a traction engine separating the wheat seeds from the stalks. For this to happen regularly over the two day event a quantity of wheat has to be cut and saved. This must be done in a more traditional manner, without the involvement of a combine harvester. I was invited to photograph this recently. My photograph here shows a Lanz powered binder of c.1950 vintage pulled by a Fiat 90.90 tractor from (I think) the 1980s, cutting the wheat, binding it in "stooks" and laying it in rows ready to be forked onto a trailer.

photo and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Cutting and Binding Wheat for Bicker Steam Threshing
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 39mm (78mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Where do all the straw bales go?

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There was a time, not so many decades ago, when some English farmers burned the straw on the fields after getting in the cereal crop. This environmentally damaging solution to what to do with the left-overs from harvest has long since been banished to history. The fact that it caused dangerous driving conditions on nearby roads was at least as strong an argument as that concerning greenhouse gases. The loss of nutrients provided by the burnt straw notwithstanding, few lament the demise of burning in the fields.

And yet, burning does actually remain one of the ways that straw is used. Over the past couple of years a straw-burning power station has been built and opened near Sleaford, Lincolnshire. There the bales are converted into electricity with considerably fewer environmental consequences than direct burning (though inevitably with some repercussions), and local farmers have an outlet for their "waste". I'd be interested to know the ranges of use to which straw is put today. Animal bedding remains, of course, and some houses (very few actually) have been built using the rectangular bales as wall insulation. A couple of years ago I spoke to a farmer who was selling bales to the Ministry of Defence to use for demolishing some disused fortified buildings by fire! Straw board is still made and used and a proportion of straw is ploughed back into the soil. However, I see veritable mountains of bales dotted around Lincolnshire of which very few look older than a year. One of my tasks this autumn must be to answer this question - "Where do all the straw bales go?"

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (67mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/800 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old and new cultivation

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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

Cameras tell lies

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Doesn't this Fenland scene look calm, idyllic and bountiful? I think so. The luxuriant wheat is flawless, even the tractor's oval of tracks so orderly that it barely mars the perfection of the growing crop. A solitary wind turbine, a piece of modern technology both reviled and admired, stands pristine over the fields, slowly turning and making its small (2MW) contribution to the nation's energy needs. Above, the unblemished sky adds to the feeling of everything in its place and all being well under heaven. What a lie!

I took today's photograph from the steps of another wind turbine, its electrical hum and the steady swish of its blades slicing the air, loud in my ears. Another eleven turbines and an electrical sub-station, all off to the right and behind me added to the controlled clamour, while behind and to the left lines of electrical pylons marched across similar fields like rows of giants holding hands. The evening scene and the appearance of the countryside in this particular location  was eminently open to manipulation and, with my selective viewpoint, I exploited the opportunity.

In fact, that's what photographers do all the time: they choose a small part of their field of view and try to ensure that it contains only those things that help to tell the story enclosed in their image. And the truth is, as often as not, that photographic image - that people assume is entirely representational - ends up being as much fiction as fact!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15.5mm (42mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Work - a four letter word?

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"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else."
J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), Scottish author and dramatist best known for "Peter Pan"

There are many who would agree with the implied definition of work that lies at the heart of Barrie's quotation. For many - probably most - work is a four letter word, a daily grind that is necessary for the income that it produces rather than the accomplishments that it entails. I've heard it argued that capitalism provided the wherewithal for a life that satisfies the bodily needs of the greatest number, but did so at the expense of increasing the amount of stultifying work. And yet, hasn't much work always been physically and mentally wearisome, at least since the time mankind started cultivation and a range of personal tasks became the role of specialised workers; jobs they did to the exclusion of all else in exchange for bartered goods or money?

What I found interesting during my experience of a variety of employment is the way that people find in their work rewards beyond money that make it more pleasurable. Factors such as friendship and camaraderie are not often the intentional product of an unfulfilling job, but frequently they make it more bearable. Those of us who have experienced employment that is generally fulfilling, and is seen by people as socially useful, have been fortunate. However, even this work has its downside as management techniques, systems, and the like impinge negatively on the core activity. It was certainly the case in my line of work that the higher I got within the system the more this happened. It was frequently the companionship of co-workers that kept me grounded at these times.

The other evening I cycled past a combine harvester working over a field of wheat. The sight of the driver in his noisy, air-conditioned isolation, only feet away from the tractor driver, similarly alone, caused me to reflect for a moment on the lot of the Fenland farmer. In the past, when agriculture was more labour intensive, human companionship (or even animal companionship) was common. Today many large Fenland farms are entirely managed by a single person with help hired, or else sought from friends and family, when needed. For much of the year man and machine do the necessary ploughing, sowing and tending of crops alone. Even the buying, selling and other routine exchanges often no longer involve face-to-face discussion but is conducted from the fields by phone. This increasing solitude is the experience of more work these days, from call-centre staff in their booths, hundreds in close proximity, individually spending most of their time alone, to home-workers at their computers and smartphones, communicating without speaking a word.

I stopped  my bicycle and got my camera out to take this shot. Immediately that was done I packed it into its case and put it in my pannier, sealing them tight as a cloud of wind-blown dust and chaff enveloped me.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 73mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tractor lines and wheat

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I've lived in Lincolnshire for five years and during that time I've taken an interest in the agriculture that is to be found here. Cereals and vegetables prevail, especially on the Fens and the better land. Beef and dairy cattle are also reasonably common though there is much less than in the west of Britain. Sheep can also be seen though again in smaller numbers than in the west. What is very noticeable is the way that the land is intensively cultivated with a view to maximizing production and profit. This is most obvious in vegetable production, but it can be seen with cereals too.

I read that the UK produces more wheat than it consumes. However, though some wheat is exported, there is also importation of wheat varieties that can't be grown in our climate. All this is good for the balance of payments, seems to produce a good income for farmers (with the help of the EU farm policy), and provides for the country's food needs in flour and animal feed. Over the past few years I've watched the cycle of the local winter wheat production. The activities are roughly as follows, modified, of course, by the weather: September - land ploughed and prepared for sowing; October - seed sown (drilled); November - herbicide application to control weeds; December - young wheat left to grow; January - as for previous month; February - fertiliser applied; March - fertiliser applied; April - nitrogen fertiliser applied; May - nitrogen fertiliser applied; June - fungicide application applied; July - wheat left to grow; August - wheat harvested. As you can see there is very little respite for the land, and the wheat fields' contribution to feeding wildlife, which was formerly significant, has been reduced to virtually zero.

On a recent outing to photograph "lines in the landscape" I saw many fields with flourishing wheat, some with patches where recent strong winds and rain had flattened the crop, and more than I've seen before with puddles of water in the tractor lines. The example above is not untypical. It will be something of a nuisance for a farmer, but for a passing photographer it's a very useful piece of foreground interest!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Simple pleasures

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Simple pleasures are always, without exception, the best pleasures. Watching your children's first encounters with what we take for granted is an experience that's hard to beat. I remember my first-born sitting in his pushchair and laughing uncontrollably at a donkey, the first he'd ever seen, that put its head through a fence to look at him. Simpler still, isn't a cool glass of water on a hot day a drink unsurpassed by any man-made mixture? Or what about the view at the end of a strenuous climb to the summit of a mountain? Isn't it just the perfect reward for your effort?

And then there's clouds. I take almost daily pleasure in looking at clouds. Formations that I've seen countless times still attract my eye and instill the same awe that I must have felt the first time I saw them. New and different takes on common configurations also draw my attention. The other evening I was out and about looking for a few "lines in the landscape" to add to my collection. The tracks left by farm vehicles as they traverse crops have a fascination for me, and when I saw the examples in the photograph above I was pleased to see the clouds overhead. Those straight flicks of cirrus looked like they were painted on to the blue sky with a lightly laden brush. The effect of the wide angle lens at 17mm was to make them converge towards a vanishing point and introduced a linear quality that echoed the lines below. It was enough to make me take a shot that gives the sky more emphasis than the land below.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The manicured countryside

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I frequently walk and cycle on a track across some fields near where I live. The crops at each side of the path vary: often it's wheat, sometimes it's beet and occasionally it's brassicas of one kind or another. Because this is the Lincolnshire Fens the land is intensively farmed and areas of uncultivated land are few. There is a nearby stream that has reeds growing alongside it, but apart from that, for much of the route, the track itself provides the only place where wild plants thrive. Each year I've delighted in the lesser bindweed, dog daisies, chamomile, cornflowers and many other species that grow at the edges of this route that is used not only by walkers but horse riders, cyclists and agricultural vehicles. In an area such as the Fens even a small patch of wild land is a magnet for mammals, birds, and insects. Along this track the wildlife I commonly at various times of year includes see partridges, skylarks, reed buntings, yellowhammers, snipe, little egrets, wheatear, goldfinches, linnets, sedge warblers, yellow wagtails, hares, stoats, and various butterflies and insects. The other day I stood on it and watched a hobby circling above me: buzzards, sparrowhawks and kestrels are not uncommon and I've even seen a passing red kite.

So, you can imagine my disappointment and anger when, a couple of months ago, I went along the track and found that a tractor with a grass cutter had mown everything on and alongside it, almost up to the edge of the crops in the adjacent fields. It seemed a completely pointless thing to do. The crops are sprayed with herbicide and pesticide on a predetermined regime, so any seeds or insects going into them from the track have little if any chance of thriving. But, of course, all the wild plants were cut down and the number that completed their life cycle was drastically reduced, limiting not only their viability ut also the seeds available for local birds. Moreover, the beauty of the route was destroyed. I suppose to a certain kind of farmer it looked "neater". However, it's hard to keep nature down and the plants started to grow again. But recently it was all cut down again in the same way! Utter madness!

It occurs to me that acts of this sort are often quite mindless, and are frequently a result of either boredom (there are times when even farmers are at a loose end) or a desire for tidiness that borders on the obsessive. Not all farmers are this way inclined: many now farm with a keen regard for wildlife as well as their profit margin, and don't manicure every acre. In my part of the world many take advantage of agricultural subsidies intended to promote biodiversity, and leave strips uncultivated. But, there are still farmers who see nature as a competitor rather than a necessary and valuable part of the landscape and are determined to either obliterate it or keep it under very tight control.

Today's photograph, that prompted today's "reflection", shows "weeds" i.e. wild flowers, growing along the edge of a wheat field in Norfolk.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Fenland misconceptions

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The Fenlands are one of those areas of England about which many people hold misconceptions: that is if they hold any conceptions at all! The first is that the Fens are to be found in Lincolnshire. They are, but they also extend into Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and a small area of Suffolk. Then there is the view that they are flat. That's essentially true, but the area has silt ridges, medieval sea banks, old salterns and small natural undulations that mean it isn't entirely flat. The Fens are a treeless landscape is a view that many hold. This certainly isn't true. There's no doubt that the Fens have fewer trees than most lowland areas, but there is no point where trees cannot be seen, most villages have plenty of them, small stands and individuals are common in open country, and the hedgerows feature quite a few too. There are even areas of new tree planting instigated by government grants.Most people know that the Fens produce prodigious quantities of vegetables and cereals, and often those who are aware of this assert that livestock is absent. In fact sheep, cows, and pigs are present in small but significant quantities - sheep in greater numbers in winter - and an assortment of pet/hobby livestock, from llamas to ponies are found in paddocks being tended by those engaged in "horseyculture". Wildlife enthusiasts consider the area bereft of animals and wild plants. As someone who has lived among the riches of the Yorshire Dales, by the Humber Estuary, and in the region of coast, plain and mountains that is north Lancashire, I can confirm that there are fewer of these than in some other areas, but that any walk in the Fens reveals a good range of birds, animals and plants for anyone who cares to look.

The opinion also exists that walking in the Fens holds few attractions. For those of limited imagination and appreciation this may be true. However, for walkers of wider experience, who know that all landscapes offer interest to the discerning eye and mind, the charms of passing through this region on foot are many and unique. I had such a walk with my wife and a couple of friends the other day. On minor roads, farm tracks, footpaths and the banks of the South Forty Foot we meandered through crops and by waterways under an enormous sky, stopping to watch yellow wagtails, buzzards, reed buntings, sedge warblers and more. As we approached the stand of trees in the photograph we reflecetd on how they were allowed to remain standing, even after the old farmhouse that stood near them was taken down and a new one built nearby. Their presence showed that not all Fenland farmers try to squeeze every last drop of profit out of their land, and that some have a reverence for the landscape and a sense for those things that enhance its special beauty.

click photo to enlarge

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Simplification

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Since my translocation from a coastal area with a conurbation to a rural area with fields and villages I've found it harder to simplify my photographs. Perhaps it's because in my present setting I see fewer opportunities for images that emphasise these qualities. Yes there are uniform areas of grass and sky, but there is little open water or sea, no expanses of beach, large buildings with plain walls are few as are expanses of concrete and tarmac. So, simple backdrops are harder to find. And, the range of subjects that I could call upon in the vicinityof  my former home was wider. Consequently, as I go about my photographic business I'm constantly on the look out for any image that exhibits the simple force of just two or three elements. Sometimes I find it by going in close either by physical proximity or using a zoom lens. But opportunities for wider shots that feature this quality are harder to find and see.

However, the other day as we walked across the field of winter wheat around which is the village of Tetford on the Lincolnshire Wolds, one of these simple images presented itself to me. My wife was walking ahead, bum-bag bouncing, map in hand, as we came towards the end of a long morning walk. As she strode along the uniform greenness of the wheat, the long and sinuous path, and her figure suggested a shot. So, I stepped to the side to make the line of the foorpath fill the right of the frame, placed my wife on the left, and took a couple of photographs. This is best one.


For more thoughts on simplifying photographic compositions see here, here, and here. Examples are spread throughout (mainly) the years 2005-2007 of the blog!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 271mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 320
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Guardians of the countryside?

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I remember hearing, many years ago, a representative of the National Farmers Union (NFU) being interviewed on the radio. He was defending the actions of his members against criticism that their practices were largely responsible for the massive reduction, during the past fifty years, in farmland bird species and wild flowers. He argued, very cogently, that farmers had responded to the demand by retailers and consumers for cheaper food, and that lower prices had come about by increased efficiency, including mechanization, a smaller workforce, and larger farms and fields. And, whilst he acknowledged that this had changed the character of farms, and to some extent, the appearance of the countryside, he was at pains to point out that the landscape was something farmers cared about and conserved. He felt it was wrong to characterise them as destructive. However, he then went on to describe his members as "guardians of the countryside", a description that I felt was more than a little flattering.

I have come across, and known, farmers who thoroughly deserve this title, people who do farm with landscape and wildlife as more than an afterthought: clearly there are many such people. Unfortunately, there are also those who pay no regard to biodiversity, who see wild flora and fauna as competitors to their main business, and seem to conduct a campaign of despoilation in the search for ever higher yields. A few days cycling in the Nottinghamshire countryside have recently highlighted one of these practices. We passed mile after mile of hedgerows that had been smashed ("cut" does describe the way they were savaged), often with a powered grass flail rather than a purpose-built hedge trimmer. A farmer, still busy in the distance pulverizing the hedges, had littered the verge and road we were navigating with splintered hawthorn debris. But then, by way of pleasant contrast, we came across hedges that had been sensitively cut, at a time of year that didn't destroy nests, and fields such as the one in today's photograph, where oak trees had been left to grow despite the inconvenience that they must present to tractors, ploughs and combine harvesters. We were left to wonder what made farmers act in such clearly different ways?

Our time away coincided with some unsettled weather, and this image was taken as we pedalled home in the knowledge that rain was imminent. The lone trees, tractor lines and the brooding clouds made for a simple landscape that appealed to me, and I used the LX3's 16:9 format to capture the sweeping undulations of the stubble covered field.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 9.3mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dowsby church

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A few evenings ago, as I was driving to a speaking engagement, my route took me past Dowsby church. At around 7pm in the middle of June the sun is low but still bright, and the absence of clouds on this particular day meant that it was modelling the landscape very nicely. Consequently, I pulled over, got out of the car, and took a couple of photographs of the medieval building from the roadside looking across the corner of a field of wheat.

Dowsby is in many respects a very typical English village church setting - quiet, leafy, verdant. Whilst many churches are in the centre of their settlements frequently they are at the edge, as in this case. Dowsby itself is no more than a handful of houses strung out around the junctions where a couple of side roads meet a main road. However, nearby is the old Dowsby Hall, and though it is later than the church, its wealth and influence will have exerted a pull on the church for several centuries. The churchyard at Dowsby is relatively small, as befits a building serving a small village and some farms. However, it does support a few trees as most English churchyards manage to do. The path through the churchyard is across the grass: presumably the congregation is so small that the wear of their passing feet has never necessitated the laying of something more permanent. Having said that, as the recent gravestones in this image from Google Street View show, the graveyard continues to accept the deceased.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The pleasure of imperfection

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The fields of Lincolnshire are looking their cultivated, perfect best. Rows of cereals and vegetables are mathematically straight, weeds have been cowed into submission by tractors with spray booms, and leaves are of the deepest green following scientifically accurate applications of fertiliser. It all bodes well for a good harvest. But thankfully, in a corner here, a field there, things are not going quite as intended. The yellow and white heads of corn chamomile break up the uniformity in a few areas, and the sunshine flowers of last year's oilseed rape, guerilla plants that evaded the farmers herbicides, can be seen dotted about rising above the ears of wheat. Around field boundaries and headlands poppies have appeared, their seed having lain dormant for who knows how long. In one field that I came across an army of these redcoats was peering out over the wheat, asserting itself as June's traditional dash of scarlet.

There was a time when poppies glowed in many, if not most, cereals. But the advance of science in farming has all but ended that wonderful sight in many parts of England. Today there is no place for the uplifting spectacle that is a wheat field invaded by these scarlet battalions. So, when I saw the flowers in today's photograph, clustered and spread through about half of a crop of wheat I smiled and thought, "Isn't imperfection beautiful!", then scrambled down and up a deep ditch (getting stung by nettles in the process), stepped over a low fence, crouched low and grabbed my image.

I manage to get a photograph of wheat and poppies most years, though as with this one, it's invariably when I come upon them by chance, rather than by design. Previous examples, shot in more of a landscape mode, can be seen here and here. Incidentally, the title of today's piece was going to be "The beauty of imperfection", but that rang a small bell in my head, so I looked back through my posts and found that I'd used it in November 2008, when I blogged on the same theme, though from a different perspective.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5 Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wheat, wires and Large Whites

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Over the summer I've gradually got the impression that this year is a good one for butterflies. So, I did a bit of online research and ended up at the website of Butterfly Conservation. Here I read this by their Surveys Manager, Richard Fox: "The picture for native British butterflies remains mixed. Numbers appear to be up on the previous two summers, which were extremely wet and dire for butterflies. This summer has been better so far, in spite of the recent showers. If the wet summers had continued some endangered species such as the Heath Fritillary were vulnerable to extinction. The good news is the Heath Fritillary appears to have rallied and is having a good year. But numbers overall are still well down on a decade ago." So it seems that 2009 is a better year relatively speaking.

As I write my lavender is besieged by Large Whites, Painted Ladies, Peacocks, Common Walls and Small Tortoiseshells. The Painted Ladies have been particularly noticeable this year, but I was amazed to read that this migratory species may be represented by 1 billion specimens in the UK at the moment! The other species that have been much more numerous are the Small and Large Whites. Our cabbages have been receiving their eggs (soon to be caterpillars) despite us offering the compensating attractions of buddleia and lavender.

On a visit to Sempringham church (click link then scroll down for links) the other day I noticed an opportunity to add to my collection of images of tractor tracks (click link then scroll down for links). The additional interest offered by these particular tracks, in a field of very ripe wheat, was the telegraph pole and wires that stretched across the sky. As I stood, considering my shot, listening to the crackle of the ripe seed heads, I noticed Large White butterflies crossing the field. I quickly composed this shot that includes one of them on the right, hoping that it was sufficiently near to be recognisable for what it was.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Harvest evening

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One of the things that photography does very well is document the past. Yet, inevitably, when the photographs were taken that recorded the world of the past, it was the present. In fact, it's probably true to say that most photographs that we use today to see what the past was like weren't taken with that purpose in mind. The exceptions to this rule include the work of documentary photographers such as recently deceased Jimmy Forsyth (1913-2009) who chronicled a disappearing kind of working class life in North-East England, and also the work of specialists associated with heritage organisations who document buildings, transport, artefacts, etc.

I must say that I've only rarely taken photographs with a view to recording something for posterity, yet I suppose that quite a few of my images could be used in that way. However, two years ago, at the beginning of August, I took the photograph shown above. I took it because it was unusual in showing a method of collecting and transporting straw that seemed to have died out. As I write this piece the combine harvesters are rolling over the Fenland wheat fields, gathering up the seed, depositing the straw in neat lines, and other machines are coming along and converting those rows into multiple, squat, cylindrical bales. That has been the way for many years now, and yet here were these trailers piled up with straw that, for all I know, could have been loaded with pitchforks. It was like a scene from fifty years ago. Swap the wheels for ones with wooden spokes and rims wrapped with steel, and it could be a scene from a hundred years ago. Why this reversion to times past, I thought? Had the baling machine broken down? Was someone shooting a movie that was set in the 1950s? I'll never know, but what I do know is that if this image only existed as a print it would be impossible to date it with any accuracy. As a digital file, of course, it carries its birth certificate wherever it goes!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Playing in the great outdoors

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According to a recent survey by the National Trust 38% of Britain's children spend less than one hour outside each day, and about a quarter spend more than 14 hours a week in front of a television or a computer screen. In the same survey the favourite memory for the vast majority of parents involved playing outside.

My favourite memory of childhood would also be of playing outside, in my case on the limestone uplands of the Yorkshire Dales: exploring caves, streams and rivers and woods, catching fish, watching wildlife, taking home leaves and flowers to identify. When I was young most children were allowed to roam the area in and around the market town where I lived. It wasn't unusual for a group of us to come across another band of children playing in the fields or on the hills, perhaps making dens out of the scree at the bottom of a cliff. During my walks in that same area today I never see children, either accompanied or unaccompanied. In fact, I don't often see people below the age of forty taking their leisure in the countryside, so perhaps this particular rot set it many years ago!

One of the pleasures of growing up is discovering the beauty that is all around us; the plant and animal life, and the history, that is freely available to us all, almost regardless of where we live. We are so much the poorer if our main experience of the world is mediated through television or computers. Direct experience, looking closely at our surroundings, finding out things for ourselves, experiencing the freedom to wander, is crucial to the rounded development of children, and provides them with enjoyment and healthy activity at very little cost. The safety concerns of parents and society, that lead to children being restricted, are greatly overstated and need to be toned down otherwise today's children, when they are adults, will be citing their favourite memory of childhood as reaching Level X of Computer Game Y!

As I was photographing this track that cuts through a wheatfield on the gently rolling hills near the village of Folkingham, Lincolnshire, I wondered where it went to, and what was at the end of it. As a child I'd have followed it to find out. I'd like to think there are still some village children who are doing that sort of thing today. What appealed to me about this shot was the mutiple lines of the track, the way its arc was almost followed by the line of the clouds, and how the area of blue above nicely echoed the area of dark grass below.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Energy, turbines and magic

click photo to enlarge
It's nothing short of remarkable how, in the past couple of hundred years, mankind's use of energy has grown from a barely measurable amount to 500 Exajoules (2005).

Before, say, 1700 most energy came from man and animal power, from burning wood and some coal, and from wind and water. And, in most cases it was consumed at the place where it was generated. Today, in the form of coal, gas and oil, energy is often transported across the world before consumption, just like many other traded commodities. And even when it is generated in the country in which it is used, electrical energy is transmitted to centres of population and industries by a grid of wires. In the past the windmill's power was used where the windmill stood - either for grinding corn that was brought to it, pumping water that was immediately adjacent, or sawing wood from nearby trees, and most were in or near settlements. In contrast the windmills of today, the 100m high wind turbines that generate electricity, are often sited where there are few people - on hills, offshore, or as with those in today's photograph, in a sparsely populated agricultural area - in this case the Fenland of Lincolnshire.

One could wish that energy generation was less intrusive upon the landscape: nuclear and coal fired plants are big eyesores, and many find wind turbines just as objectionable. However, just as there are people who are capable of appreciating the looming bulk and man-made clouds of cooling towers, so too are there those who see beauty in the wind turbines. To walk around these otherworldy creatures under a blue sky flecked with cloud, the swish of the blades and the flicker of their giant shadows the only disturbance to a beautiful summer afternoon is not an unpleasant experience. In many ways a wind farm becomes more appealing the closer you get to it, and what can appear to be a blot on the horizon transforms into something with a hint of magic about it when you stand among them.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Above us only sky

click photo to enlarge

From the mid -eighteenth century, through painters like Richard Wilson (1713 - 1782), Thomas Gains- borough (1727 - 1788) and Alexander Cozens (1717 - 1786), English landscape painting found its feet. Yet, their art still shows that century's belief in man's superiority over nature, and the idea that it can and must be "improved". It was the group of artists who followed them - Thomas Girtin (1775-1802), John Crome (1768-1821), John Sell Cotman (1782-1842), J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) and, pre-eminently, John Constable (1776-1837), who cast aside this mindset in pursuit of the natural world as they found it, and created "a prodigious flowering of landscape painting in England, unparalleled in any one country on the Continent."

Drawing his inspiration from Titian backgrounds, the work of Rubens and Dutch landscape painters, as well as the English artists of that earlier generation, Constable painted scenes from around his home in Suffolk. Cottages, barns, trees, ruins, waggons and horses - all were worthy subjects in his view. However, his interpretations were mediated by an English sensibility and depend for their power on his rendering of the changing English sky. Constable called the sky "the keynote" of a landscape painting. He gave much of his energy to capturing the fleeting beauty of clouds and light at different times of day and different seasons. The lessons he learned from his cloud studies were transferred into his major paintings. Constable's skies are suffused with the variations that come from weather that originates over the Atlantic, is moderated by passing above our small island, and is further changed by never being far from the influence of the sea. These qualities can be seen in paintings such as Weymouth Bay (1816), Brighton Beach with Colliers (1824), Hadleigh Castle (1829), The Valley Farm (1835), or Norham Castle (1835-40).

Today some people appreciate Constable's work for its depiction of an idyllic, English countryside that has either disappeared or changed, except for in a few corners of our land. But, whilst Constable was not insensitive to the beauty of the English landscape of his time, he simply painted what he saw. In 1820 it was a haywain by a farm and stream: if he had been painting today I'd like to think it would have been a bright red combine harvester passing over a field of ripe, yellow wheat! And, whilst Constable would not have recognised this piece of modern farm machinery, he most certainly would recognise and celebrate the wonderful clouds drifting over these flat, Lincolnshire Fenland fields.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The staff of life

click photo to enlarge

Britain's farming population is in long-term decline. In 1996 there were 616,000 people employed in agriculture. By 2007 this had gone down to 526,000, the result of increasing mechanization, the amalgamation of farms into ever larger units, and the declining profitability of the sector. Over the same period the age profile of those employed in agriculture increased.

Changes in wheat farming are fairly typical of the sector as a whole. Over the same period the area devoted to cultivation declined from 1976,000 hectares to 1816,000 hectares, and the volume produced also went down.The income generated by milling wheat and feed wheat slumped, and the amount of wheat produced as a percentage of UK use fell from 125% to 106%. There was, and is, money to be made by producing wheat, but of the 60,000 cereal farmers in the UK it is principally the large landowners and corporate bodies who can benefit from larger subsidies who are making it. The smaller, independent farmers have seen incomes fall drastically, then rally slightly recently. A consequence of this is that a significant number of cereal farms, with hundreds of acres under cultivation, are now worked by the farmer alone, assisted by no permanently employed farm hands. Family members, friends, and occasionally some bought-in contract hours, are the only additional help. It's true to say that the main ingredient of the "staff of life" is grown and harvested with virtually no staff at all! Not surprisingly, since as much of the work as possible is mechanized, the land (and landscape) where these crops are grown is tailored to be managed by farm machinery.

I gleaned this information some time ago from the Statistics pages of UK Agriculture, and from Corporate Watch, and it came to mind as I was looking at this photograph of a combine harvester. I took it a while ago on the Yorkshire Wolds near Weaverthorpe. The solitary driver, alone in his cab in the large, regimented, rolling fields of this cereal growing upland area, seemed to encapsulate the predicament of today's wheat farmer in Britain.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E500
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 134mm (268mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Lines in the landscape

click photo to enlarge

This year I've made quite a few images of tractor lines in cereal fields. I've posted a couple of examples here and here, but I've taken many more. I'm not absolutely sure why this interest has arisen. I think it's something to do with the temporary superimposition of the marks of man on the perfect surface of the field. The fact that the lines are parallel, and that each pair of tracks is, except for those near the field boundaries, the same distance from the next pair, gives them an interesting regularity.

Another reason for my fascination is to do with how you can see the world through a camera. The narrower field of view of a longer focal length lens allows the photographer to isolate part of what is seen. This presents a number of opportunities. It can be a device to concentrate the viewer's attention on to something. It also allows, by the exclusion of surrounding distractions, the composition of a simplified image. And it enables you to create odd looking images from familiar scenes and objects. The lines in the landscape in today's image combines the last two of these.

Thinking further about the photograph, I probably wouldn't have taken the shot if the lines didn't appear to start in the middle of the field, and if they hadn't begun with that small wiggle! So here's a "thank you" to the tractor driver on the rolling hills of Lincolnshire whose slightly wandering attention produced these slightly wandering lines!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 43mm (86mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On