Yachts blue and white

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Over the years I've photographed quite a few harbours with their working and pleasure boats, and wherever I've been - certainly in the UK and probably elsewhere - the dominant colours of the vessels has been white and blue. So it is in these photographs of Weymouth and Lyme Regis. It can't always have been so: the natural colours of wood must have prevailed at one time. So why and when did white and blue come to dominate?

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photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Minehead harbour and pier

Today's photograph is a view of Minehead harbour from the pier. It shows its location below a wooded hill with the oldest houses squeezed into a strip below the trees and more recent Victorian and later buildings at the head of the pier. Among the latter is the lifeboat station of 1901 which is still in use, housing two inshore rescue craft.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Minehead harbour

The first pier at Minehead in Somerset was built in 1610 when the harbour became an important export and import location. Today the the harbour is still in use but commercial traffic has gone to bigger ports elsewhere and pleasure craft far outnumber the few engaged in fishing. Unusually, this harbour is, and always was, at the edge of the built up area of the coast, and today it is a popular destination for a walk from the centre of the town.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Low water and high water, Tenby

For twenty years of my life I lived within two miles of the sea - close enough for our windows to have salt deposited on them in windy weather. One of the lessons I learned during this time was the sheer variety of photographs that were possible during the different stages of the tides. I was reminded of this during our recent visits to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, south Wales. The shot above, taken from a slipway at high water was one of many that I took where the foregound object differed - in this case I chose a rowing boat and fishing gear.

The second shot, taken at low water, shows the interesting variety of small boats and the colourful buildings above the harbour.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

View from Tenby Harbour

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This view from Tenby harbour looks north from near the slipway and the yacht club. At high tide the small pleasure craft, yachts and inshore fishing boats were all afloat or at sea. The sunny day and clear light made the most of the colours near and far, including the brightly painted hotels and apartments overlooking the sea on the High Street and the road known as The Norton.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Rowing boats, Sidmouth, Devon

The answer to the question, "what is the difference between a boat and a ship", is much less clear cut than nautical folks would have us believe. For some (including me) it is all to do with size. I've seen 150 gross tons being quoted as the cut off point. I've also heard that you can put a boat on a ship but you can't put a ship on a boat, and that you can row a boat but you can't row a ship. Then there are those who see the distinction in the deck i.e. you work on the deck of a boat but below the deck of a ship. A technical distinction quoted by some is that a boat leans into a turn but a ship leans out. My conclusion is that the difference cannot be described without exceptions being found. All that being said, the pair above are boats!

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

16:9 aspect ratio

During my first decades of photography I invariably found myself working with 135mm film i.e. film negatives or transparencies measuring 36mm x 24mm, with an aspect ratio of 3:2 and now badly named "full frame". When digital came along, after using a few cameras with small 3:2 sensors, I adopted the Four Thirds system with the sensor aspect ratio of 4:3. I was never entirely comfortable with 3:2, particularly in portrait format, and found 4:3 smuch better in this respect. But, over the years I've used cameras that offer both 3:2 and 4:3. In more recent times, following the widespread adoption of High Definition screens on TVs and monitors, and the fact that many images are now viewed only on such screens, I've become comfortable with the 16:9 aspect ratio. These three ratios (with an occasional 1:1) meet all my needs.

Compositions where the interest is concentrated in a wide, narrow area (such as horizons, streets etc) are particularly suited to 16:9, as are these shots of a canal basin in Worcester.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

River Thames at Abingdon, Oxfordshire

The River Thames is navigable for 191 of its 215 miles that stretch from its source to the sea i.e. from Lechlade in Gloucestershire to the Thames Estuary, though small boats can venture, with care, a further 11 miles upstream, as far as Cricklade. A recent visit to Abingdon found the Thames (or Isis as it is sometimes known in this part of the world) busy with boats - inland waterway narrow boats as well as cruisers. I took a few photographs by the river and as I did so I reflected once more on the contribution that a church spire can make to a flat landscape: in this instance the medieval church of St Helen.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Boats, Weston-super-Mare

The Bristol Channel at Weston-super-Mare is wide enough to feel like the sea rather than an estuary. This feeling is enhanced by the presence of two islands, piers, a fine promenade and a scattering of boats. The fact that the beach is very shallow and hence the water is distant at low tide means that most boats are small and the larger vessels are presumably in nearby marinas. This colourful trio caught my eye at both low and high tide but looked better, photographically speaking, without the sea.

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

Boats by the River Wye at Chepstow

The River Wye flows into the River Severn at Chepstow. Both of these watercourses are navigable and consequently, until the advent of the railways in the nineteenth century, they carried significant river traffic. Evidence of this can still be seen in Chepstow in the form of warehouses etc. Today all the boats on the River Wye (seen above near its confluence with the Severn) are engaged in pleasure of one form or another. Shortly after taking this photograph we saw two mud-covered canoeists who had travelled down the Wye and scrambled up the tidal mud with their craft - pleasure of sorts I suppose.

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