Writers and locations

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When I was growing up in the Yorkshire Dales I was always aware of the relative proximity of "Bronte Country", the hills around Haworth where the Bronte sisters and their family lived, worked and wrote. I also noted that in more recent times the northern Dales assumed the title, "Herriot Country" on the back of the popularity of James Herriot's books and their TV adaptations, though I confess to never having read or seen any of his work. This mania for giving areas names based on the works of writers or painters is of relatively long standing, though it does seem to have increased in the past thirty years or so.

Thomas Hardy's books are largely set in Wessex, an old name that describes an area that includes including Dorset, Berkshire, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire. He gives fictional names to actual towns - Puddletown becomesWeatherbury, Bridport is changed to Port Bredy, Bournemouth to Sandbourne etc - and this has, for tourist authorities and readers, created an area that is now recognised as "Hardy's Wessex". This kind of association is sometimes disputed when more than one artist is connected with a location. Thus, the Lake District in the minds of some is linked with Beatrix Potter, but others see it as closely intertwined with the "Lakes Poets" - Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and others.

What has this to do with my photograph of oilseed rape and ash trees? Well, it was taken over the past couple of days when I spent some time walking, cycling and driving in a small part of England that has acquired the title of "Tennyson Country". The rolling hills of the south Lincolnshire Wolds in the vicinity of Somersby, Bag Enderby and Harrington is the area where Alfred (later Lord) Tennyson was born, grew up, and where he wrote much of the early poetry that led to him becoming the most admired poet of Victorian England.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Regimental colours

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In a south aisle in Beverley Minster hang flags of the East Yorkshire Regiment (The Duke of York's Own). How old are they? Some must be many decades old, others much more ancient. Time is slowly decaying their woven cloth and fading their bright colours. Yet still they record the campaigns of this illustrious local regiment - Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Louisberg, Quebec, Ramilles, and others - names from history books, battles fought by local men recruited from towns such as Beverley, Driffield, Bridlington, Hedon and the city of Hull.

Many of our larger churches have such flags, often as in the case above, of regiments long gone in British Army amalgamations, the banners, and associated plaques and memorials remembering their deeds and their local connections. I suppose it's not only the religious aspect of remembrance that makes such a setting seem appropriate for these artefacts: the timeless character of a minster, a cathedral or a big medieval parish church must also promise a location that will endure and ensure that the sacrifice and achievements of these soldiers will not be forgotten.

I photographed these flags on a day when the glow of the sun was penetrating the darkness of the building, making the stained glass and old stone glow, and illuminating the tattered remnants hanging from their poles.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 60mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Red Mount Chapel, King's Lynn

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"...one of the strangest Gothic churches in England."
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), architectural historian

The Red Mount Chapel in King's Lynn is a small pilgrimage chapel built in 1483-5 by Robert Curraunt for William Spynke, the Benedictine prior of Lynn. It was designed to be a stopping point for people travelling to Walsingham, England's second most important pilgrimage shrine after Canterbury. It provided religious support as well as material comforts for the travellers, and doubtless provided significant sums for the coffers of the priory church of St Margaret.

It is a brick built, octagonal structure with stone dressing, topped by a cruciform stone chapel with fan vaulting and panelled, pointed tunnel vaults. The building has three entrances, the main one giving access to the ground floor chapel. Above that is the priest's room, with the second chapel at the top. Two stairways run in opposite directions in the space between the outer brick walls and the inner rooms. The mound on which it was built may have been a Norman motte, but in later medieval times it was known as "the hylle called the Lady of the Mounte." The life of the chapel was quite short: it ceased to be a place of worship in 1530. In subsequent centuries it was used for water storage, as a study, an observatory and a stable. During the English Civil War it was a gunpodwer store! It's a wonder that it still exists, but the people of the town had it restored by public subscription in 1828, with further work in the 1920s and 1930s. Major repairs were undertaken in 2007 and today it is regularly open to the public. I saw it on a day when the town's medieval South Gate was also open.

When The Walks was created in the eighteenth century, and further extended as a public park in the nineteenth century (see previous post), the designers of this open space had no need to add a ruin, an eyecatcher or any other focal point around which to arrange their trees, water feature, seating and walks because it already existed in the form of this unique medieval chapel.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation: -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Walking The Walks

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"The Walks", a public park in King's Lynn, Norfolk, differs from most English town and city parks. Firstly, it was laid out in the eighteenth century as a single "promenade" or walk for citizens away from the hustle, bustle and grime of the busy town centre. Most of our parks were created from the mid-nineteenth century and later, as was the case with King's Lynn's other park, St James', which dates from 1902-3. Consequently, rather than a series of sinuous or circular routes through the park there is one dominant, axial thoroughfare to which other, later paths have been added. A record of 1714 describes a "handsome lime-planted walk put in the year before". This main path, shown in the photograph was described in 1773 in the following way: '"The new walk or mall, from the bars of the workhouse to Gannock-gates, is about 340 yards long and 11 yards wide between quick hedges; at convenient distances on each side of the walk a recess is left in the hedge in a semicircular form, where benches are fixed, on which twenty people may fit together. Upon a gentle ascent on the right is a plantation and a shrubbery'".

As you can see, the hedges and the recessed seating have gone, but it remains tree-lined, and punctuated by benches. The park also contains two features unusual in such a place. The Gannock Gate was originally a minor entrance to the walled town. What remains is something of a hotch-potch of a reconstruction, possibly with original materials, but it  acts as a useful focal point and eye-catcher on the main walk. Off to the side is a mound topped by a small but fascinating medieval pilgrimage building - Red Mount Chapel (the subject of a post to come). These features, along with the place's early origins and subsequent Victorian additions, led to The Walks being designated a Grade II historic park in 1998.

I visited The Walks on an unseasonally hot April day, and the sight that I saw reminded me of how the park must have looked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when there were fewer forms of leisure available, and a public promenade in the park was seen as a fine way to spend a morning or afternoon. At the point I took this photograph there were relatively few people, but elsewhere The Walks teemed with adults and children soaking up the sunshine, playing soccer, sitting and chatting, eating ice creams and generally having a good time.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 81mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Reviled buildings and illusions

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Are multi-storey car parks the most reviled type of building in our towns and cities? I think there's a strong case for saying that they are lower in the public's estimation than, say, public toilets, petrol stations or burger bars - buildings that are often castigated for their charmless functionality. In fact, it's that utilitarian character that makes multi-storey car parks so unappealing. All that unadorned concrete, oil-stained ramps, battered corners and echoing stairwells seem designed to get you out of the building as quickly as possible once the fat fee has been prised from your pocket.

The examples of awful multi-storeys are almost too numerous for me to mention, but I will cite one that I saw recently in Kingston upon Hull, part of a newish hotel by the river. The car park isn't helped by the architecture of the rest of the building, but the unnecessary curves and grotesque metal grilles are truly bad.

It was that car park (and one in Lincoln that has an exterior theme of pointed arches - a cathedral town, geddit?) that came to mind when I saw the example in the photographs that is in King's Lynn, Norfolk. Here, I thought, is what someone with vision can achieve when tackling a multi-storey car park. The overall shape is fine, but the detailing is excellent, and simple. Walls of terra-cotta like squares, punctured by tall, rectangular openings in groups of three are set against white foil-like vanes mounted at different angles that give a blurred, rippled effect, an illusion of movement and airy lightness. On some days they must seem to merge with the sky. What I especially liked was the sharp detail of the walls against the insubstantiality of the vanes when they were seen from an angle. In fact, bringing a light feel to something like a muti-storey is quite an achievement, and one you don't often see.

I took quite a few detail shots of the building, images that are largely semi-abstract in nature, and I regret not taking a couple of the whole structure. Perhaps next time I'm there I will.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 191mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Improving the shot

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Photographers are always looking to improve their pictures. Progress is often measured over time and through many different subjects and approaches. But improvement can also be sought by returning to precisely the same subject time and again, aiming to make each image better than the previous one.

I have that sort of relationship with this seventeenth century house near St Andrew's church in Billingborough, Lincolnshire. I've photographed the view looking from the end of the house down the public footpath towards the church several times. Often this has coincided with a visit to the village to have a vehicle serviced, so I haven't planned the shots in any wider sense.

The first image I posted on the blog is OK, but nothing special. The second is an improvement, and I'm quite pleased with it. However, in the accompanying text I say that I should have caught the building when the wisteria was in full flower, and will perhaps do so next year. That was in 2009. I came upon the building recently, two years later, and the wisteria was showing well, so I took my photographs. However, I like the most recent image less than the second one. Why? Well, the light doesn't model the buildings as well - more shadows are needed. I thought this might be the case when I was taking the photographs, and so I looked for a couple of detail shots. This one, of the characteristically (for the seventeenth century) low front door was the best of the bunch. I liked the combination of colours, textures and those shadows.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Deceiving the eye

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The main photograph in today's entry shows the floor in the choir at Beverley Minster, East Yorkshire. In the smaller image you can see the floor in context*. The three-dimensional effect was achieved by the early eighteenth century restorers using four different colours of marble set in such a way that they suggest cubes. It is hard to imagine anything more different from the small, symmetrically patterned floor tiles that medieval builders favoured for such locations, and which came back into favour during the Victorian period. Yet, one of the marks of the styles in our great churches is that each generation tended to employ that which was fashionable at the time, and the eighteenth century loved this kind of thing.

The Arts and Crafts Movement of the second half of the nineteenth century abhorred such illusionism. They felt that flat surfaces should not be made to appear three-dimensional, that such trickery wasn't being true to either the surface or the materials. I was thinking about this as I photographed the floor, and also when I pointed my camera upwards at the underside of the crossing tower. It's something of a paradox, I thought, that from this point of view the vaulting looks very flat, linear, a touch Rococco even, and the perfectly flat floor looks like it is constructed of angular cubes. Of course, when you position yourself to one side of the crossing, as I did for my earlier photograph, the ceilings' curves, ribs and soaring arches reveal the architecture to be very sculptural. Similarly, a walk down the choir soon reveals the "blockiness" to be smooth, shiny and flawless, a tribute to the workmanship and chosen materials of three hundred years ago.

*Note: choir is used in the architectural sense to mean the place where the choir would sit and services were sung.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 2500
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Mining the seam

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"Anything you want - love stories, murders, whatever - can be written in these few streets."
Roddy Doyle (1958-), Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter

In a recent Guardian interview the writer Roddy Doyle articulated a truth many artists come to realise - that mining a seam that has close limits, and is well-known, can be more revealing and inspiring than trawling the world for new sensations. He was referring to the suburban area of Kilbarrack on the outskirts of Dublin. For others it has been the landscape around Dedham Vale ( the painter John Constable), the Yorkshire port of Whitby (the photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe), or the county of Dorset (the writer Thomas Hardy). But it's not just the limitations of a location that can offer this kind of liberation and focus: the same interest and depth can also be found in restricting oneself to a narrow subject range.

For the painter John Ward of Hull, it was marine subjects, for photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher it was systematic industrial subjects, and for the writer, Isaac Asimov it was the fact and fiction of the future. One of the best known examples of an artist's almost obsessive focus on a single subject is the attention that the painter Claude Monet gave to his garden and particularly his water lilies during the later period of his life. It's the example of Monet that I think of when I approach my modest lily pond each year as the leaves break through the surface of the water once more. The plants, water and reflections are ever changing, with the time of day, season and weather all contriving to bring something different and interesting to the same small area. The other evening it was the bright glow of the sunset that coloured the scene and had me reaching for my camera.

For my other shots of this subject, taken at different times of year, see here, here, here, here and (if you can bear any more!) here.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 81mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

One string too many

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I've played the guitar for about forty years. I'm not great, but I'm not awful either, and I get a lot of pleasure from the activity. A good few years ago, at the time that I bought my oldest son - a better guitarist than me - a Gibson, I splashed out on a bass guitar, thinking that learning the instrument would be fun. However, I never got very far with it because my son asked if he could borrow the bass when he went off to university, and in a moment of weakness I said yes. The rest, as they say, is history. My bass guitar went out of my ownership, my son became as expert on it as he was on a six-string, and the bands he played in were good enough to feature at a blues festival and to perform elsewhere for hire - an entertaining side-line to the day job.

In time my bass was pensioned off, rather the worse for wear, as it was replaced by better instruments. For the past few years it has languished in our spare room, awaiting a bit of essential surgery, and I've spent my time playing six-strings. So, you can imagine my reaction when my son asked me if I'd like to "look after" his rather fine Fender 5-string Jazz Bass and bass amplifier that, having been replaced by 4-string and 5-string Warwicks and a new amp, resulted in his needed to de-clutter. I said "Yes".

When I got the instrument home I tried it out, and fairly soon, and very sadly, concluded it wasn't for me. It isn't that it's not a good bass, nor is it a lack of will-power on my part. No, the simple fact is that it has one string too many. How is that? Well, as anyone familiar with the 6-string guitar and the much more usual 4-string bass will know, the bottom four strings on each instrument are (lowest to highest) E, A, D, G. Those on the bass are lower in pitch, but the familiarity with these four strings that a lead or rhythm guitarist brings to the bass makes learning it so much easier. However, the 5-string has a low B below the usual four strings. The consequence of this - at least for me - is that you forget where you are on the strings when you're playing: it's hard to remember, by feel, which string is which. So, the 5-string bass in my study has become something of an ornament. All is not lost, however, because the presence of the bass amplifier has motivated me to dig out my old and battered bass and coax it into life. Maybe over the next year or two I'll get somewhere with it.

This morning the "ornamental" bass was illuminated by the low sun shining on my vertical blinds. The slanting light produced rich colours in the wood and metal of the headstock and prompted me to take this photograph. The smaller image is one I took a while ago but never posted.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

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

Sleeping Beauty?

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"Here is an English counterpart to the illusionism which occurs at the same time in Italian painting and German sculpture."
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), architectural historian

In his book, England's Thousand Best Churches, the author, Simon Jenkins, says of this tomb in the church of St Bartholomew, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, "The effigy might be the original for Sleeping Beauty." It isn't, and he knows that it isn't, but such is the character, delicacy and beauty of this fourteenth century figure sculpture, that this would certainly be the one to emulate for that purpose. The quotation from Nikolaus Pevsner at the head of this piece puts the sculpture into a European context, and at the same time draws our attention to the remarkable - for its time - realism of the figure and its clothing.

Blanche Mortimer was Lady Grandison, the wife of Sir Peter Grandison, and the daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. She died childless, three years before her husband. There is probably no attempt at a likeness in the sculpture of her face, but her clothing, rosary, head dress, and the fall of her gown over the edge of the tomb, are all done with the intention of reproducing the illusion of reality. The tomb would have been painted when new, and the illusion would have been even stronger.

There are many who consider this tomb to be one of England's best from the period. It sits in a church that boasts other fine effigies, including one from the same period as this piece, carved from oak. The Kyrle Chapel has a sumptuously carved tomb from the seventeenth century of Sir John Kyrle and his wife that I made the subject of one of my first blog posts in January 2006.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

New names for old birds and flowers

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Yesterday, on a short pre-prandial Fenland walk with friends, I saw my first barn swallow of the year. What, I hear you ask, is a barn swallow? Is it some kind of rare vagrant, blown off course, fetching up over the flat Lincolnshire landscape in search of flies? It is, of course, no such thing, merely the new name for Hirundo rustica agreed by the British Ornithologists' Union in its revised taxonomy.

The Lincolnshire Bird Club, from which I gleaned this information, began using the new names for wildfowl and gamebirds in its 2008 report. The current volume (2009) extends the revised taxonomy to grebes and passerines. Molecular studies of the past twenty years have prompted the revision as the relationship between birds have become clearer, and a number of ornithological bodies and publications now use the new nomenclature. It is a minority of names that have changed, and then usually by the addition of an extra word. Thus for example, the jackdaw becomes the Western jackdaw, the nuthatch the Eurasian nuthatch, the wheatear the Northern wheatear, and the scaup becomes the greater scaup. I imagine it will be several decades before these revised names become widely used.

What, you might also ask, has this got to do with a photograph of some beautiful bleeding heart flowers in my garden? The answer is that plants have also been undergoing name changes. In the case of bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) the change is to the Latin name, and it is now known as Lamprocapnos spectabilis. Perhaps the reason for the switch is the same one that prompted the re-naming of our birds. I must find out.

Incidentally, to return to the swallow (sorry, barn swallow), my first sighting last year was April 1. That surprises me because the weather has been significantly milder recently, and I'd have expected to see the first bird earlier as a consequence.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Shaking things up

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I haven't been especially happy with my recent photographic output. Competent is the best I can come up with to describe it. One or two, maybe, stand a little higher than that, but overall I think I'm on something of a plateau of "very averageness".

I've been here before. Inspiration is lacking, the eye doesn't see in the way that it did, and there is a dearth of shots with which you're very pleased. In fact, my typical output consists of a lot of OK stuff, a few dire shots, and a few that stand out for me. And it's those "stand outs" that keep you clicking, keep you searching for the next one. When you don't get them no amount of OK photographs can compensate. What to do? Well, my usual technique is to snap my way through the drought - keep photographing, and gradually things do pick up again. Something else I've tried is giving myself a challenge. For example, produce a good photograph from a particular subject, or work only in one way - such as, just black and white, only using a macro lens, or using a very shallow depth of field.

It was the last one that I turned to on this occasion, though I also decided to accentuate colour (thinking about the most recent post), and aimed for a semi-abstract effect. The subject I chose was a multicoloured, multi-flowered,  Mothers' Day bouquet that one of my sons bought for my wife. It isn't the greatest shot I've produced, but maybe it will shake things up and help me climb out of my photographic trough.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Colour, fishing boats and aspect ratios

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"When you look at a colour picture you see the colour before you look at the message."
David Bailey (1938- ), English photographer

The quote above is taken from a recent interview that David Bailey gave to the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Being David Bailey, the interview is full of quotable utterances, some of them insightful, others outrageous and a few that are intended, I'm sure, to "take the mickey". But, sticking with this statement on colour, here it is in context: "...black and white gives you the message immediately. Colour’s a warning thing. Berries are red so that the birds know to eat them. When they’re green they don’t eat them. When you look at a colour picture you see the colour before you look at the message. " I don't agree with Bailey on the first part of this. Black and white can give you the pattern before the message. Moreover, sometimes monochrome overlays the artist's message with meaning that derives from the medium. But, I do think that the last sentence is often true, and I think it is a positive aspect of working in colour. Colours do seduce the eye, and it usually happens immediately, before subject, line, composition, and rest come into play. It happened to me this morning when I decided to photograph these fishing boats on The Haven in Boston, Lincolnshire. The sun was strong, the light was harsh, and there were no clouds in the sky - not my favourite photographic weather. But when I looked at the boats I saw three primary colours in a row - yellow, red and blue - and I thought that this sequence was enough to hang a photograph on, despite the countervailing circumstances.

However, there was one thing I knew I'd have to do wth this subject: change the aspect ratio from 3:2 to 4:3. I find myself doing it reasonably frequently with my current camera. It wasn't something that bothered me too much in the days of 35mm film, but having used a 4/3 digital camera for several years I have come to appreciate the less elongated shape of 4:3.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 75mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Magnolia

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For about thirty years the houses that we have lived in have had painted walls. Sometimes the paint has been laid on to the plaster; at other times it has been put on lightly textured paper. And for all of that time the principal colour that those walls have been painted is - magnolia. Occasionally we'd have a contrasting wall in green or some other muted, calm colour. But our colour of choice for most locations was magnolia, that shade of cream with an almost imperceptible hint of pink. Why that boring, over-used colour you might ask? Well, it's widely available in all the main finishes and relatively inexpensive. It also goes nicely with white painted woodwork, coving and ceilings. But more than that, it provides a light, neutral background against which stronger colours and patterns - in curtains, pictures, furniture, rugs etc. - show very well. And, being people who like strongly figured furnishings e.g. William Morris print curtains, my wife and I have valued the versatility of the colour.

Of course, it has become a standing joke with friends and family. If we mention that we are going to paint a room the question is invariably asked, "Magnolia?" However, when it came to our most recent house we broke with tradition. Magnolia was rejected. Even "Warm magnolia", a colour spotted by some friends, was deemed unsuitable. No, instead we chose "Caramel Cream". To the untutored, casual eye, this might look like magnolia. But to someone who has the precise hue of magnolia imprinted on their brain, caramel cream is the chalk to magnolia's cheese. It lacks the hint of pink, and instead veers towards cream proper with a touch of yellow/brown. Completely different I would maintain!

I thought about our long-standing infatuation with this paint yesterday when I was photographing our magnolia tree. The relatively mild spring has brought flowers and blossom throughout the garden in profusion. This tree in particular has never had as many blooms or looked so good. Moreover the virtual absence of frost during the time the flowers have been out has resulted in fewer than usual brown-stained petals. As I photographed it against a blue sky dotted with white clouds using the macro lens, I looked at the hint of pink at the base of each white bloom and then reflected on my house that is now, unlike my garden, magnolia free.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The original white rabbit?

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I can't imagine that Charles Dodgson (1832-1898), a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, had an inkling of the fame and notoriety that he would achieve through his books,  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. These works, released under his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, completely eclipsed any public acknowledgement that he received for his accomplishments in his professional and private life.

The larger than life characters that populate these two books have, through the printed word as well as through film and musical adaptations and references, become widely known. Where did Dodgson/Carroll get his inspiration for the Queen of Hearts, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat and the rest of his cast? Well, in the case of the White Rabbit, there is the suggestion that it may have been in the medieval church of St Mary, in the market town of Beverley in East Yorkshire.

Last week I stood in the church and looked up at the carved stone label stop that terminates a raised hoodmoulding that edges the arch of a door. At the base is a head, facing downwards, which may be a pig, and standing upright on it is a fine rabbit. Around him is a satchel, an item that has caused some to call it the "Pilgrim Rabbit". We don't know the original reason for the medieval mason's decision to depict a man-like rabbit. But what we do know is that for much of the past hundred or so years the tradition has been that this rabbit inspired Lewis Carroll's "White Rabbit", the one that lured Alice down the rabbit-hole into her fantasy world. I don't know if there is any truth in this tale, nor I suppose, does anyone else. However, I think this is a very noteworthy rabbit, and one deserving of a photograph.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 90mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Films, paint and stone

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I was re-reading Oliver Rackham's fine book, "The History of the Countryside" the other evening when I came across an aside that registered more strongly with me than it had done the first time I saw it. Talking about the scope of his book in a chapter entitled "Animals and plants: Extinctions and new arrivals", he observes that "The history of cultivated plants and domestic animals is generally well known*.... The asterisk refers to a footnote which says, "But not to producers of historical films: they do not allow Charles I to fly in a plane, but they do let him ride among Corsican pine plantations or Frisian (sic) cattle."

The same could be said of the medieval architecture we see in films of that period. The interiors of churches, cathedrals and castles are invariably shown as they appear today: cut and pointed stone, carved stone, but barely a hint of paint. In fact, the use of paint in such buildings was widespread. Columns, capitals, window and door surrounds, vaulting and many other surfaces were covered with, in the case of ecclesiastical buildings, illustrations of Biblical characters and episodes, or exuberant decoration. Much of this was removed during the centuries following the Reformation, and the Victorians completed the job, at least until people such as William Morris proclaimed "Enough!" During the nineteenth century a number of churches were painted in the medieval manner, but those receiving "the full works" are few and far between. The church of St Michael, Garton on the Wolds, East Yorkshire, is one such example that I've photographed. One of the best original examples at Kempley, Gloucestershire, will the subject of an upcoming post.

I was thinking about this last week as I looked up at the crossing inside Beverley Minster, East Yorkshire. I was trying to imagine what the building would have looked like with painted capitals etc. The bands and rings of dark Purbeck marble of the thirteenth and fourteenth century stonework adds an element of colour, as does the painted vaulting, but other than that it is pretty much devoid of surface decoration. I rather think that I wouldn't like it to be painted, having become used to the unadorned stone!

Anyone who is a regular visitor to this blog will know of my liking for vaulting, and will have seen several examples. Each time I take such a photograph I search for a new approach. This time I stood under the arch between the nave and the crossing and let the receding verticals of the massive compound piers take my eyes upwards.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 640
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

The Observatory Cafe

click photo to enlarge

I'd never been into the cafe at "The Deep" aquarium in Kingston upon Hull until a few days ago. Moreover, until we headed up to it I didn't know that it was called "The Observatory Cafe". When I got there the view of the River Humber, the River Hull, the waterside buildings and the distant shore of Lincolnshire, showed that it was well named. However, as I sat and drank my cup of tea, gazing down through the angled windows, and studying my surroundings, it occurred to me that it wasn't as well named as it could have been.

I imagine the architect envisaged diners looking out at the view and pointing out the passing river traffic. But, the days when this scene would always have had a ship or boat heading up or downstream are long past. The focus of shipping in the port of Hull is now downstream (left) of this view. One or two small craft use the River Hull, yachts and launches moored in the marina venture out at reasonably regular intervals, the occasional small vessel from the Port of Goole passes, and the docks that remain open upstream (right) of the view generate the odd craft. But the fish docks that would have sent deep-sea trawlers regularly past this point are virtually silent, and the smaller commercial traffic of the adjacent docks, has almost vanished.

There's nothing wrong with "The Observatory" as a name for this location, but it seemed to me that "The Bridge" (of either a trawler, a liner or some futuristic starship) was more appropriate. Looking at my photograph on the computer screen only reinforced this feeling. I was in two minds whether or not to turn this almost monochrome image into a black and white shot, but the blue/green tinted glass and the muted colours that just about make themselves felt gave it a quality I liked, so I stayed with colour.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The deep end

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I've written about Kingston upon Hull's Terry Farrell designed aquarium, "The Deep", before. On that occasion I had a few thoughts about its purpose and shape, and posted a photograph of its angular steel exterior and colourful windows. That shot shows part of the elevation that faces the River Humber. On my recent visit I noticed that this area of steel has been coated with some kind of dark paint/covering: presumably the original finish has been found wanting in some way. Today's main photograph also shows part that overlooks the Humber, but this time it includes what is probably the most interesting exterior feature of the building - its sharp, glazed prow that encloses "The Observatory" cafe. The gleaming steel, angular shapes, coloured glass cladding and the the thrusting point of the tip invited a semi-abstract approach to my composition.

I also took a more distant, contextual photograph from the old pier, and this shot set me thinking once again about the design of the building. The location, on a triangular promontory, determines the overall shape, but what I wondered as I took my photograph was why the architect treats the elevation at which the visitor arrives so poorly, and applies his art to the less frequently seen elevations that front the Humber and the River Hull. Certainly anyone crossing the latter river and standing near the old pier gets a good view of the building. However, those who see the River Humber elevation is restricted to people on boats and ships. I wondered too about the overall shape as seen in my smaller photograph. It seems animal-like, with a pointed head to the right, a creature about to pounce on its prey with details that can be interpreted (am I being too fanciful?) as feet and an eye. Was that the intention? I left thinking that, firstly, I'd like to have seen that great flat wall recess or protrude in one or two places a bit more than it does, and secondly, that if the slight breaks in the incined roof line were a bit bigger they would have offered more interest. If that sounds like I'm damning what I see, I'm not - there is a lot to like, and a lot to photograph.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Juxtaposition

click photo to enlarge

Photographic composition can be approached in a number of ways. One that I like, and which I don't use enough since I moved to a rural location - is juxtaposition, the conscious placing of disparate objects in the frame.

This technique is one that comes easily to painters, but is slightly more difficult for photographers. Firstly the juxtaposition has to be seen, then it has to be organised into a composition. Often this will mean excluding objects and the photographer changing position to bring the juxtaposed objects into  "engagement". It is a device that can work well where the objects are figurative, but also where the intention is to construct an image with semi-abstract elements.

The other day, when walking near "The Deep" aquarium in Kingston upon Hull, I noticed a building that I'd seen before but had never looked at. It is a blocky structure, clearly utliitarian, probably connected with its futuristic looking neighbour, and has a mosaic-like decoration on its main facade. It wasn't just the building that caught my eye, however, but the building and the car park arrow on the tarmac in front of me. I framed my shot so that the ranks of parked vehicles to left and right were excluded, and let the juxtaposition of the arrow, the horizontal bands and the colourful grid work together in my composition.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 65mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hull and Humber

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I lived in Kingston upon Hull for several years in the 1970s and 1980s. Having been raised in the Yorkshire Dales I found moving from the hills and the drizzle to a port city in drier, brighter Eastern England quite a contrast. Hull has a range of industries along the two rivers on whose banks it stands, and I found a lot of interest and good photographic opportunities in them, as well as in its historic "old town" and docks.

Residents of this Yorkshire city invariably call it by the name that derives from the narrow river on which it was built - the River Hull. The grander version of the name bequeathed in 1299 by King Edward 1, in preference to Wyke or Wyke upon Hull, is favoured by official bodies but eschewed by the locals. On a brief, recent visit to the city I walked around the area at the confluence of the River Hull and the mighty River Humber into which the lesser river flows. The old pier head remains, but the Humber Bridge did for the "Lincoln Castle" paddle steamer that used to be the means of crossing the Humber from Yorkshire to Lincolnshire. At the junction of the rivers, on a point that once was empty of buildings, a large, futuristic looking new aquarium sits. New crossings span the River Hull, and it was as I stood on the pedestrian bridge over the water that the "Rix Eagle", a fuel bunkering lighter, passed under the tidal barrier, then beneath me, and headed out past "The Deep" into the Humber and downstream towards the commercial docks.

I photographed the long, barge-like ship as it passed below the tidal barrier, then turning, took another shot as it headed into the Humber. The latter photograph, with a very bright sky, works better in black and white, but the first shot benefits much more from colour.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

All Saints, Brockhampton, Herefordshire

click photo to enlarge

Like many people with an interest in church architecture - in fact English architecture in general - I have a high regard for All Saints, Brockhampton in Herefordshire, the 1901-1902 masterwork of William Richard Lethaby. But, as a photographer I've found it a frustrating building because, on the three occasions that I've visited it, the light has been less than satisfactory. In fact, on my most recent visit a week ago it was downright flat and gloomy.

Lethaby was an apprentice to Norman Shaw and became something of a disciple of William Morris. At the time he built Brockhampton church he was principal of the Central School of Arts and Crafts and Professor of Design at the Royal College of Art. Considering his background was relatively humble compared with architects of his day (his father was a gilder and carver) he achieved a great deal. At Brockhampton Lethaby tried to put into practice the principals he espoused. The materials are local - stone, thatch, timber, though with concrete between the striking stone roof arches, and the workmen he engaged were all local. The design takes the vocabulary of traditional buildings and gives it the architect's own interpretation. Thus, whilst the arches are pointed they avoid copying Romanesque or medieval precedents. The tracery echoes the reticulation and cusped forms of Gothic, but are obviously not medieval. Similarly, the stone carving and metalwork draws on the naturalism and stylization of the Arts and Crafts rather than, say, the Decorated period of English Gothic, which also valued these qualities.

Lethaby's church sits well on its sloping site, nestling naturally into its surrounding fields and parkland, at first looking older than its 110 years. The exterior has an engaging domesticity that is repeated when one enters the building. The relatively low, enclosing roof, warm-coloured stone, waxed oak, and glowing lights make it a welcoming building. Christopher Whall's stained glass, some Burne-Jones tapestries and embroidered and appliqued cloth adds a few stronger coloured highlights.

My photographs show the underside of the low crossing tower, a view down the nave and the exterior from the south. The outside image required work to extract anything of value. On my next visit I'll have to order better weather and a different time of day to get some strong, directional light to model the building! Incidentally, this church has received the highest form of flattery, higher even than the words of the architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, who called it "one of the most convincing and most impressive churches of its date in any country." Intrigued? Read here.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Lungwort

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I have written elsewhere in this blog that, whilst I recognise the usefulness of Latin names for plants, I much prefer using the English names for their beauty, descriptiveness and heritage. Leopard's Bane is so much more interesting than Doronicum orientale, and Snapdragon trumps Antirrhinum any day. However, there are one or two English names that conjure up a picture which, to my mind, sit ill with the plants they describe. I was photographing one such today - Lungwort (Pulmonaria).

In my garden there are four varieties of this plant. One has pink flowers, another has blue flowers, there is a white flowered variety, and finally one manages to produce flowers that are both pink and blue. All of them, however, have green leaves with light-green or white spots. They are a useful plant, very hardy, thriving in shade and the open, and producing their flowers in early spring. There is something of the wild flower about them, and there is a species native to Europe, Narrow-leaved Lungwort (Pulmonaria longifolia) known in Britain as Joseph and Mary. It is the plant from which several garden varieties have been bred. But, much as I like the Lungwort, I've never liked its name: it strikes me as a particularly ugly name for such an attractive plant. However, many of its names across Europe derive from the likeness of the spotted leaves to diseased lungs, as of course does its Latin name (pulmo is Latin for lung), and the association has well and truly has stuck. Consequently its many other English colloquial names - Soldiers and Sailors, Spotted Dog, Jerusalem Cowslip and Bethlehem Sage among others - are fast disappearing.

I composed my photograph with the attention on a group of pink Lungwort, and moved so that a blue variety was out of focus in the background.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Oats, colour and chrysanthemums

click photo to enlarge

Colours have always fascinated me: colours I like, colours I dislike, colours that I dislike unless paired with a particular colour, the uses to which colour is put, the science of colour, the art of colour and, the subject of today's reflection, the names of colours.

My first introduction to the interesting names of colours was, I think, courtesy of Scott's Porage Oats. Our breakfast table usually had on it the famous box, adorned with the Highland Games shot putter, so I could read about the famous British Army regiments that, for a while, featured on the back. It was there that I came across the names khaki, olive and lovat. The first two will be familiar to most people, but the latter perhaps not: it is a muted green colour named after an area in Invernesshire, Scotland. An interest in painting introduced me to the wonders of burnt sienna, ultramarine, yellow ochre etc, and a passing interest in heraldry that I picked up on the back of a deeper study of medieval and later tombs, revealed to me the particular nomenclature of that discipline's colours (tinctures) - argent (silver), or (gold), azure (blue), sable (black) etc.

These days an interest in computers, photography and the graphic arts generally, requires knowledge of how VDUs display colours and the way they organise, number and name them. It was from that starting point that I searched for a name to describe the colour of these chrysanthemums that I had photographed. Were they purple, pink, violet, rose, fuchsia, cerise or what? To settle the matter I consulted the List of Colors on Wikipedia and decided that the closest fit (though a rather boring name) was red-violet!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 100mm
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

New old, old new or just new

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When it comes to erecting a new structure alongside old buildings, whether in a village, a town or a city, the architect has to make a decision about style. This is particularly so if the new building is to be in a conservation area where clear guidance exists about what may and what may not be done to the whole fabric, and particularly the building facades, of the designated locality.

There are those who favour building to emulate the old ones nearby to the point that they are almost copies. Such buildings, unless deliberately designed to conceal their novelty, invariably give themselves away through the details and the freshness of the building materials. To my mind this is rarely the right approach, though it can be the best way when repairing, renovating or extending a structure. A step removed from this are those buildings that plunder the details and forms of past styles in an effort to re-create an imagined arcadian past. They are often sufficiently "historic" that they fool the lay person. Poundbury is a notable example of this deluded approach. I think of this as constructing "new old" buildings. Others, however, feel that "fitting in" with older buildings doesn't require slavish copying, but can be achieved by building in a contemporary style that acknowledges and respects what is nearby - perhaps through materials, roof, window, and string course heights, or by the application of forms and details that echo but don't ape those on the more venerable neighbours. It's an approach that I like to see because it can work very well without the sterility that is involved in copying old styles. Moreover, it's a nice intellectual exercise to try and work out the references that the architect has employed. To my mind this is making "old new" buildings. And then there are those who will brook no compromise, and aim to build entirely in the contemporary manner. It's hard to do this in conservation areas in Britain today but occasionally the architect succeeds in getting his or her way, and sometimes in proving they were right. Just as often they show why legislation is necessary!

I came upon this trio of buildings in London on the edge of the City. On the right is the Grade II listed building known as St Botolph's Hall. On the left is a glass curtain-walled office block by Norman Foster whose name I don't know. In the centre is the most recent building, apartments at 20 Bishop's Square by Matthew Lloyd Architects. I was taken by the terracotta-ish horizontal bands of the cladding, the determined rectilinearity, and the way the architect had aimed to accommodate the uncompromising modernity of the towering block on one side without overpowering the older building on the other.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 92mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 1000
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Prisons, Victorians and leaks

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I'ts often said that you can judge the level of civilization of a society by the way in which it treats animals. There's some truth in this. However, I think how prisoners are treated is a better indicator. One of the difficult things for a democracy to do is achieve an effective balance between deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation. Too often politicians, anxious for re-election, ignore what works and veer towards the populism of harsh retribution. There are cases where this kind of approach is necessary, but when it is used as a broad brush throughout the penal system it invariably fails. Prisoner numbers soar, gaols become schools of crime, re-offending rates are high and the cost of so many locked up people results in early release schemes to keep budgets under control. Supporters of this approach characterise prison education, training and supervision within the community as "soft" and ineffective: it isn't, and should be an integral part of any penal system that aims to keep society safe and reduce offending.

I was thinking about this when I visited the historic old prison in Lincoln Castle recently. This building was begun in 1785. Half of it remains, the rest having been knocked down to make way for a newer block of 1847-8 built on the more costly American "Separate" system with prisoners kept apart in individual cells. Prisoners were confined to their cells for 22 hours a day, working on menial tasks for at least 12 of those. Misbehaviour was punished by having to turn a crank or screw for hours on end, receiving food only when the machine's counter reached the required number of turns. When the prisoners were allowed out of their cells for exercise or to attend chapel they were made to wear a mask so that they couldn't recognise each other. In the chapel each seat had doors at either side so that conversation and sight of those nearby was impossible.

Reading about the harsh, probably illegal, and certainly inhumane treatment of the U.S. soldier who is alleged to have given classified information to Wikileaks it seemed to me that some politicians in our supposedly enlightened democracies (and I include the UK in that group) pine for the systems and treatment that their Victorian predecessors sanctioned. Thankfully, as we saw this week, we still have public officials who are prepared to stand up and describe this latter day barbarism for what it is.

My photograph of the cell shows the spartan nature of the Victorian accomodation (the loudspeakers played a commentary for visitors). The other two images show the chapel: the first was taken from the pulpit where the chaplain would have stood to preach, the second from the prisoners' point of view looking towards the pulpit. In both shots hooded models represent the prisoners.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 19mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 2500
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photography by numbers

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One of the tips I remember reading decades ago when I started out in photography was this: if you go to a place you've never been before and want to be sure of getting photographs of the "best" sights, go to a shop that sells postcards of the locality, buy some, and let them be your guide as to what to shoot and where to shoot it from. For someone who simply "collects" photographs and places it was good advice. But, if you were interested in making images that were the product of your own eye and mind, photographs where the subject is only part of the point of the shot, then it was very limiting advice, the result of which was not too different from painting by numbers.

Having said that, the shots that are sold as postcards are often taken from obvious and good vantage points, and frequently exhibit fine compositions. They should too, because they are usually the product of someone who makes his or her living from photography. Moreover, you can find yourself taking a shot that you subsequently see on a postcard simply because it presents itself so conspicuously. Such is the case with this photograph of Lincoln Cathedral seen from Castle Hill. The funnel of Georgian, Victorian and medieval buildings that lead to the fourteenth century Exchequer Gate (the arch of which one passes through to enter the cathedral precinct), together with the tall towers of the Norman and thirteenth century west end of the cathedral, make a satisfying composition. I've seen it reproduced in water colour by Peter de Wint, in oils and acrylic by contemporary artists, and in many photographs of the city.

Had I wanted a shot like the much reproduced images that one sees of this location I'd have waited until later in the day and year, when the sun was better illuminating the scene, when there was some blue sky, and there were more people in the foreground. As it was, I came upon it on a fairly dull, cold day in early March when the only person on view was a man giving out leaflets extolling the virtues of the meals at the local pub: he didn't seem to be getting many takers when we passed by.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Blue glass and anonymity

click photo to enlarge

There's quite a lot to dislike about the building in today's photograph. It is faceless, it tells us nothing about those who inhabit it, and it allows them to look at us but not us at them. It is the sort of building that might feature in George Orwell's 1984 or Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a place of secret policemen, anonymous bureaucrats or super-rich tycoons. In fact, according to my researches, it is the offices of a company that owns a chunk of the British media including the Daily Express, the Daily Star, and Channel 5 TV - the populist end of the market, and in terms of the newspapers, the conservative end.

But, having said that, buildings are inanimate objects, and though they can influence society and contribute to our quality of life, they are not "political" in the sense that we usually understand the term. I seem to recall that before the building was acquired by its present owners HSBC had offices here. And, whilst I can see things I don't like about the building, there are a couple of things that I do like. The first is the colour. Towers with curtain walls of blue glass are commonplace - More London, near the Assembly building, is a nearby example. This glass, however, is darker than usual, and that gives the building a weight and solidity that lighter coloured glass cannot offer. Moreover, with those qualities comes a greater emphasis on the surface and the blocks that comprise its overall shape. I like the way the architect has put these together, and the way the reflections in the glass repeat the blocky projections adding to the apparent complexity of the structure.

This building stands next to the Thames, and today's photograph was taken from the riverside path that runs past both it and its next door neighbour, Old Billingsgate Market. When you look at it from across the river it stands out from the buildings around it on colour alone. It also offers a fine grid of distorted reflections, and when lit by yellow internal lights at night looks quite stunning. On the day I took this photograph I could see only two lights on in the building. In my photograph they look like the sort under which someone - an overworked editor perhaps! - is getting the "third degree" treatment.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On