Striking wall tiles

Fashions in wall tiles come and go, and the longer you live the more revivals you see. Square tiles often make a reappearance after a spell of vertical or horizontal rectangular tiles. Black and white in one form or another come around every few years, and bevel edged tiles seem to crop up as soon as people have forgotten about them. I recently went into a toilet where black and white square tiles were predominant. However, to give them an original touch and to banish any memory of the last time such a colour scheme was popular the designer had inserted an occasional crimson red tile. It worked insofar as it certainly caught my eye and prompted this photograph. Whether I could live with it for very long is quite another matter.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Phone

Rower on Wye, Ross on Wye

It never occurred to me that rowing boats of the type featured in this photograph have names. I suppose I should have guessed it to be so since more sedate rowing boats often do, but I've simply never given it much thought. Quite why the name "2nd Breakfast" should be applied I don't know, but I imagine it means something to someone.  This particular rower was enjoying the last of the day's sun on the River Wye at Ross on Wye and making easy headway against the current.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

16:9 mute swan

An evening walk by the River Wye produced this photograph of a mute swan swimming upstream across the gold-tinted water. I aimed for a composition with the sun at the top left and the swan at the bottom right, and had an idea that an image with a 16:9 ratio would suit the shot best. When my pocket camera, many years ago now, was a Lumix LX3, I could quickly select this ratio with an on-body switch. On the Sony RX100 that task requires paging through the on-screen menu - something that in this instance would have meant missing the shot.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Colour negatives

The other day, as I watched my wife selecting negatives on the lightbox ready for scanning, it occurred to me that there might be a photograph in the subject. So I dropped a random selection from her assortment and took the photograph above. As I did the thought crossed my mind concerning whether I would still have these images if they had been digitally recorded. Though negatives are relatively fragile they are less subject to the potentially catastrophic accidents, format changes, and casual attitudes and bit-rot that seem to surround digital archives.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Ledbury timber framing

There are two particularly noticeable buildings on the main street in Ledbury, Herefordshire. One is the timber-framed, black and white, Market House of c.1617. The other is the Barrett Browning Memorial Institute with its prominent clock tower, a competition-winning structure designed by Brightwen Binyon in 1892 and built in 1894-6. It is named after the poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a resident of the area for many years. Pevsner was less than impressed by the building and one can certainly question the materials, colours and aspects of how the overall design sit in the corner location, as well as the dissonant note it strikes across from the Market House. What is undeniable, however, is the importance of the tower as a visual punctuation mark half-way along the main street.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

His 'n' hers wrist-watches

We've been doing some work on the family photographic archives recently. Since it required the scanning of quite a few negatives and slides we bought a lightbox to make the viewing of these easier. The lightbox is lit by LEDs and gives a remarkably even illumination over its A4 size, and with that in mind I searched around for a subject to place on it for a photograph. I settled on our wrist-watches. The photograph is colour as will be confirmed by looking at the day on the larger watch.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Victorian brickwork

A sunlit subject under a dark threatening sky always appeals to me. Even the most familiar subject such as a dying tree, a rooftop, or the St Pancras hotel can be elevated by such a juxtaposition. This terrace of houses on Mill Street, Hereford, dating from 1881, has benefited with attention being drawn to the decorative Victorian brickwork that enlivens the main facades.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Georgian brickwork

The building shown above was built for the master of St Katharine's Hospital, Ledbury, in about 1488. A significant portion of this building exists inside (particularly its arch-braced roof and on the north elevation (timber framing). It was remodelled in 1588 with further extensive modernisation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In recent years it has been sensitively restored and now holds the town library. The Georgian doorcase shown above marks the main entrance. Much of the brickwork in this south elevation dates from the eighteenth century and is laid, quite typically, in the Flemish bond (alternating headers and stretchers). The white pointing is probably lime mortar. It is a fine example of the Georgian bricklayer's art.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Darwin's Barberry

It seems almost a matter of chance whether gardeners refer to plants by their English or Latin name. The subject of today's photograph has always been called, in my hearing, Berberis and not Barberry. It's a plant that originates from Chile and Patagonia and was named after Charles Darwin. Berberis darwinii offers the brightest of orange to the days of early spring, and its only drawback, I find, is the prickly leaves that have to be handled after pruning and which often prick you when weeding in its vicinity. It makes a fine subject against a blue sky.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Peter de Grandisson

The tomb of Peter de Grandisson, who died in 1358, can be found in the Lady Chapel of Hereford Cathedral. It is an architectural confection of sculpture, arches, buttresses, canopies etc that reaches high above his resting place. Visitors to English churches soon become used to tombs that show no colour because they predominate. This tomb, re-painted in the 1940s, reminds us that once all tombs glowed with colour as this one does. However, many seemingly colourless tombs often reveal, to the inquisitive eye, faint traces of the paint that was applied centuries ago. I wouldn't be surprised if the twentieth century restorers used such fragments to inform their choice of colours.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Market House, Newent

The Market House at Newent, Gloucestershire, was built about 1668 as the Butter Market. Like examples at nearby towns, such as Ledbury, it is a timber-framed structure, open at ground level with a room above. Unusually, the steps to the first floor are outside (at the back) rather than underneath. The building is close studded without a centre rail half way up the wall as is common in the area. The building was restored in 1864 when an apse and Gothic-style windows were added at one end. A photograph of about 1840 shows it as it was built.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10

Wooden enemy

There is a phenomenon of people mis-hearing the lyrics of a popular song and not discovering their error until years later. A well known example is "'scuse me while I kiss this guy" rather than "'scuse me while I kiss the sky" in Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. In a similar vein, when, as a small child, I first heard the flower in today's photograph called by its name I heard not wood anemone but "wooden enemy". The wooden enemies are in flower at the moment, taking advantage of the light before the trees' leaves fully open and make the woodland floor darker.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Hereford Cathedral crypt

A crypt is a room beneath a church, often used as a chapel, or a place for coffins religious relics and artefacts. In the UK crypts are found in both parish churches and major churches such as cathedrals, though more commonly in the latter. Because they are below ground level they are often unlit by natural light. However some do have this feature built in with windows usually above eye level. Hereford Cathedral's crypt serves as a chapel, receives natural light from the north, south and east sides, and is located beneath the Lady Chapel.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100