Messy and tidy churches

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I recently went into a medieval church that proudly proclaimed itself to be a "Messy Church". And it was. One afternoon each week it held an informal meeting for families that included art and craft activities. It presumably subscribed to the "Messy Church" credo. I have no problem with that. However, this church was messy in the more widely understood meaning of that word - it was a tip! Surfaces and walls were littered with pieces of paper, furniture was spread about almost randomly, the underlying architectural order of the various parts of the building and its furnishings was undermined by signs, "displays", artwork and much else. It needed someone with an eye and a tidy mind to get a grip of the interior and show people how it was perfectly possible to have a "messy church" that was tidy, clean and looked cared for: one that showed the congregation and visitors the best of the church's past as well as present.

After the disappointment of that experience it was refreshing to step inside Sutterton church. The signs were good even before I entered the porch because I passed someone digging over one of the churchyard flower beds. Inside was an object lesson in how a church can meet the needs of today without obscuring the building's history. It was tidy, obviously well-cared for, had well arranged evidence of regular and wide-ranging activities, and for this visitor, a real pleasure to see. Of course, a dark November afternoon isn't the best for showing off a medieval church interior. But, such a day brings its own charms in the form of pools of light and areas of deep shadow. Both are shown in my photograph that is taken from the chancel looking towards the nave, font and west window. Incidentally, the leaning verticals are a result of time and the foundations, not my tilted camera.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:2500
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Destroying the past

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The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
Simone Weil (1909-1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic and political activist
Despite having great sympathy with Simone Weil's statement I don't find it difficult to think of a worse crime than destroying the past. However, to remove evidence of mankind's past is, undoubtedly, a particularly destructive thing to do. Our sense of the present is greatly informed by our knowledge of the past, and to lose one is to impair the other. The past - in printed or image form, in memories and in buildings and artefacts -  is all that we have to remember those who came before us. To rub them out is to extinguish people, and that is always wrong, whether they are living or dead.

If we confine ourselves to buildings we find that Isis are not the first group to wilfully and deliberately destroy ancient structures for their own ends. The Taliban did it in Afghanistan and in 1942 the Luftwaffe did it in their so-called Baedecker Raids on Britain, a response they said, to the switch to area bombing by the RAF. However, it is not always warring factions that are most responsible for the destruction of the past. All too frequently it is simple neglect or misplaced planning and "progress". In the 1960s and 1970s many ancient buildings that today would have been preserved, adapted and turned to new uses, were swept away in the name of progress. It took the destruction of the Euston Arch to galvanise people against the vandalism that was taking place and begin to bring to an end the loss that was taking place.

Tattershall Castle (above) was one of the buildings in the forefront of early building preservation legislation. In 1910, in a ruinous state, it was bought by Lord Curzon and sensitively restored. It had been destined to be dismantled and parts sold abroad. His experience with this building prompted Lord Curzon to press for some laws to protect old buildings resulting in the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act of 1913. As a direct consequence of his actions we can still experience something of this ancient building - as the mother and daughter are doing in today's photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Popular house names

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In 1988 the Halifax Building Society concluded from a study of its computer database of 15 million investors that the most common house name in Britain was "The Bungalow" with 4,485 properties carrying this very boring designation. In second place was the equally uninspiring, "The Cottage", with 4,049 references, and third was the slightly more colourful, "Rose Cottage", with 2,936 properties given that name.

Tradition weighs heavy in the name that houses are given, and once given they tend to linger. I have the complete list of the 150 or so most frequently used names, and I have to say that I must have seen most of them at one time or another and none are surprising. Such names tend to be descriptive in one way or another. "The School House" is fourth in the list and always refers to a house that was formerly the abode of a teacher or headteacher when such jobs came with living accommodation."The Vicarage" (in 12th place) is a name that arose in similar circumstances though that name usually implies that the local cleric still uses it as his (or her) home, with "The Old Vicarage" usually indicating a former vicar's residence, often sold because it was too large and too expensive for the church to maintain. Trees abound in house names - "The Hawthorns", "Oak Dene", "Beech House", "Conifers" and "Holly Cottage" are just a few arboreal names found in the list. The building's location is another favoured hook on which to hang a name - "Windy Ridge", "Brookfield", "The Mount", "Fair View" and "Corner Cottage" are examples.

Today's photograph could well be from a "Rose Cottage" because properties with that name frequently feature a climbing rose near the main entrance, around a window or on a sunny wall. However, it is a second photograph from my visit to Lower Brockhampton Manor House in Herefordshire. You can see the rose on the left of the main building in my photograph of the other day.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 30mm (60mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflecting on photographic manipulation

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A recent prestigious photographic competition received much wider coverage than such events usually do because the winner was disqualified for claiming that one of his photographs was taken in a particular town when, in fact, it was taken somewhere else. What was less widely reported was that 20% of the photographs that made it through to the final round of judging were disqualified for excessive post-shot manipulation. Comparison with the RAW files was made at this stage and the judges were able to see where objects had been removed, added or moved, and where other adjustments had been made that resulted in photographs that were considerably different from the reality that the cameras initially captured.

I've said elsewhere in this blog that cameras do not faithfully reproduce what the eye sees and if that is the aim for a particular image then post-shot manipulation is frequently necessary. It's also true that the history of photography abounds with images that have been manipulated. The consensus today, is that heavy manipulation is fine as long as it is stated by the photographer, and that "traditional" manipulation - dodging, burning, global increase and decrease of contrast, vignetting etc - are acceptable. The competitors mentioned above did not follow these conventions and also ignored the competition rules forbidding the removal, moving and addition of objects.

I began my photography in the days of film and chemical processing and I find myself in agreement with the consensus. So, in this blog you won't find much "heavy" manipulation, and where it is done it will be stated. But, quite a few of my shots have the contrast selectively and globally adjusted, or vignetting applied, or saturation adjusted (more often down that up, contrary to modern tastes!) Moreover I frequently apply the digital equivalent of black and white filters and sometimes use actual polarising and neutral density filters of one kind or another. I sometimes, but not always, mention when I've made a "traditional" adjustment. Today is an occasion when I will. The photograph above has a global adjustment of contrast and a little blur applied because I liked the painterly look that it confers on the image. But then you could probably have worked that one out for yourself!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm (57mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.2
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:1100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Loose end photography

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I'm an impatient patient. During my recent bout of illness I found myself unable to settle to any task, frustrated by this, and willing my body to recover. But, of course, these things have to take their course, and no amount of imagining or fortitude or stubbornness will return a person to health until the body is ready. However, I do find that when I'm well enough to get out and about my mind is engaged by matters other than my unwellness and this is all to the good - hence yesterday's photograph - and today's.

The image above came about, as some of mine do, when I was standing about at a loose end. My wife was visiting a couple of shops on Stamford's main shopping street and I'd elected to wander about in the vicinity looking for a few shots. But, I saw not a one. As I waited - for longer than I thought would be the case - I saw an advertisement in an optician's window for "free retinal photography"; a check on the health of the eye as part of the usual optical measurement. I positioned myself so that I was reflected in the window and took several shots making use of my own reflection, the eye in the advert, and passersby. I produced a couple of shots I like. This is one of them. I may post the other if my supply of new images doesn't increase fairly soon.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 130mm (195mm - 35mm equiv.) - cropped to 4:3 ratio
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:140
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Curvilinear

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I was introduced to the word "rectilinear", as many are, in school mathematics. I came across it later when I was studying the history of art. The third definition of the word in my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) best describes what I usually mean by the word: "Of a figure or angle: bounded or formed by straight lines". Often these meet at right-angles. It was also the history of art (actually, architecture) that introduced me to the word, "curvilinear". Looking up this word in the OED I find the first definition, for my purposes,could not be bettered. It says: "Consisting of, or contained by, a curved line or lines; having the form of a curved line. (Opposed to rectilinear, and in Gothic Archit. to perpendicular, as applied to window tracery."

Today's photograph is a detail of the fourteenth century curvilinear (often called "flowing") Gothic tracery of the main south transept window of the church of St Andrew at Heckington, Lincolnshire. You can see all of the window, in its setting, here. This style of tracery, and variations on it, was the fashion in churches and other buildings of substance, for most of the 1300s in England. I've often imagined what it must have been like to be  the designer of such windows. They seem to have been motivated by a desire to achieve forms that embrace utility (admitting light whilst offering structural support to the arch), beauty and novelty. However, looking at the tracery of many churches within a given locality you do wonder to what extent inter-parish rivalry figured in the production of these elaborate designs.

Architectural historians call it the Decorated style and it replaced Early English, a style of narrow, pointed (lancet) windows that later had tracery of geometrically correct circles and cusps. The real characteristic of the Decorated, Curvilinear or Flowing style is the "ogee", the elongated, serpentine, "s" shaped line that is everywhere in this window. Here you can see it in the main ribs that curve upwards from the capitals of the mullions, in the top cusp at the head of each light, and in the top and bottom cusps of the mouchettes. This style was followed, in the fifteenth century, by one known as Perpendicular. This, the OED rightly notes, is essentially rectilinear in overall form, and has sometimes been identified by that name.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm (120mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Six sails at Sibsey

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The other day, when speaking about the eight sailed Heckington windmill, I mentioned the 6-sailer that is Sibsey Trader Mill. I suggested that six sails is less visually satisfying than four or five but better than eight. On our recent visit to Skegness we came home via Sibsey and stopped in at the mill for a cup of tea. And in so doing, I took the opportunity to check whether another viewing would confirm my judgement. It did.

Now that's not to say that there isn't plenty of interest in a windmill, regardless of the number of its sails: there clearly is, both outside and inside. On this particular occasion my photographs of the windmill in its setting were less than satisfactory due to the blank blue sky and the scatter of colourful cars parked at the base of the mill. However, I took a few detail photographs and here are a couple. The shot of the sails, cap and fantail is one that I often take when I visit a windmill. It shows off the intricate woodwork and metal work and fills the frame nicely. The other shot was one that I noticed when we climbed up and down the ladders that connect the several floors. It brought together, so I thought, two themes that I often return to in my photography - window views and shadows. Incidentally I extend my apologies for the tongue-twister title of this post.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 66mm (99mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Beauty and Heckington church

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The church of St Andrew at Heckington is essentially a creation of the fourteenth century. It exemplifies a style that English architectural historians call Decorated. Anyone choosing Lincolnshire's best dozen churches would be likely to include Heckington. It is a large, town-size church - 164 feet long and 185 feet tall to the top of its spire - constructed of Ancaster stone located in a big village.

What makes Heckington church a beautiful and outstanding example of medieval church architecture? The exterior of the building is well-proportioned, though it could be argued that the spire is too short for its tower (or the tower too tall for its spire). However, it is the quantity and quality of the external decoration that sets it apart. Fine pinnacles and niched buttresses abound as do statues (38). Finials, crockets and gargoyles are abundant and elaborate. So too is the tracery of the windows with its trefoils, quatrefoils, mouchettes, daggers, ogees: those of the south transept (above) and east chancel window are classic, much quoted examples of the period. After an exterior of such quality the interior comes as something of a disappointment. However, it compensates by having a small collection of features - the font, a tomb recess, Easter sepulchre, piscina and sedilia, that transcend the ordinary and in some cases are of national significance.

Being a big church in a small churchyard, surrounded by quite close housing, Heckington is not easy to photograph in its entirety. The churchyard planting, though very good, adds to the difficulty. Consequently I was reduced to photographing a part rather than the whole, the tower, south porch and south transept, glimpsed between a couple of conifers.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Flowers in the window

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A large, mixed bunch of flowers displayed alongside other vessels and objects, such as these that I saw in the window of a house in Ledbury, Herefordshire, always reminds me of the Dutch school of flower painting that flourished in the seventeenth century. Here, however, the slender Georgian glazing bars and the small panes of glass added, to my mind, a touch of nineteenth century Dickens.

© Tony Boughen
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.9mm (40mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ballflower ornament

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Symbolism has always interested me. That must account - in part - for my fascination with the history of ecclesiastical architecture. Churches are packed with symbolism and it is sometimes a real pleasure to wander around one of these old buildings decoding the fittings, furnishings and architecture, seeing how artists and craftspeople used ornament to illustrate their faith.

In Christian churches the Trinity is especially subject to symbolic representation: how else can you depict God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost as a single entity? In 2010 I photographed and wrote about a building that is almost entirely dedicated to the symbolic representation and celebration of the Trinity - Rushton Triangular Lodge. However, every church, somewhere or other builds in references to the number three because of its special significance. Three steps often lead up to the altar. The baptismal font is frequently at the top of three steps too. Windows are often split into three "lights", triangular shapes frequently feature in ornament, three-leaved foliage abounds, tracery has trefoils; I've even seen in a very modern church three vertical lines moulded into the concrete above an altar, rather like cricket wickets with the bails missing. Mind you, minimalism of that kind wasn't unknown in the eighteenth century, as this small spire at Little Gidding church in Cambridgeshire shows - notice the three rectangular holes piercing it, surely another representation of the Trinity.

In the period around 1300 to 1325 a particular form of ornament came into being that represents the Trinity. The ballflower is a three petalled flower that encloses a ball: three and one if not quite 3 in one. You can see them in their dozens edging the tracery of this chapel window (above) of the church at Ledbury, Herefordshire. Its a small thing, but heavily repeated so that cumulatively it can't be ignored. I've always been in two minds about its effectiveness as ornament because it turns elegant, smooth, curving stone into stone with an encrusted, almost organic quality. Over the years I've decided that in small doses I like it, but I'm glad it quite quickly went out of fashion.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 34.9mm (94mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The blame game and rain drops

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Am I cynical in thinking that our prime minister's exhortation to stop playing the "blame game" concerning the responsibility for, and handling of, the current flooding in England, is simply to prevent people examining the degree to which his government's policies are responsible for the extent of the flooding and the poverty of the response to it? Has he really forgotten that he was only recently blaming the flooding on the previous government's deficiencies. Moreover, I seem to recall him telling us, when he was first elected, that his would be a government that eschewed "Punch and Judy politics", that abandoned the usual name-calling and knock about; that he would usher in a new, responsible approach that raised the standard of political discourse. How soon all that was forgotten. How quickly did business as usual assert itself as U-turns, ministerial resignations, botched policies, missed targets and political embarrassments mounted. Unattributed briefings, back-biting, smears, statistical manipulation - the whole range of dark political arts - was deployed in double quick time, and very soon we were exactly where we have always been, with the public rating politicians among the lowest of the low, somewhere alongside journalists. Now, having said that he has no choice but to make deep cuts in public spending, exhorting us to tighten our belts and chopping services with a relish that borders on the fanatical, he suddenly announces "money is no object" in dealing with the flooding. Worse yet, instead of letting the responsible minister and the professionals who know how to deal with flooding get on with their jobs he announces that he is taking charge. I don't know whether to feel blessed that we are led by this Renaissance man or to despair that we (though not me!) have elected someone so prone to knee-jerk reactions, someone whose every action seems driven by whether or not it plays well in the media and to voters.

That despairing note was prompted by the confluence of the political news and the continuing rain, some of which I noticed on a window as the light started to fail. With my naked eye I could just make out colours in some of the drops on the glass. So, with the aim of revealing it, I mounted my 100mm macro lens on the camera and took this angled shot. I made sure the point of focus was off the left edge of the frame so that all the reflected highlights were out of focus to a greater or lesser degree. Recently I was speaking of how the camera often sees what the eye doesn't. That's especially true when you use a macro lens as some of the patterns in the highlights above show.

* The piece above was written on 11 February 2014
From The New Statesman, 12 February 2014: "After the session (Prime Minister's Questions) had ended, No. 10 briefed that there would be no new money made available and that any extra funding would come from contigency budgets, a clear reversal of Cameron's pledge yesterday."

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon 5DMk2
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm Macro
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Tiffany window at Kimbolton

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The stained glass windows and lamps of the U.S. designer, Louis Comforty Tiffany (1848-1933) are internationally renowned. The colours, style, drawing, shapes and lines that he used show him to be allied to the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements. His work was popular at the time of its creation and remains so today. There are examples in the British Isles - the Haworth Art Gallery at Accrington has Europe's largest collection of pieces - and windows can be found in private houses, and a few public buildings. However, unsurprisingly, most of his work is in the United States.

Bearing that in mind, imagine my surprise when walking around the church at Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire (formerly in Huntingdonshire) and coming upon one of Tiffany's stained glass windows. All the more remarkable because it isn't mentioned at all in the relevant county edition of Pevsner. Had it been taken away for repair when he visited? Who knows? The window is at the east end of the south aisle where it adds an unearthly glow to that corner of the church. It was commissioned by the widow of the Duke of Manchester as a memorial to her two daughters who both died young. The Countess was an American of Cuban extraction so that may account for the choice of stained glass artist. Unfortunately the tops of two eighteenth century memorials impinge on the bottom corners of the window, so a full view (or photograph) of the stained glass is impossible to achieve. The composition shows Christ with two girls, surrounded by children and angels, all set in traditional architectural canopies with putti gazing down from the tracery above. One of the most interesting features of the window is that none of the clothing is represented by a single colour: rather, multiple colours are softly blend together. This gives an overall iridescence to the piece that put me in mind of some Symbolist work by the likes of Gustave Moreau.

When I first saw the window I was captivated because, compared with most English stained glass it is unusual. Moreover, it has a rich, jewel-like quality. However, I was also unsettled by it because, for me, the richness of the effects that Tiffany deploys evoke something akin to decadence rather than reverence. The quality of the figure drawing doesn't help in that respect: the flanking children look odd, gaunt, emaciated even. I've read somewhere that Tiffany wasn't especially keen to tackle religious subjects in stained glass, and after viewing this window I can see something of why that might be. His techniques seem more suited to secular and non-figurative subjects. Looking at the approach of the Kimbolton window again I can see it being more successfully applied to, say, an Arthurian illustration or something from the Norse sagas.

I occasionally come across stained glass windows where the style of the artist seems at odds with the subject. Last year I wrote about Walter Crane's "psychedelic" window in Holy Trinity Hull, and several years ago I was taken to task by someone over what I think is a downright weird, "storybook" window by the wife of Whistler in Orton church, Cumbria. On the whole I'd put Tiffany's window at Kimbolton alongside those two: interesting, not without some appeal and certainly bravely different in approach, but ultimately unsatisfactory.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Windows, frames and light

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Commercial buildings of today have virtually banished the window as a discrete architectural feature. Glass curtain walls have made the window as a transparent opening in a solid, opaque wall seem like a quaint artefact of the past and have merged the features of the elevation into nothing less than a giant mirror. However, in traditionally built houses the window continues, a hole that admits necessary light and that also frames the inhabitants' views of their surroundings.

Down the centuries windows have changed and evolved. Early medieval examples were often simply apertures, left open when the weather was kind and calm, covered with translucent greased cloth when inclement and windy. I've seen sixteenth century windows filled with glazed, iron casement windows that were only an approximation of the shape they filled, through which draughts must have whistled and where heavy curtains were required for any kind of winter warmth. Today's house windows tend towards the utilitarian, their plastic frames requiring neither paint nor a second glance.

Some of the most elegant windows date from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when simplicity and proportion were imposed on window design in a way that we could learn from today. I came across an example recently in the Guildhall in Boston, Lincolnshire. This mid fifteenth century building, erected for the Guild of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has been added to and modified over the years. Some of the upstairs windows were replaced in the eighteenth century and it was one of these that I stopped by to look down into the garden of Fydell House (also eighteenth century) next door. The way the light and sharp shadows fell across the fielded panels of the internal shutters had caught my eye, and as I looked at the nine-over-nine sash window and the view through the panes I was moved to take this photograph. What had appealed to me was one of the fundamental attractions of traditional windows that have all but disappeared where curtain walls have taken over, namely the way the entry of light models the interior and the way the firm outline of the window frames the world outside. It's a charming attribute that a painter such as Vermeer could build a career on and it's something that has the capacity to captivate us still.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Quirky portraits

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I used to take more portrait photographs than I do now. When our children were younger and lived with us they were very frequent subjects for my camera, as was my wife. Today I still take photographs of our children (and their significant others), and photographs of my wife are regular occurrences too, but in total numbers they are fewer than formerly. However, and perhaps understandably, our grand-daughter is the person I have photographed most in the past couple of years.

Good portrait photography has substance and value. And, though I appreciate and admire a well-done, insightful and inventive portrait, it's not a branch of photography that I've ever wanted to make a regular part of my photography: at least not to the extent of widening out beyond immediate family members. However, I do rather like constructing the occasional quirky portrait or self-portrait. This blog features more than a few of those - for example this one or perhaps this one, both of my wife, or this one of me. I suppose it's because I enjoy the creative challenge involved in imagining and constructing shots of this sort that I pursue them rather more than the formal portrait.

One recent morning I noticed the rising sun shining through the textured glass of our back door. Its deep orange yellow next to the blue of the sky were an appealing colour combination. So, when my wife returned from completing a chore outside, I asked her to pose on the other side of the glass, one hand resting on the door, and I took a  couple of shots. I'm quite pleased with the outcome. I like the colours and the way the glass transforms her into a generalised, impressionistic figure. When we moved into our house I wasn't particularly keen on the pattern of this glass. However, I've used it in photographs a couple of times so it clearly has its uses even if I still don't think it has much intrinsic appeal.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -1.00 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hard times for pubs

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The smoking ban, increased taxes on alcohol, cheap beer, wine and spirits in supermarkets, rapacious "pubcos" and the recession. In the past few years pubs and their tenants and owners have had a lot to deal with. Small wonder that wherever you go in the UK you see closed premises, "for sale" signs or advertisements for people to run pubs. As a career the management of a public house looks like a one way street to bankruptcy or, at best, penury.

I came across the pub shown in today's photographs on a recent visit to Newark in Nottinghamshire. Ye Olde Market on Boar Lane had clearly succumbed to the belt-tightening that has affected much of the country. But, to lessen the impact of a derelict premises on the surounding shops and streets suitable pictures/window boarding had been commissioned, each advertising a local business. As I studied the images and the building I couldn't help but notice the unwitting commentary on the present-day difficulties of runnning a successful pub that the juxtaposition of the early twentieth century traffic sign and the picture offered. It was either that or a mischievously contrived pairing by an advocate of the temperance movement. It seemed good enough for a picture.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Raindrops on the window

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It has rained at some point on most days for the past three months. You might be wondering what's so unusual about that - after all it is the British Isles. But the fact is, the eastern side of England is relatively dry. Spring is often so, and summer too. Consequently I expect to be able to go about my business without wondering what to wear on my body and feet. This year, thus far, that hasn't proved possible. Most of the rain has been steady, regular and not too heavy, but in sufficent quantity for the water companies to lift the drought restrictions that resulted from particularly low rainfall over the past couple of years. Yesterday, however, we had torrential summer downpours accompanied by crashing thunder and jagged lightning. The rain couldn't easily penetrate the saturated ground and formed large puddles and pools on the roads and on the gravel of my drive.

As it happens I'd been waiting for a heavy downpour accompanied by wind because we'd recently cleaned our windows and wiped them over with a liquid that is part detergent, part anti-static agent. I believe it used to be advertised as incorporating "nano-technology"! The advantage of this addition to the traditional clean is that water beads and runs off the glass very readily, grime doesn't build up as easily, and window-cleaning can be infrequent without any detriment to the clarity of the glass. A further advantage is that it causes the raindrops to collect in a very photogenic way, and I'm not one to pass up a photographic subject with those qualities.

So, as the rain lashed down you could find me with the macro lens on my camera, examining the raindrops on the windows from inside each room, looking for good collections to photograph. Here are the best two. The varying sizes of the water drops gives the shots a three dimensional character. They remind me of an asteroid belt comprised of shards and blobs of glass.

photographs and text © Tony Boughen

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

Frosted windows

click photo to enlarge

It's ironic that one of the ways in which shopkeepers and some householders seek to evoke Christmas cheer is to decorate their windows by spraying fake frost and snow on them. Those of us old enough to recall frost on the inside of windows don't wish to be reminded of the days when this was a regular occurrence.

In the the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, when central heating was a rarity, it was unusual for anywhere beyond the living room and kitchen to be heated. They usually had coal fires which radiated heat and warmed the front of those sitting around them, but left their backs and the rest of the room much cooler. Winter bedrooms were chilly places where blankets, eiderdowns (no duvets in those days) and hot water bottles fought valiantly, but usually in vain, to keep the cold at bay. A freezing night where the temperature dropped well below 32 Fahrenheit (no Centigrade of Celsius then either) would result in the single-glazed windows having a frost pattern in the morning as the cold surface of the glass attracted condensation which then froze.

I was reminded of those times when I walked around the village in the snow and frost with my camera the other day. Today's photograph presented itself on the window of a Victorian-period house that is currently empty. The temperature outside was about -13 Celsius. In the house it must have been a good few degrees below zero. These low temperatures had produced the sight familiar to my childhood eyes, and I couldn't help reciting the words of the poem that I learnt at that time.  It begins Watch out, watch out, Jack Frost is about, He's after your fingers and toes..." Perhaps you know it.

Incidentally, today's photograph is a colour shot (you can see a slight hint of brown at the bottom right) yet somehow it seems right that this icy subject should be devoid of any of the warmth that colour brings to an image.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO: 1600
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing stained glass windows

click photo to enlarge

The very best photographs of church stained glass come about when the exposure is carefully planned. What is it most important to get right? Well, you have to ensure that the camera is steady using a tripod if necessary, that colour balance is accurate and that your exposure (or stacked multiple exposures) capture the full range of tones from the lightest to the darkest. But in general it's not camera settings that are the most critical factor - any reasonably competent photographer can bracket a few shots and get a decent exposure. No, what usually separates the satisfactory shot from the first class one is the quality of light and the background of the window outside the church. I always find that a shot taken on an overcast but bright day produces the greatest fidelity. Sun and gloom are both difficult to work with, the former being slightly harder than the latter. And, the presence of trees, nearby houses or a part of the church itself as the backdrop to the window is usually intrusive because of the way these elements selectively change the colour and brightness of the glass.

However, if your aim is to take an interesting photograph (as opposed to an accurate one), or if outside conditions cannot be changed, it's perfectly possible to work with the restrictions I note above and achieve an acceptable image. Today's pair of photographs do, I hope, illustrate this. The first shows the triple east windows of Essendine church in Rutand and were taken early on a day in February when the morning sun was streaming through the brightly coloured glass.The reversed image that each window has projected onto the nearby wall is not the sort of effect that you'd want to have in a good stained glass window photograph, but it does make for an interesting shot, the indistinct quality making a nice contrast with the sharpness of the actual glass and lead. The second image was marred by the projecting building behind the leftmost figure - you can see some above and to the left of the head, and this had to be compensated for in post processing. It resulted in the colour of the white draperies of this figure being a different colour from the others; something that I didn't quite manage to correct. Moreover, a single exposure could not capture all the tones and colours because the left side of the window was so much darker than the right. Notice, for example, that some of the small red, blue and green pieces of glass in the border that frames each figure are recorded as black. Despite these shortcomings I think the shot has enough to offer in the form that I present it - though its more subtle colours do look dull by my juxtaposing them with the brighter hues of the more modern glass above!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation: -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reflected in the mirror

click photo to enlarge

Walking in the rain along a London street near St Pancras railway station the other day we came upon a shop selling picture frames and mirrors of all descriptions. It was one of those businesses that can thrive on a large scale only in a city. Passing its sequence of rather grubby and rain flecked windows we saw mirrors of various kinds, including the "sunburst" designs that were fashionable from the 1950s through to the 1970s, and which have re-appeared in recent years. Then we saw this rather odd looking mirror, of a shape that reminded me of a traditional English garden gate minus the diagonal bracing piece. As we studied it I saw the reflections, and the potential for a photograph, so I took out the LX3 and snapped this shot.

Earlier in the day we'd been to the Museum of London and seen the "London Street Photography" exhibition. That kind of image isn't part of my usual repertoire, but I do admire good examples of the genre, and thought we'd take advantage of this free show. The fact that we were there on the day after it opened meant that it was quite crowded, and visitors were being allowed in only as others left. However, we arrived reasonably early, so it wasn't the inconvenience that it would have been later. But, I did buy a copy of the accompanying book to study the images at home at my leisure.

As I processed the photograph above I wondered if the exhibition influenced my photography during the rest of the day because I took quite a few shots that include people in the street.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.8mm (60mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

What is photography about?

click photo to enlarge

 People pursue photography for many different reasons. The best list of these that I've come across, at least in terms of the motivations of amateur photographers, is in the book, Photography: A Middle-Brow Art by Pierre Bordieu and others. You can find it quoted in my blog post, Why do we take photographs?, though I'll warn you that it is cloaked in academic prose and you have to dig to get at the meaning. Today, I thought I'd tackle a subject very close to this issue and briefly summarize what photography is about for me, and, importantly, what it isn't about (for me).

I'm a photographer solely for the pictures I can make. I could end there, but I'll expand a little. How the pictures are achieved is less important to me than what is achieved. I see photography as closer to the arts than the sciences or even crafts, though it does often produce work that is more craft-like than artistic. Visual creativity and the components that underpin it such as composition, colour, light, tone, space, shape, line, contrast, feeling, message, etc, are more important to me than the technical details of sharpness, noise, sensor type, etc. The technological and technical aspects of photography are not what I am interested in. I take it as a given that we've passed the point where a correct exposure is one of the main aims of photography: the computers in our cameras are pretty good at achieving that without our intervention. I don't have a great interest in cameras except insofar as I know enough to buy what I need for my purposes, and make them do what I need them to do. Consequently I aim to use a camera that is "good enough" for the purposes to which I put it, and I have no inclination to debate the merits of one compared with another.

It's for these reasons that I (and many others) take shots such as those above, images I call "semi-abstract". These are photographs in which line, pattern, colour, contrast etc. are more important than the ostensible "subject" i.e. windows and their  reflections. Not everyone's taste I guess, but I like them!

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On