Self-portrait in Green Bricks

click photo to enlarge
"If red houses are made out of red bricks, blue houses are made out of blue bricks, and yellow houses are made out of yellow bricks, what are green houses made out of?
from "1001 Jokes for Kids"
(answer below*)

Many Victorians had the feeling that they were living in an age, the like of which, the world hadn't seen before. It was a technological age, an age of new industries, burgeoning cities, mass transport, migration, population growth, exploration and change. Architects were asked to rise to the challenge of designing buildings that had never been needed before. What should a railway station look like? Or a hospital? Or how about an urban school, a museum, or a cotton mill? And with these new buildings came new construction techniques and new materials. Cast iron, steel, fire-proof floors, large areas of glazing, terracotta mouldings, and glazed bricks were all employed to create the new structures.

I came across some fine Victorian glazed brickwork yesterday when I was in Kingston upon Hull, a city and port on the north bank of the River Humber in eastern England. I lived there for several years so I know it reasonably well. As I walked around the marina that has been formed out of the former Humber Dock I passed what I remember as the "Humber Dock Tavern" but is now called "Green Bricks". This changing of pubs' names to suit the fashion of the day is not something of which I approve: old names carry part of the history of an area and shouldn't be expunged on a whim. The best I can say about this example is that the new title at least has a certain logic to it. The Victorians liked to use glazed bricks to face pubs, and green was especially popular, though burgundy, red, blue, yellow and a few other colours can be found in most big cities. Here the elevation also has tiled panels with swags and arabesques, as well as crude capitals on glazed "columns." One of the virtues of glazed bricks is they last remarkably well, providing a smart, easily cleaned, low-maintenance finish that still looks good over a hundred years later: they should be used more today. I've seen a few examples from the late twentieth century - here's some Southwark flats - , and I've posted another image of a pub (now a hotel) with a tiled facade that I saw in Windsor.

My reason for snapping this pub elevation was not only the glazed bricks, but the reflection of the sunlit marina in the window. It was, I thought, another opportunity to add to my ongoing theme of reflected self-portraits!

*Answer: "Glass!"
That joke is only funny if you know that in the UK glasshouses, that is to say the glass horticultural buildings used for growing tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers, etc., are more commonly known as greenhouses. And, even if you do know that it still isn't very funny!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Pylons, wind turbines and subscriptions

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Is the internet about to move from a situation where most web content is free to the user, to a position where a significant portion is charged, whether through subscription fees, micro-payments, or some other mechanism? A number of newspapers are considering following the example of the online versions of the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times (the latter has 110,000 subscribers), not least because the ability to make any money through print newspapers is rapidly disappearing. Rupert Murdoch has made noises in this direction recently, so perhaps he'll be the one to precipitate any changes. But first he'll have to do something about the BBC. In the UK, and elsewhere across the world, this broadcaster's website, funded by the annual licence fee necessary for TV ownership in these islands, is many people's first port of call for news and other topics. Consequently it would be the likely destination of those who refused to pay if online news websites started to charge. That being the case it would seem that anyone who doesn't want to see the demise of free online newspapers, and the probable consequent increase in charging for internet content, should make sure that the BBC remains licence-funded and in the public domain.

My mind turned to this topic when I was trying to identify the type of pylon in today's photograph. I don't have a particular interest in pylons (in fact I don't like them much), but I do like to know a little about most things that are part of my everyday experience. So, with that in mind I turned to the "Pylon Appreciation Society" website. I've used it once before for this purpose, and was amused to find that such an organisation existed. However, when I turned to it this time I found that the "Field Guide" was in a section for members only. Lifetime membership has been set at £15, not a massive sum for someone smitten by these metal monsters, but too much for someone wanting to use it for only the second time, and then briefly. A few hobbyist websites charge for their content - some genealogy and photography sites have done so for years - but this is the first new example I've come across in recent months. A "one off" or part of a trend?

I took this photograph of a Lincolnshire wind farm, looking for a different approach to the subject, and decided that standing under the wires of an electricity pylon might offer something of interest. The black and white conversion has had the digital equivalent of an orange filter added to increase the contrast.

Oh, the pylon! I think it may be an L6D. Or is it an L8 variant? Who knows? I don't.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Shots I've missed No. 172

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About a week ago as I was driving along the main road through Gosberton, Lincolnshire, I glanced across at the 160 feet tall spire of the medieval church of St Peter & St Paul. Fortunately the road was quite clear because I took my eyes off it for longer than I anticipated as I did a "double take". I'd spotted, half-way up the spire, the outline of a man climbing a ladder that had been fixed to it. Across his back, at right angles to his body, was another ladder. The man was a steeplejack, and I immediately knew what he was doing. A few weeks previously I'd been to the flower festival at the church, and a parishioner had told me that a new weather vane was soon to be fixed to the top of the spire. This man was clearly starting the preparatory work of assembling sections of aluminium ladder that stretch from the top of the square tower, up the tapering spire to its very tip. Once that was completed a scaffold platform would be erected around the top of the spire, allowing the work to begin.

My heart sank. Why? Because I didn't have my camera with me! One of the reasons I use Olympus cameras is the relatively small size of their bodies and lenses. That makes them easier to carry, and therefore much more likely that I'll have it with me. But, here I was with a wonderful photo opportunity and no camera. I could have wept! However, my mission was the weekly shopping, so I gritted my teeth and drove on, cursing my ineptitude. Yesterday, as I drove along on this week's shopping expedition, I looked at the spire expecting to see the weather vane in place. But, work had proceeded slower than I anticipated, and the men were in the process of assembling their work platform. Determined to seize the moment this time I took a small detour and grabbed a few shots of them about their business. Compared with the workers who construct the gleaming towers of Shanghai or Dubai, these men weren't very high above the ground. But unlike their high-tech counterparts they had the major disadvantage of working on an inclined stone surface that was built 500 to 600 years ago, and which has been subject to a damp climate for all of that time. Furthermore, a fall from the top of this spire would leave you every bit as dead as a fall from the latest Middle Eastern mega-tower. It certainly isn't a job that I'd relish.

My photographs aren't much to write home about, and, at the risk of sounding like a fisherman, can in no way compare with the one I missed. However, the subject of the images will be unfamiliar to many, and you might find them of interest. The moral of this tale is, of course, always have your camera with you because you can guarantee that the best shots will present themselves the moment you leave it at home. And the title of this entry? I thought it would make a good companion piece for Photographic Tip Number 127.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Image 1 (2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (142mm) (80 (284mm)mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1 (7.1)
Shutter Speed: 1/800 (1/1250) seconds
ISO: 200 (200)
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 (-0.7) EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hearth, home and redundant words

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During my relatively short time on this planet I've seen words disappear from my everyday language. Take the word "aerodrome". This particularly British construction once described all the early "airfields" (a word still in use) and "airports" (today's preferred word for places with commercial flights), but is now never used except in an historical context. Or how about "palings" to describe a fence used as a boundary, and the origin of the phrase, "beyond the pale". Similarly, "petticoat" seems to have gone, not only because such full, trimmed undergarments are no longer the fashion, but also because "underskirt" replaced the word.

Looking at my photograph of the cottage at Monksthorpe Baptist Chapel, Linconshire, a building currently undergoing restoration, but still showing its old cast-iron fire with built-in ovens, it occurred to me that the word "hearth" is also becoming an endangered species. The ubiquity of central heating, gas fires and electric fires, has significantly reduced the number of open fireplaces burning wood or coal. Consequently the number of actual hearths is much fewer, and therefore the need for people to refer to the hearth is disappearing too. Phrases such as "hearth and home", and the idea of the hearth being the focal point of family life disappeared in the 1950s and 1960s, as television took over that role. And today, with the rise of computers, and other forms of entertainment and information delivery, the television is losing its place at the centre of things. Perhaps something new will come along that turns "television" into a word as antiquated as "wireless". If it draws families back together into a shared experience it will have served a useful purpose.

I took this photograph on my visit to the early eighteenth century Chapel that I have documented in another blog post here. The cottage is of an indeterminate date, but I would guess it's also eighteenth century, though the built-in stove is probably from the nineteenth century. I thought it made a good subject next to the litter of broken plaster and floor tiles, and black and white seemed to suit it better than colour.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/125 seconds
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

RAW and the California poppy

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I shoot exclusively in ORF (Olympus Raw Format) for the advantages and quality that it offers me. It's the nearest that digital gets to the idea of the negative - the basic, unaltered exposure - and consequently, every image that I keep is in the form of a RAW file with, if I've processed a shot from it, the resulting JPEG. Some people see this as a disadvantage, but to this former film shooter it's not very different from storing negatives and prints.

Anyone who doesn't shoot RAW is probably unfamiliar with the benefits of the format. You can find this information anywhere on the internet, so I'll confine myself to saying that I value it for the unadulterated detail of the images, but, more importantly for the opportunity that it offers to produce a good image from a less than perfect exposure. For example, if you haven't set the white balance correctly, you can easily set it after exposure in RAW. Highlight and shadow recovery is much easier, and dynamic range is better too. There are other advantages too, but those listed are the ones I most value. The downside with RAW is that each camera manufacturer has their own proprietary format. That makes extra work for users of more than one system, and the problems it will throw up in 10, 20 or 50 years time don't bear thinking about. Some weak attempts have been made to standardize on Adobe's DNG (short for Digital NeGative) format, but without much success. I'll be happy when there is one RAW used by all cameras.

The other day I took some photographs of our California poppies, plants that we'd grown from seed last year, and which have survived the harsh winter to flower again this year. They are growing at the edge of a north-facing border with bushes behind them, and on an overcast morning I forgot to set the white balance manually. Consequently the green foliage came out a little on the blue side, though the orange of the petals was not too far off true. Viewing the image in my preferred RAW developer, I made adjustments to bring back the green of the leaves and stems. But, when I saw it I decided that I preferred the original version with the "wrong" colour! The bluish tinge seemed to complement the orange and yellow of the bloom much better.

So, there you have it, an unexpected advantage of shooting in RAW that you won't find listed on any website!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rutland Water anglers

click photo to enlarge
Looking at the anglers' boats on Rutland Water the other day it occurred to me that the only other vessels I recall seeing that have identification numbers on their side are warships and the rowing boats on park lakes. Perhaps there are others that are marked in this way, but if so it hasn't registered with me. As I took my photographs I idly wondered whether the person from whom they are hired consulted his watch and, as with the boats on municipal park ponds, when the rental period was up, bellowed through a megaphone, "Come in number 29, your time is up." Probably not, he'd need to be a champion town cryer given the size of the area of water over which these anglers range.

It was a holiday weekend when I took this shot, and more fishermen than I'd seen on previous visits were chugging about, rods extended, lines in the water, searching for their prey. These two boats caught my eye because they seemed to be circling a spot like a couple of frigates about to depth-charge a submarine. However, when I studied my image I realised they were too far apart for such a co-ordinated approach, and anyway, by the curve on his rod, one angler seemed to have a "bite". To compose this little shot I waited until the bottom boat (which was moving) was positioned to the left of the frame, balancing the stationary boat on the right. I cropped the shot slightly to remove the distraction of the distant shore at the top of the image.

When I look through my collection of blog photographs I realise that I've featured anglers a few times - see here (very distantly), here (rather insanely) and here, also at Rutland Water (quite statuesquely). I've also photographed the boats in today's image (parked very neatly).

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 142mm (284mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wayward sheep and recurring subjects

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If you keep sheep you have to work hard to make sure you keep them. The saying "just like sheep" refers to their habit of following, one behind the other, in a strung out line, as they move from one place to another. This behaviour can be turned against sheep by their owners. A farmer, wishing to move the animals from one field to another, merely has to get one of the lead sheep through the gate, and the others will fall over themselves in the rush follow. But it's an animal behaviour can also work against their owner too. An individual sheep, making the chance discovery of a way through a hedge, over a drystone wall, or through an inadvertently left-open gate, can precipitate a mass exodus as the rest of the flock follow the pathfinder's example.

Yesterday I came upon this fence extending a field boundary into the depths of Rutland Water reservoir. Like all such expanses of water, this one rises and falls with the rainfall and the demands of the population it serves. When the water is low the sheep can trot out on to the mud and move round the end of the field boundaries that run down to the reservoir's edge. Consequently fence extensions of this sort are necessary to keep them in the required place. The graphic shape that such a structure makes against the water has caught my eye before on the edge of Derwent Water in the Lake District. So why try for such an image again you might ask? Well, I think photographing the same subject in different locations and different ways, over time, is helpful in developing one's photography. If a subject is good, it's a satisfying challenge to work on different interpretations. I was going to present this shot in colour as I did with the previous fence (look carefully, it is!), but black and white made more of the silhouette, shadows and reflection so that's how it ended up.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Education and the Guelder Rose

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When I look back over my own education - both the formal and the autodidactic - I'm very clear that the things I value most were learned in primary school: that is to say between the ages of 5 and 11 years. During that period I learned to love to find out things for myself. I also first discovered the limits of formal education, from which I went on to know that it is useful for laying down a foundation of knowledge, and that higher education is especially good for securing employment but is hopeless for growing you as a person (it has a tendency to turn out clones who parrot method and content). I also discovered - though I wasn't able to explain it until many years later - the truth that Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) articulated in "Walden": "What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?"

In the primary school I attended we followed the usual curriculum of the time - mathematics, English, history, geography, religious studies, music, art and physical education. However, in place of science we had "nature study", and as eleven year olds we also had "current events". It was the nature study that gripped me more than any other subject. Often this involved walking up one of the narrow lanes out of our market town into the hills whilst we listened to a commentary from, and engaged in a dialogue with, our teacher about the plants and animals, as well as the man-made features (barns, drystone walls, the town pound, a reservoir, medieval terracing, etc), that we encountered. In those years the importance and pleasure of looking at, thinking about and appreciating everything around me was laid down: it is something that has enriched the rest of my life immeasurably.

It was on one of those walks that, along with herb robert, cow parsley, stonecrop, red campion, wood anemone, and the other flowers of the Yorkshire Dales, I heard the name Guelder Rose. Unlike the rest of the flowers whose names I learnt, this one didn't stick with me. It wasn't one that I could pin on a plant when I saw it, perhaps because it wasn't as common as the others. However, the other day I discovered it was the English name for Viburnum opulus, a tree that grows in my garden, and with that discovery the memories of those primary school "nature rambles" came flooding back. Today's image incorporates a device I've used before - placing an in focus bloom on one side of the frame and a more distant, out of focus flower head on the other.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hunstanton cliffs

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"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before."

Steven Wright (1955- ). U.S. comedian, actor and writer

People, usually children, have occasionally asked me what it's like getting older. My answer is always the same: "It's better than the alternative!" I find that the younger the person is, the less likely they are to understand my response. However, old folk get it straight away!

Up to the age of fifty my body gave me no problems, but since I passed that age parts of me feel like they need a bit of servicing. As I get nearer to sixty my brain seems to be working OK (how would I know if it wasn't I hear you ask), though my memory doesn't work as efficiently as it did. Today's photograph is a good example of that. I know (or at least have a strong feeling) that I have seen a Victorian (or possibly earlier) painting of these distinctive sea cliffs at Hunstanton, Norfolk. This work shows a view looking the other way from my image, so the sea is on the right. The beach has a number of people, and maybe a stranded boat or two. I assumed it was in one of my art books, probably one of several I have that concentrate solely on English painting, because I'm fairly sure it wasn't a painting by a major artist. But, despite an hour or so scouring my shelves and flipping pages I can't find it. I've searched the internet too, but to no avail. In the past, when I've slept on a query to which I can't remember the answer I've usually found that my memory kicks in when I rise. So I imagine that after this blog entry has been posted I'll turn up the painting. In the meantime if anyone knows the work, and can point me to a reproduction of it, please do.

The banding of Hunstanton cliffs that makes them look like a layered cake is caused by white chalk laid on top of red chalk that is coloured by iron. The strata are popular with geologists who examine the cliff face and rock falls for fossils of the Cretaceaous period. With this shot I was particularly pleased to be able to include two people, in the distance on the left, to give some scale to the image.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 31mm (220mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Outfitters to the gentry

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When I was a teenager I had an early evening job delivering boxes of groceries on a shop-bicycle just like the one in today's photograph. For a couple of years I pedalled my way around the hilly Yorkshire Dales market town where I lived, earning 12/6d a week, a wage that had risen to 15/- by the time I finished.

On a recent visit to Burnham Market, Norfolk, I kept falling over these bikes chained to shop fronts. They weren't there for use as the means of delivering goods to the locals, but for the qualities that they conferred on the business by association - they were there to say "traditional", "quality", "old-fashioned", "up-market", "exclusive". With my experience of such a bicycle used for its proper purpose they said "aching back", "problems with balance", and "rain trickling down my neck!" The display of these bikes as markers of a bygone age also made me feel a touch old!

Burnham Market is an interesting town with a selection of fine buildings and an attractive streetscape. Unfortunately, it appears that the middle classes are busily turning it into an enclave of the sort I call "a village in aspic." By that I mean a lot of the buildings have a veneer or additions that transforms them into the owners' picture of an overly pretty past that never existed - paint colours from the "Heritage" range, new-olde ironwork, rusticated pointing, unlikely porticos, render removed to reveal bricks and stone that were never meant to be seen, etc. I got the impression that, as with most of these places, it was full of shops selling expensive nick-nacks, pricey preserves, costly clobber, and the like, stuff designed to appeal to the well-heeled among both residents and visitors, though I'm sure there must have been "real" shops too. The slogan on the centre of the shop window above particularly caught my eye - "Outfitters To The Gentry". Was that original I wondered, a left-over from the days of deference? I guessed not, though if it was original why hasn't it been removed? Can there really be anyone left in England who is impressed by such a recommendation? Sadly, in all likelihood, there will be! The old enamel advertisement (it looks like it's just half of one) for distemper (!) that has been fixed below the window sits rather awkwardly with the pitch that the window slogan is attempting to make. Many English people would be able to deconstruct what the whole facade and the window display is trying to say, and could name the demographic group to whom it aims to appeal. You may wish me to do so, but I wouldn't waste my time on such a thing!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Wells next the Sea and Wilde

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"I don't desire to change anything in England except the weather."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish playwright, poet and author

The quotation above is one of the less memorable of the many quotations by Oscar Wilde. It repeats a feeling about England's weather that many English people and visitors to these islands share, but with which I strongly disagree. Elsewhere in this blog I've written about the pleasures of living with weather that is rarely settled, particularly if you're a photographer. Today's photograph was taken in early May, when these 10 beach huts at Wells next the Sea, Norfolk, along with most of the other 190 stretched along the North Sea coast, were uninhabited, the strong wind and scurrying clouds making the sea's edge a place for cagoules, hats, and brisk walking. During my April visit they were busy, and a few days after I took this shot they were, doubtless, thronged with owners soaking up the sun and making the most of the location.

But, since I've written about these huts alongside an image taken on my first visit, I'll return to Oscar Wilde. I have the feeling that, as with many brilliant people, he's not the sort of person you'd like to spend much time with. However, there's no denying that his brand of egotism, vanity, astuteness, insight and wit has its appeal. Here's a selection of some of my favourite quotations. Anyone who isn't familiar with the writer can easily find hundreds more on the internet.

• "I have nothing to declare but my genius." (allegedly said at Customs when entering the United States)
• "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
• "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
• "What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
• "I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I'm saying."
• "Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
• "Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered."
• "Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter."
• "I can resist everything but temptation."
• "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
• "Be yourself: everyone else is already taken."
  
• "Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." (hence me quoting Wilde today!)

photographs & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 110mm (220mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bleeding hearts

click photo to enlarge
One of the problems of humankind is our inability to be precise. Our highly developed language does allow great precision, but it also encourages sloppy short-hand through its broad-brush terms, phrases, concepts, labels, stereotypes, etc. We all find it convenient to use a generalised word rather than describe something at greater length, with more accuracy, and that's something that can lead to misunderstanding and trouble.

Take the term, "middle class". Throw that into a conversation and some people will deny the existence of such a concept, others will see it as the embodiment of every good value, and yet others will recognise it as shorthand for comfortable complacency. Or how about the phrase "politically correct?" Is it a formulation dreamed up by those who want to continue being racist, homophobic, sexist bullies, or has Polly Toynbee got it right when she says, "politically correct society is the civilised society, however much some may squirm at the more inelegant official circumlocutions designed to avoid offence." And finally, a thought that arose with today's photograph - just what is it that "bleeding-heart liberals" are guilty of that warrants this pejorative? How does the use of this phrase advance anyone's argument? And what does it say about someone who can use the term? The fact is that many of our "short-hand" terms are crude, broad brushes that either need extensive, specific, qualification before they are used, or need excising from our language because they lead to misunderstanding or give offence.

This bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) is in its first year in my garden, having been bought a few months ago as a piece of wizened, brown root. It's been marvellous to see how a beautiful plant can arise from such unpromising beginnings. One look along the length of this undulating stem shows how the plant got its name, the earlier opening blooms on the right showing the insides of their "hearts" to a greater extent than the more recent flowers on the left.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographic subjects

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A couple of posts ago I was waxing lyrical about the Beatles. My attempts at photo- graphing a mundane cauli- flower got me thinking about them again. Yes, really! At the end of 1967 the band released the single, "Hello Goodbye" with "I Am The Walrus" on the B-side. The latter song was a John Lennon composition, whilst the A-side was McCartney's, though as with all Beatles songs written by either or both, the writing credits feature both names.

When "Hello Goodbye" was released it seemed to me that it was a work through which Paul McCartney said to the world, "I can make a great song about ANYTHING!" And in those years you believed he could - even something as simple as a string of opposites. At a time when the great majority of popular songs were about love, romance, dating, etc, the Beatles were in the vanguard of the bands that were extending their subject matter into previously uncharted territory; and that sometimes included beautifully composed gibberish!

So, what has this to do with my photograph of a cauliflower? Well, I think there's a lesson for photographers in McCartney's "throwaway" song. Just as anything can be the subject of a song, so too can anything be the subject of a photograph. Moreover, a great photograph can have anything as its subject. It was with those thoughts in mind that I took a trimmed cauliflower some friends had brought when they came to dinner the other evening, and tried to turn it into - not a great photograph - but a reasonable image. My first shots were details of the leaves and veins, but I wasn't too happy with them. Then I tried for a large section of the vegetable, but once more rejected my efforts. Finally I placed it on a black background in a darker area with daylight coming strongly from one direction, and made images of the whole of the cauliflower. I was happiest with these. My final version isn't a great shot, but the curves, the veins, the near symmetry, and the way the light models the subject has produced something that I like. It also, for what it's worth, brings to mind the acanthus leaf that forms part of the decoration of the Corinthian capital in Greek and Roman architecture.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Snettisham church

click photo to enlarge
When I visit a church that I haven't been to before I frequently read its description in "Pevsner". The county-based volumes of The Buildings of England are usually known by their main author's name, and his pen-portraits of a town or village's parish church, which is invariably the first entry for each place, prepares one for what is to come.

However, when I visited Snettisham in Norfolk a couple of days ago I hadn't done my usual research, and was surprised by what I found. Like a number of village churches, St Mary's is in splendid isolation a couple of hundred yards from the settlement. This gives the visitor a wonderful view of the building, unencumbered by surrounding houses - that was the first unexpected, and pleasant, surprise. The church is very big, with rich architectural details on the exterior, particularly the magnificent 6-light west window, the unusual, vaulted, tripartite porch below, and the soaring spire connected to its tower by pinnacles with flying buttresses. They were the second surprise. The interior, considering the special nature of what was outside, was something of a disappointment - relatively spare, with a few gems (pulpit, lectern, sanctus bell, a couple of memorials), and mediocre glass, especially the 1969 window by Paul Jefferies that has the "cartoon" character that I've discussed recently. The biggest surprise, however, was the absence of a chancel. An east window had been fitted into a wall that filled the tower arch that formerly led into the missing eastward extension, and the high altar was below it: this absence has truncated what was a cruciform church into one that has a "T" shaped plan. Most odd, and most unfortunate. Apparently, in the late C16 Sir Wymond Carye had the chancel demolished. To add to the indignity, in 1915 a Zeppelin dropped bombs which further damaged the walls erected in its place.

Put all that together and you'll gather that to the avid church-visitor Snettisham is something of an oddity. In fact, it looks more like one of South Lincolnshire's churches than a Norfolk building, and Pevsner's description of it being "perhaps the most exciting C14...parish church in Norfolk", loses some of its force when you remember that the county isn't rich in work of that period. St Mary's does, however, have a powerful presence, and coming upon it for the first time, on its slight rise, amongst its green fields and swaying trees, I was momentarily reminded of Constable's painting of Salisbury Cathedral. Consequently, in addition to a few "architectural" shots, I took a few "landscape" images that placed the building off-centre, balanced by trees, with a verdant foreground.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 21mm (42mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Number 9

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The trio of albums - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles ("The White Album") (1968) and Abbey Road (1969) - for me, represent the summit of the Beatles' achievement. There are those who would say Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver (1966), with hindsight, are as good or better than the later works, but, whilst they include some excellent songs, I think the subsequent recordings surpass them.

My recollections of those years is that Sgt Pepper burst upon us like something from another planet. The musicianship, invention, breadth, instrumentation, and sheer spirit of the work meant that it rarely left our turntables. In retrospect Revolver had pointed us in this direction, and other bands had dipped their toes in the pool that the Beatles plunged into, but the phrase that one critic used to described it at the time, "revolutionary popular music," wasn't an overstatement. And the question on everyone's mind in 1967 was, "How can they top that?" Well, in 1968, with The White Album they showed that there was no need to try. In that work they extended some of the ideas of Sgt Pepper, but also side-stepped into Anglo-American music's past. Affectionate Beach Boys parody (Back in the USSR), grinding blues (Yer Blues), music hall brought up to date (The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill), Noel Coward-like crooning (Wild Honey Pie), love songs, hard rock and the rest - not forgetting a clutch of George Harrison songs that are amongst his best - made it an album that revealed its subtleties only after many listens. And, just as Sgt Pepper had one song that probably didn't deserve its place on the album (Within You, Without You), so too did The White Album (Revolution 9). John Lennon's eight minutes of musique concrete influenced by Yoko Ono's regard for Stockhausen and Cage was worth a listen, maybe two, at most three. However, it sat very uneasily alongside works that bear multiple hearings. It would have been better if George Martin and Paul McCartney had got their way and left it off the album.

My mind strayed onto this subject, and I heard that EMI engineer repeating "number, 9, number 9, number 9", when I was deciding how to title the photograph above. It shows a marker (Number 9) at the end of one of the submerged groynes at Hunstanton, Norfolk, with, farther out, a distant ,small, sea-fishing boat. Its minimalistic subject, spare composition and limited colour range make this image as much of an oddity amongst my output as the track of that title is amongst the Fab Four's ouvre.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 64mm (128mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The web of London

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As I stood on my son's Thames-side balcony the other day, and watched the sun going down over the city of London, I reflected on the journey that I'd made down to the city that day. The final leg of my trip had been on the M11 motorway until I joined "A" roads and and minor roads and threaded the car through London itself. In his poem, The Whitsun Weddings, Philip Larkin described a journey into the capital by train from the northern city of Hull. He describes the "slow and stopping curve southwards" of the railway that takes him there and thinks of "London spread out in the sun, Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat..."

My mind's-eye view of the city was, however, different from Larkin's. I saw the lines of motorways and other major roads converging on the capital from all directions, and, encircling it, the orbital roads and the M25: in fact, the image I had was a spider's web. And, as I dwelt on that simile I considered how appropriate it was, for just as the spider entices all that it needs to the centre of its construction, so too does London attract the country's people and resources from the regions, leaving the provinces depleted and relatively impoverished. William Cobbett (1763-1835), the radical pamphleteer and author of Rural Rides (1830), called the city "the great wen": that is to say, a pathological swelling, a cyst, on the face of England.

There are not many who would be so harsh today, but the pull that the capital exerts has been recognised by government and large institutions, such as the BBC, who have made efforts to relocate London-based parts of their organisations to the regions. During my brief stay I looked for signs that the city was suffering the same slow down as the rest of the country during the current recession. But, the bustle, building, and frenetic energy seemed much the same as ever: maybe my provincial eyes couldn't see the signs. Or perhaps London is, to modify L.P.Hartley's phrase, "...a foreign country; they do things differently there."

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm/44mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/3200 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dog daisies

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Dog daisy, oxeye daisy, moon daisy, marguerite: Leucanthemum vulgare by any other name would look as good.

I have a soft spot for the flower that I first came to know as the dog daisy. Every year, around June, it would appear in the grass where I played as a child, its tall flowers and ragged leaves standing up in clusters above the smaller clover and vetch, overshadowing the diminutive common daisy (Bellis perennis) with its size and elegance. It seemed to proclaim itself as a flower suitable for picking and displaying in a vase, and that is where it often ended up.

These days I still notice the flower on dry grassland, on motorway and roadside verges, and on wasteland. It gives a lift to the unkempt corners of our country, and decorates the attractive places with its bright white and yellow stars. This particular group of dog daisies was in what I consider to be an unusual place at an unusual time. I photographed them a couple of days ago in a railed-off flower bed outside the main entrance to Kew Gardens, Richmond, near London. They had clearly been deliberately planted, and were flowering a month earlier than I expect to see them. But there they were, giving a high contrast sparkle to the end of the street, and a radiant glow to the entry of these world-famous gardens. I'd like to say "Well-done!" to the person who thought of using these common flowers in this place, in this way. As I bent down and started to photograph them a couple of other people with cameras seemed to notice the flowers and joined me. Here are my two best shots.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 73mm (146mm/300mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Illuminated altar

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The oldest stained glass that we can still see in our churches is about 900 years old, though stained glass has been made in these islands for at least 1,300 years. Go into the average church and the glass that you will see is likely to be Victorian or from the early twentieth century. There is still much medieval glass to be found, though a lot of it is re-assembled from fragments left over after sixteenth and seventeenth century Puritan iconoclasts had finished smashing it for the idolatry that they felt it represented. A few churches, such as Fairford in Gloucestershire, have their complete, original schemes still in place. Glass also exists from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often heraldic in design, though sometimes showing figures painted in the manner of a work in oils. Then there is the glass from the twentieth century and the turn of the millennium.

It's true to say that all periods have produced good glass, but all have also turned out work that can only be called bad. To my eye, the periods responsible for most of the latter are the Victorian age and later twentieth century. I have a particular dislike for what I call the "cartoon style" that appeared in the 1970s and continued into the following decades. This comprises large, bold, simplified figures, usually one to each light of the window, in strong colours that go together poorly. The drawing often has a stylised angularity, and the faces are peculiarly expressionless. Such glass has neither subtlety, gravitas or beauty - three requisites for a church window.

A while ago I came across one of these windows in the church at Burgh le Marsh, Lincolnshire. I didn't bother to look to see if there was a maker's mark, but I did feel motivated to take a photograph of it. It certainly wasn't the quality of the glass that prompted me: rather it was the way the sun was throwing the colours from the window so that they illuminated the white cloth of the altar below. On that day, at that time, this not very good window was producing a little magic in the way that only stained glass can. I framed my shot from the side to include the cross and one of the flanking candlesticks.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/44mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The V bombers

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Anyone who grew up in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s will remember the "V" bombers. Until the arrival of the nuclear submarine fleet with their multiple-warhead ballistic missiles, these aircraft formed the sharp end of the country's nuclear deterrent. Other aircraft were tasked with carrying free-fall nuclear bombs, and artillery could fire low-yield nuclear shells, but projecting the country's main nuclear weapons rested with the three long-range strategic bombers, each of whose names began with the letter "V".

The Vickers Valiant was the first and least successful of the trio, though 107 aircraft were built between 1951 and 1957. Its fuselage suffered premature airframe fatigue when low-level flying became the RAF's strategy, and it was phased out in 1964. The other two bombers performed rather better. The Avro Vulcan, an elegant delta winged aircraft went into service in 1953. A total of 134 served with the RAF performing high and low level flying as required. The last operational flight was in 1984. Two years earlier, during the Falklands War, a Vulcan, receiving multiple re-fuelling, had flown a non-stop round trip from Britain to Port Stanley and back, in order to bomb the Argentine-held runway. In the past couple of years a Vulcan (XH558) has been restored to flying condition and has toured air shows, its original terrifying purpose forgotten, its unique shape and impressive presence widely admired.

The third of the "V" bombers was the Handley Page Victor (shown above) of which 86 were built. It first flew in 1956 and on its test flight accidentally broke the speed of sound. Like the Vulcan it was an elegant aircraft that had a long life, ending its service in 1993 after being an in-flight refuelling tanker for a number of years. The Victor shown above is undergoing restoration at the Imperial War Museum (IWM), at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. Alongside it are one of the the early Typhoons and a Spitfire. The large hangar they are in is part of a new building called "Airspace" that houses a fine display of ex-RAF aircraft. It's good to see that this big venerable aircraft is to take its place alongside the Vulcan there. I took this photograph on a recent visit, impressed by the size of the repair bay that dwarfed the big aircraft, the pattern of the lights, and the sense of scale that the two visitors gave to the scene.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/44mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Arches and stairs

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The outline of most arches was constructed using a straight edge and a pair of compasses. It's quite easy to see how a round-headed arch might be drawn using these tools, but pointed arches were drawn in this way too.

The simplest pointed arch - the "pointed" or "two-centred arch" was drawn using two arcs that met at the apex of the arch, with the compass point located outside, to the left and right, of the vertical lines that form the jambs. This is easier to show using an explanatory drawing than it is to describe in words.

I mention this because when I came to look at my photograph of an arched doorway through which a spiral staircase can be seen, I couldn't decide what kind of arch it was. The photograph was taken in Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, a tall, brick structure built in 1434, a time when castle building was on the wane. The arch is of the Tudor/four-centred variety. Some authorities class these arch shapes as one and the same, though others maintain that the Tudor arch is more depressed than its the four-centred sibling. Either way, I was definitely depressed after I'd consulted my books and the internet and come to no definite conclusion!

The photograph was taken using natural light, and the effects that might suggest the use of flash come from artificial light sources that are designed to make the tourist's passage safer, and natural light penetrating through small windows.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/44mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/13 seconds
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On