Imperfect doves

click photo to enlarge
"Where there is perfection there is no story to tell."
Ben Okri, Nigerian author (b.1951)

Perfection is over-rated, especially in the visual arts. It can be seductive, rather like the "hook" in a pop song, but it is usually something that we tire of after being exposed to it a few times. Too often it is predictable in its completeness and that ultimately makes for an unsatisfying experience. Imperfection, on the other hand, can succeed by hinting at the perfection that might have been. The flaw in something that mars the perfection frequently becomes the focus of the piece, the thing that makes it interesting.

I was thinking about this as I processed this photograph of a line of doves on the pinnacles of an ornate building in Seville. How much more perfect and much less satisfying would it have been if all the doves had the same pose and faced the same way, and all of the pinnacles had a bird perched on it. It would simply be a picture of stacked lines, each repeating the same motif across the frame. Thankfully nature, in the form of the doves, gave the shot the imperfection that made it a more interesting image.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: White Doves, Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares, Seville
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

White roses

click photo to enlarge
I was raised in the white rose county of Yorkshire but, because I was born in Westmorland, I've never considered myself a true Yorkshireman. Our boys are Yorkshire-born, as my wife, but I still see myself as a son of Westmorland, an ancient county that in 1974 was carelessly and unthinkingly parcelled up with Cumberland and part of Lancashire into the newly formed county of Cumbria. However, when I was growing up I seem to have absorbed some of the characteristics of Yorkshire being both stubborn and argumentative, proud of the area in which I lived and showing a certain disdain for the neighbouring red rose county of Lancashire.

The Wars of the Roses on which the Yorkshire/Lancashire rivalry is based was something that was impressed on us children, and I was fascinated by the way that, after much bloodshed, the two roses symbolic of the two counties were combined to form the Tudor rose. That union did not, however, end the rivalry between the counties. For example, during every childhood summer I took note of the outcome of the regular cricket matches between Yorkshire and Lancashire, always rooting for my adoptive county. But then, after thirty odd years living in Yorkshire I lived for twenty years in Lancashire. That put an end to any vestigial disdain for Lancastrians because in living among them I found them to be friendly people with an equally fine and interesting county of which they are justifiably proud.

I was thinking about my childhood affection for the white rose the other day when, with a visiting friend, we went to a few of the local church flower festivals. One particular display featured a variety of white flowers against a black background and I selected part of it for this shot of a group of white roses. The lighting in the church was such that it only needed a bit of underexposure and some "burning" during the post processing for me to make the blooms "float" against the black card the arrangers had used to show off the flowers.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On