Shell Centre, London

Over the  years I've taken quite a few photographs of the Shell Centre on the South Bank, London. The building, which after its completion in 1962 became Britain's tallest, is an early example of the facelessness of many corporate towers. I took this photograph in 2013 when the half moon and a passing airliner suggested to me a different kind of image.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100     2013

An icy Peugeot

We once owned a Peugeot. It was a two seater, three at a pinch, and it had two wheels. It was, as you may have worked out, a tandem bicycle. We had it before we bought a car - that wasn't a Peugeot. Why "three at a pinch"? Because when our first-born came along he travelled on a child seat mounted over the back wheel. On a recent cold and frosty day we passed a parked car that was iced up. It had its maker's name - Peugeot - on what I worked out was the back. The vehicle was an RCZ, a sports design, with the back and the front not quite as differentiated as usual. This section is part of the back wing. The lines and colours appealed to me as a semi-abstract composition.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Snow on the fields and woods

The weather forecast predicted heavy snow that materialised as light snow. But it was enough for us to put our boots on and venture out quite early to see if there were photographs to be found. Quite a few people had the same idea. This photograph shows the narrow section of woodland that connects Penyard Park and Chase Wood on the hills overlooking Ross on Wye. The man in the red coat gave the cold looking scene a single spot of colour. Ten or so minutes later the steep hill he is climbing was dotted with parents, children and sledges.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Floods, Ross on Wye

In recent days heavy rain in Herefordshire and on the Welsh Mountains caused the River Wye to break out of its channel and flood a number of areas, including Ross on Wye. This is a reasonably regular winter occurrence and with the river guage at Ross measuring 4.7m (the highest recorded is 5.2m) the flooding was pretty much confined to agricultural land and some minor roads. The green space, playpark and bandstand at Ross on Wye are by the river and are built with flooding in mind.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

St Denys, Sleaford, Lincolnshire

During the ten years that we lived in Lincolnshire I must have photographed this view of the church of St Denys on more than a dozen occasions. The viewpoint is the stairwell of the National Centre for Craft and Design that is housed in a tall converted and extended warehouse. Any time that we visited the exhibitions in the building I would look out at the church and, if the sky offered the right kind of background, I'd take another shot. It was a bright winter day in 2017 when I took this one, an interesting contrast to the cloudy day in 2010 when I took what I think is my second photograph of the church.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10     2017

Pollarded willow

On one of our regular walks we pass a willow that was pollarded at some point in the first half of 2020. I took my first photograph of the tree in June, the second in November and this one, the third, in January. Ever since we had a very large willow in the garden of our last house pollarded I've admired the resilience of this species, and have taken quite a few photographs of them after the chain saw has been at work.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

C18 slate memorial

When I lived in Lincolnshire I often came across beautifully carved eighteenth century slate gravestones and memorial tablets. The slate itself had usually come from Swithland in Leicestershire, a source of some of the finest slate in the country. What made the gravestones special was the way they looked like they had been recently carved, so well did the stone retain the details of the mason's work. The example above can be seen on the tower of St Andrew at Billingborough, Lincolnshire. Carved soon after the death of the seventeen year old girl in 1779 every letter, numeral, swirl and patera is as legible and clear today as it was all those years ago. The only thing that mars the tablet is staining from the metal brackets that hold it against the wall.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10     2017

Hawkshaw Memorial Window

It's not unusual to see memorials to long-serving vicars in churches. I've seen memorial tablets, lecterns, tablets and more. What I don't remember seeing before is a stained glass portrait window like this example (detail above) in the church of St Lawrence at Weston under Penyard, Herefordshire. It shows the Rev Edward Burdett Hawkshaw, rector of the parish from 1854 to 1912. He is dressed as St Paul, and his wife, Catherine Mary Jane, is depicted as Dorcas.The portrait likeness of the vicar is clearly based on a photograph held by the church, and I imagine his wife is also based on a contemporary image.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

View from Hull Pier

When, many years ago, I lived in the city of Hull, the pier was a busy place from where a ferry made regular journeys to and fro across the River Humber, between the waterfront and New Holland in Lincolnshire. The opening of the Humber Bridge in 1981 put an end to the ferry and made the pier more of an interesting destination for people than a vital transport location. It has remained so all these years. I have always enjoyed my photographic visits to the pier for the estuarial light, the buildings old and new, and the passing river traffic. This shot was taken on a winter afternoon when the light had begun to make silhouettes out of the wooden pier, the futuristic aquarium (The Deep) and the wind turbine components at the dock being loaded on to a vessel to take them into the North Sea.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10     2017

Flemish roundel, Llanwarne

Christ Church, Llanwarne, Herefordshire, a building of 1864, has two windows that include 27 medieval Flemish stained glass roundels. These are circles of white glass, each with a picture painted in black and yellow stain. Two tell the story of Sorghelos, a tale of carefree living. The remainder are scenes of various subjects. The photograph shows a roundel that depicts two bound men, one well-dressed, one in rags, being taken away after they have been judged. They carry crosses which suggests that they may be guilty of a religious crime. What I found particularly interesting is the figure of Justice. As usual it is shown as a blindfolded woman holding scales. However, instead of a double-edged sword that represents Reason and Justice, for or against, she wields one with two blades. I've never seen that anywhere else.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Leominster capitals

The west doorway of Leominster Priory (it is also also the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul) has capitals that are carved in the manner of the Herefordshire School of stone carving (see Eardisley font). Consequently they must have been carved c1140-1150. My photograph shows details of the south capitals that feature affronted birds, bending men in "beehive" hats cutting leaves, and serpents, as well as ropework, bead and other typical Norman decoration. The detail has lasted remarkably well considering it has been subject to nine hundred years of English weather.

The doorway itself has three orders of shafts,  a hoodmould with chevron ornament, more chevron on the second order, and remarkably, arches that are slightly pointed rather than the usual semicircles of this period.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Lockdown, photography and Big Ben

The UK has entered a period of lockdown that will severely curtail my photography by limiting how often I can be outdoors and how far I can travel. Consequently, once again, I will be dipping into my archives and resurrecting photographs that were passed over for the blog. In the main these will be shots that I think are, and were, good enough for inclusion but were taken at a time when I had a surfeit of images and so didn't make the cut.

The photograph above shows Westminster Bridge and part of the Houses of Parliament. Both are famous London landmarks. The bridge has seven ornate, cast iron, arches and dates from 1862. The clock tower of Parliament was called, very appropriately, the Clock Tower, until 2012. In that year it was renamed the Elizabeth Tower. However, it continues to be often, incorrectly, called Big Ben, a name that should apply only to the largest (16 tons) bell that chimes the hours.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10     2017

Pied and White Wagtails

Two relatively common bird species that are difficult to distinguish are the white wagtail (Motacilla alba) and the pied wagtail (Motacilla yarrelli). The former is highly migratory and widespread across continental Europe, visiting the British Isles in reasonable numbers. The latter is, for the most part, sedentary and breeds in the British Isles and adjacent continental Europe. Both species are the same size and shape and both are black, white and grey. Both have plumage that varies with the sex of the species, the season and the bird's age. Experienced birdwatchers are known to disagree about what they are seeing, especially when it is a first-winter or autumn bird. This photograph shows a bird I photographed foraging on a wood shingle roof. It is, I believe, a pied wagtail. Feel free to disagree.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

En chamade organ pipes

The organ in the Priory Church of St Mary in Usk was once the organ of Llandaff Cathedral where it was installed in 1861. When it was deemed inadequate for that building it was sold to Usk church and erected there in 1900. It was made by the firm of Gray and Davison and features some en chamade pipes i.e. pipes that face forwards rather than vertically. This development in organ design dates from the early 1700s and usually involves the pipes that sound as reeds. The horizontal mounting makes them sond louder and they are frequently chosen for fanfares, solos and trumpet-like passages. The organ appears squeezed into the church, but the tightness of fit notwithstanding, I'm told it makes a splendid sound and is much sought after by organists as an instrument to play.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Noughts and crosses

On a cold and frosty day I looked around for something to photograph in the house. This is something I've done on several occasions over the years and each time I do it there are fewer and fewer fresh subjects - because I've photographed most of them before. But then my eye fell upon a present that my young grandson had bought for me: a game of noughts and crosses comprising  ten glass beads (clear and blue in place of the noughts and crosses) and a bag with a grid on that serves as both a container and the playing surface. Here they are illuminated from behind by my transparency/negatives light box.

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