Thursday, July 31, 2008

I have eaten the plums

click photo to enlarge
Development in the arts often seems to follow the principle of Newton's Third Law of Motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Thus, Post-Modernist painting eschews traditional oil paint, technical proficiency and representation. In their place we find elephant dung, dead animals, diamonds and running men (among other materials), with teams assembling an "installation" or "piece" under the artist's direction, and works being described as "ideas". Similarly in music, the Minimalists led by Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass cast aside the complexity of Modernism for austerity, small ensembles and repetition.

In poetry, the British and American poets of the Imagist school of the early twentieth century reacted against the "genteel" style, florid description and imagery of the Victorians and their imitators, preferring pared down verse that captured the instant and used the natural object itself rather than an abstraction. This condensed poetry is best exemplified by Ezra Pound's work that (according to the author) began life as a thirty-nine line poem, was cut to half that length six months later, and a year afterwards achieved its final form as a single sentence:

In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.


However, it wasn't Pound that came to mind when I was photographing the bowl of plums above, but another Imagist, William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). This, probably his best known poem, features that particular fruit:

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten

the plums... (click for full poem)


This work is also one of the most parodied of poems, particularly in schools, where pupils are frequently asked to write their "own version". What a dull task!

Oh, and yes, I have eaten the plums!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1.3
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Vicarious revenge!

click photo to enlarge
Just as big fish eat little fish and muscle-bound bullies kick sand in the face of the ten stone weakling, it's always the little guy that seems to come off worse. You're about to drive your tiny Fiat 500 on to a roundabout when a 4X4 the size of a truck, all shiny chrome bull-bars, bristling with external lights and plastered with decals announcing its name - Rampage, Pillager, Half-Wits 'R' Us, or somesuch - barges in front of you, its boorish action the very epitome of the "might is right" doctrine. It's the same at the seaside. You throw the crusts from your sandwiches to the black-headed gulls and they delicately flutter down to hesitatingly snatch a morsel. But before the first one alights in come the herring gulls, slicing heedlessly through the smaller birds like fighter bombers, not landing at all, but sweeping up the food, swallowing it in one gulp, and wheeling round for a second pass. What is a little gull to do? Well, there's no point taking on the big bullies because they'll just flatten you. But if, as is the case at Southport, Lancashire, there's a big bronze statue on the promenade of a proud and haughty herring gull, you can go and crap on its head and get safe, vicarious revenge!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E500
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Friday, July 25, 2008

New Zealand Flax

click photo to enlarge
The early European explorers of New Zealand gave the plant known to the native Maori people as Harakeke, the name New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax). They were intrigued by the way the Maoris processed the leaves of the plant to produce a fibrous material suitable for clothing, and it reminded them of the European flax (Linum usitatissimum). In fact, the two plants are quite different species, the antipodean variety being closely related to day lilies (Hemerocalis).

As well as clothing, New Zealand's indigenous people used the flax for baskets, eel traps, nets, cord, mats, sandals, bags and many other purposes including medicinal. The plant continues to be harvested today for the manufacture of high quality hand-made paper. However, it is principally as an ornamental plant that New Zealand Flax is most valued. Architects like it for its size and presence: developers value its "modernity" and durability. A single plant can be 4 metres across, with leaves usually 1 to 2.5 metres long, and flower spikes as tall as 4 to 5 metres. About 75 cultivars are currently grown, coming in a range of colours from almost purple, through light and dark green, brown, reddish-green, variegated, and with stripes of yellow, white or red.

The photograph shows two rain-spattered leaves - one young, and one more mature - from the same plant in my garden . I think it is an example of the variety known as "Alison Blackman", though as usual, if anyone knows that to be wrong, please get in touch.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Old barn

click photo to enlarge
Anyone journeying through England will notice that old farm buildings invariably use local materials. So, in Eastern counties warm reddish brick walls and roofs of orange (or sometimes yellow/buff) clay pantiles are frequently seen. Move to the North and dour stone walls predominate, with stone or split slate roofing the buildings. In South East England and the West Midlands timber-framing is seen with infill of brick or mud closing the walls, though some areas favour tile-hanging or boarding. In these areas roofs would have been thatched with straw or reeds, and many still are, though tiles and corrugated metal have often replaced the natural materials.

These styles derive from what was locally available and from the skills of the local people. So, for example, an absence of suitable building stone often led to the use of timber and infill, or brick, and geographical areas can be plotted on the basis of this kind of building characteristic. However, places that border two adjacent areas with distinctive vernacular traditions often feature more "mongrel" styles. The other day I stopped to photograph a couple of old, dilapidated barns at Bridge End near the edge of the Fens in Lincolnshire. The Fenland landscape is characterised by old farm buildings made of brick and roofed with pantiles. However, Bridge End is close to the nearby uplands where limestone was quarried. This found its way into domestic buildings as well as the churches, and down on to the adjacent flatlands.

The barn in the photograph probably dates from the early nineteenth century, though it may be older. Its pleasingly irregular pantile roof has had sections of glass tiles inserted to let in light. At some point the building has been extended without the new part being locked into the old. It's anyone's guess which came first - the left side or the right. However, I'm wondering whether the builder re-used stone from an older structure, and employed bricks to make the doorway because it's easier and that's what he was used to doing. Perhaps the former Gilbertine priory that was at Bridge End is the source of the stone?

I took this shot for the interesting mixture of textures on this part of the old building. I was pleased to see the rusting cross of the end of a tie beam filling the space on the right and giving some balance to the old door and ivy on the left.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 43mm (86mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Monday, July 21, 2008

Lines in the landscape

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

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

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

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

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

Friday, July 18, 2008

Looking down a homonym

click photo to enlarge
Did you know that innuendo is the Italian word for suppository? Or that there are some that are wise and there are others that are otherwise? And maybe you've never considered that while two wrongs don't make a right, three rights do make a left?

A significant part of English humour is based on the peculiarities of our language. I was thinking about this the other day as, with a group of friends and relations, I looked down a well (see photo). It was the fashion a while ago for young people to use the phrase "well good" to describe something they particularly liked. To my older ears this is an awkward construct, but it came to mind when I was deciding a title for this image. But then I thought, no, the photograph's OK but it's not a "well good well shot"!

Then, with the word "well" in mind I got to thinking about homonyms and the like. And, after a little research I found that my understanding of what constitutes a homonym wasn't quite right. What's worse, after a lot of research I discovered that many are similarly confused, and that the internet can't be trusted to shine a light on the matter. So, in the interests of clarity here is what I discovered, courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary:

Homophones - different spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning (e.g. here, hear)
Homonyms - same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning (e.g. well, well)
Heteronyms - same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning (e.g. refuse, refuse)

Please try and remember this - there will be a written test next week :-)

photograph & text (c) Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Wind power

click photo to enlarge
A new wind farm has recently appeared on the Fens of Lincolnshire. I've taken an interest in its construction, making several journeys to watch the turbines being erected. On each occasion I met people doing the same thing. One man had an interest in cranes, and had come to see the particularly large machine that was used to erect the columns, nacelle and blades. Others were fascinated by the size, shape and otherworldliness of the turbines. And quite a few recognised the significance of the appearance of these modern windmills in this flat landscape that once held a multitude of windmills and windpumps.

Perhaps those who went to view the erection of the wind farm were a self-selected group who harbour no ill-feeling towards these giants, but it surprised me to find that everyone I met was favourably disposed towards them. Many commented on their elegance and beauty. Some said they were greatly preferable to the electricity pylons. Quite a few recognised the necessity for more environmental forms of power generation, and the need for the electricity to be controlled entirely by our own national government. There was none of the "not in my backyard" (nimbyism) that often characterises the debate about wind turbines, and, whilst I know that what I heard was not representative of all public opinion, it did give me hope that a change is underway.

Today's photograph shows nine of the thirteen turbines seen across an almost ripe barley field. A strong wind is blowing away the fair-weather clouds, and replacing them with a more threatening sky. Some say that turbines are a visual abomination that spoil the view. Such people are usually condemning change and the loss of the familiar. They forget (if they ever knew) that our beloved, "timeless" English landscape of carefully tended fields, trees and farms would be unrecognisable and probably abhorrent to our forebears of only a century or two ago. In the Fens, and elsewhere, change will and must happen, and even a wind farm can make a positive contribution, if only people cast aside their blinkers and let their eyes see it!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Three questions

click photo to enlarge
The quiz in Saturday's "Guardian" newspaper asked: "Which Gauguin painting poses three questions?" The answer, is of course, "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" Or, if you prefer the original: "D'où venons nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?" This great work, painted in 1897 in French Polynesia, asks what are, probably, the three most important questions of life.

Some people have seen religion alone as the source of the answers to Gauguin's questions. Others have suggested that history, philosophy and science are the disciplines that can best deal with each one. And there are those who think that history and science together can give us the answers. Ironically, each individual's existing view of life will determine which, if any, of these approaches is deemed the best.

I think history can be a great help in answering the first question. However, history is not an unchanging collection of facts. It is interpretation of the past, and consequently it changes over time, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, according to new research, historiography, and the individual historian's views. What doesn't change is the actual artefacts of the past - the things that our ancestors made and which still remain. I like to visit churches because, besides being places of worship, they are tangible records of the past, offering a marvellous combination of social history, architecture, art, and crafts. And, whilst one can read about the past, it only truly comes alive when you look at, touch and experience it through that which remains. So, a church like St Mary at Weston, Lincolnshire (above), shows us not only the wonderfully ornate stiff-leaf capitals on the columns, a form popular in the early 1200s and categorised as "Early English" by Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) who classified medieval architectural styles, but also the chisel marks of the individuals who carved them eight hundred years ago. And, in so doing our answer to the question, "Where do we come from?" is broadened to include "a past where people toiled at seemingly pointless tasks because they knew the power of beauty, and believed it would help them to achieve eternal life."

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/13
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Another vase of flowers

click photo to enlarge
Yes, another vase of flowers! Why? Well, this simple subject allows you to play with the essential elements of photography in the comfort of your own home! Composition, colour, tone, light, line, texture - it's all there in a vase of flowers. Moreover it combines the natural with the man-made, and allows the photographer to be part of a centuries-old artistic tradition.

When I think of the still-life painters of vases of flowers that I've admired over the years: people like Chardin, Odilon Redon, Mackintosh, Dutch-School masters like Van Husum, Kalf, Van Beyeren and de Heem, and greats of the order of Cezanne, I realise that I'm still at the rudimentary stage of still life creation. In recent months I've tried subtly elegant, minimalist where it's all about the colour, and traditional (including fruit). Today I'm trying "straggly with deep shadows!" And a restricted, somewhat subdued colour palette!

If you aren't keen on this type of photography then I have bad news for you. I'll be doing more of it in the coming months!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Best of PhotoReflect 3



I've updated the Best of PhotoReflect to version 3. It comprises over 100 of what I consider to be my better images from the almost 500 that I've posted on PhotoReflect (and PhotoQuoto).

A departure from the previous "Best of.." is the subdivision into folders. Let me know what you think of this.

Once again I've used the excellent and free JAlbum with a recent version of the Chameleon skin. This allows more customisation than previously, so I'll probably make a few modifications to the album over the next few weeks. The Link List has been updated to reflect the change.

The JAlbum interface is pretty intuitive, but clicking Help at the bottom of the page pops up a window with basic instructions. I find using the right keyboard arrow is the best way to go through a folder of images - but then I'm a simple soul!

Thanks for looking!

Regards, Tony

Friday, July 04, 2008

Begonias, Fibonacci and fame

click photo to enlarge
In 1202 Leonardo of Pisa (known as Fibonacci) wrote Liber Abaci, also known as The Book of the Abacus and The Book of Calculation. It was not the first book to introduce Arabic numerals to Europeans, but the wide audience that it found greatly increased their popularity and persuaded people of their superiority. Arithmetic, conversions, calculations, measurements, mathematical problems, formulas, types of numbers, approximations, geometric proofs and simultaneous linear equations all feature in Fibonacci's book. However, posterity remembers him for a section that describes a succession of numbers that we now call the Fibonacci Sequence.

This sequence starts with 0. The second number is 1. Each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two numbers. So, it begins, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, and continues infinitely. This sequence found application in visual art (architecture and painting particularly) where it was used to determine harmonious relationships in formal elements. Musicians have made use of it in tunings and intervals. Even financial markets have used the Fibonacci sequence in trading algorithms and strategies. My introduction to the sequence was through the link between mathematics and the natural world. The branching of trees, the arrangement of florets in the centre of a sunflower head, and the arrangement of the parts of a pine cone can all be shown to relate to the Fibonacci sequence. Some have said that the growth of ammonite whorls, or in fact any spiral sea shell, is related to the sequence, and the Fibonacci Spiral shows how this happens.

When I saw this begonia leaf (a type related to the aptly named Escargot variety) I immediately thought of the medieval Italian. It is said that living organisms evolved to grow in this way because it allows an increase in size at a constant rate without a change in shape. Whatever the truth of the matter, this spiral shape is a visually satisfying form, and a suitable subject for a photograph!

Incidentally, it seems that Indian mathematicians discovered this sequence before Fibonacci, but as is often the case, the person who placed the information before the public was the one whose name became attached to the idea, and became famous.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Schools and society

click to enlarge
British society is riven by inequalities that have their roots in the vastly unequal distribution of wealth. In recent years these inequalities have become entrenched, and social mobility is now worse than it was forty years ago. After World War Two the public education system was reorganised, with the result that bright children from poor backgrounds found it easier to get into higher education. This was good for society, good for those individuals, and good for the economy because the people's potential was better realised.

Today, however, that progress has not only stalled, it has gone into reverse. At the root of the problem is Britain's class system. Those with money, position and power believe it is theirs by right, that they deserve their abundance, and they are increasingly reluctant to share it - except with their offspring. So, one of the tools they use to achieve their selfish ends is the education system . The richest segment of society, by and large, educates its children in private schools. They rationalise this decision by saying that they can buy a better education than the free state schools provide. In fact, their money buys social position, private schools being more adept at giving pupils the qualifications necessary for higher education, particularly at the elite universities, and entry into the professions. A group of those who aspire to private education, but who can't afford to pay for it, seek a grammar school education. These state-funded selective schools cream off higher attaining pupils at age 11, educate them separately from the rest of their age group, and aim, at the end of their school time, to place them in the better universities and ultimately, the better jobs.

Many don't see a problem with this. I do. The result of this social and educational apartheid is that the remainder of the country's children - in fact the vast majority - receive a poorer education than they might otherwise, and are denied the life-chances of the more affluent. Many intelligent children who would benefit from a university education don't get it because their places are taken by less bright (but better qualified) pupils from private and grammar schools. The nation as a whole suffers socially and economically from the depredations of these odious institutions. Those who do get to higher education from state schools demonstrate, by the quality of their degrees, that they and their education are in no way inferior to their more favoured colleagues, but, there are far fewer than there should be, particularly in the elite group of universities. Some of us expected a Labour government, particularly one that achieved three successive terms of office, to deal with this pressing issue. How naive we were!

Today's photograph prompted this diatribe. It shows the public library in the village of Wainfleet All Saints, Lincolnshire. This was originally a school, built in 1484 by Bishop Waynflete of Winchester, who also founded Magdalen College, Oxford. At a time when England's schools were all privately financed, Wainfleet fed pupils to its Oxford college. However, from 1877 until 1933 it was a selective grammar school, and is still called "the old grammar school" by those who remember that period. Interestingly, from 1951 to 1966 it was a Secondary Modern School - an establishment for all those pupils who did not attend a grammar or private school, but no one ever calls it by that less elevated name! It became what must be one of the most ancient public libraries in the country in 1968. Mmmm, on second thoughts, perhaps there is a future for those grammar and private schools after all!
photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 15mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Ideas and execution

click photo to enlarge
The artist, Martin Creed, hit the headlines seven years ago when he won Britain's premier art award, the Turner Prize, with a piece that involved a gallery's lights being turned on and off. You'd think it would be pretty hard to top that absurdity, but he's managed it. Tate Britain is currently hosting his latest "sculpture", which has an athlete running the 86 metres from a gallery space to the main entrance and back again, 8 hours a day, every day. A number of athletes work 4 hour shifts to "make" this "sculpture". In response to the question, "Is it pretentious?", Creed's priceless reply was, "No, it's not pretentious. No one is pretending. They are just running." So why, you wonder, if it's just someone running, is it art, and why is it happening in a gallery? If you want to read more of Creed's views on art and how he approaches his "work", augmented by the laughably reverent comments of the art correspondent from whom I gleaned this information, go here.

It seems to me that in today's cutting edge art, the idea is all. Execution and skill no longer figure in the making of a piece. This is, of course, wonderfully democratic - everyone can be an artist because there's no need to learn any skills necessary to make a work, you simply have to come up with the idea! Someone else can construct it, or better still, you can specify something that doesn't require any skill, or even making, in the first place! The problem is that it results in vacuous dross that's less interesting and challenging than the concept of an empty glass of water. However, Creed does provide an interesting answer for dealing with art today. "Why do we have to look at paintings for a long time" he opines. "Why not just look for a second? One way isn't necessarily better than another way." So there you have it - it's O.K. to give work like this just a second of your time. The trouble is Martin, a second devoted to work like this is way too long!

Last night, on an after-dinner countryside stroll I came across a disused cow shed. Or maybe it was an old milking parlour. The large metal doors at one end appeared to have been splattered with a liquid. It wasn't manure or slurry, so clearly the contemporary British artist Chris Ofili hadn't been been at work there. It looked like creosote or a diluted paint/oil. Whatever it was it had been fairly wet when it was applied in huge, sweeping arcs, probably through a hose or sprayer. The resulting effect was quite pleasing in the way that the differing levels of opacity and drips of dried liquid suggested the manner of application. Today's image is a detail from these large doors, and is offered for your artistic contemplation. Spend no more than one second looking at it!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 106mm (212mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On