Robin red breast

click photo to enlarge
When I was young the robin (Erithacus rubecula) was often referred to as the "robin red breast". When I first heard this it struck me as odd because the robin's breast is clearly orange. I supposed that alliterative charm appealed more than colour accuracy. More importantly, however, is the fact that "orange" as a colour name didn't come into usage in Britain until the sixteenth century and prior to that date red was the nearest colour to orange. Interestingly one of the old names for the robin was the "ruddock", a word that also means red. This robin allowed a close approach, standing on the railings, probably hoping for some food from us.

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

Primulas and colours

There are many colours that take their name from flowers, and those flowers are the reference point for the particular tint of that colour. Violet, lilac, mustard and saffron spring to mind. So too does primrose, the wild example being Primula vulgaris, a pale yellow flower that appears in the spring. Plant breeders have bred from the wild primrose to produce primulas of a vast range of colours. We were in a garden centre recently and I photographed theses examples on sale. As I took in the range of colours I noticed there was none exhibiting the colour of the wild variety and I reflected that, to my mind, its subtle yellow outshines all its derivatives.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Old rendered wall

Sometimes it's difficult to articulate why you take a photograph. This shot of layers of old render with moss or lichen on the side of a house in Ross on Wye is a case in point. If pushed I'd say the appeal was in the combination of colours and the textures. Such images sometimes have a face or or some other vaguely figurative element. That isn't the case here.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Orange bricks, blue sky

The colours in the title of this post are seen reflected in the ice that is the subject of this photograph. I've always been fascinated by the formations that can arise when water freezes. Someone, somewhere, will be able to describe how these formations can range from soft curves to sharp spikes. But that person isn't me: I simply enjoy them.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Pennants, pennons and bunting...

 

...are often the same thing. However, I was always taught (or perhaps discovered) that "pennon" is the correct name for a triangular flag and "pennant" is an alternative and more widely used spelling. "Bunting" is any kind of hanging, stretched or suspended decoration on a string or cable and may include pennants. Pennants can be divided into a) the common triangular form b) tapering pennants where the pointed tip has been cut off, and c) swallow-tail pennants where the point is cut off leaving a double tip like the bird's forked tail. As we sat outside a coffee shop in Ledbury I pondered the triangular pennants above our heads, reflecting that they were definitely bunting, and that the deep blue sky really stole the impact of the blue triangles.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Colourful quayside houses, Weymouth

This terrace of houses on the quayside of Weymouth harbour shone in the light of the summer evening, and revealed details that suggest they date from the early nineteenth century. The bowed oriel windows, the fanlights and open-book keystones, the parapet hiding the low-pitched roofs all say early 1800s. The colour wash does too, though not the royal blue and turquoise - they are painted after the fancy of someone nearer in time to us.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Shoes

It occurred to me many years ago that if I look twice at something there may be a photograph in what I've seen. So it was with today's image. We were sitting on  a bench by a small lake, one where in the past I've found quite a few photographs. However, it wasn't the sparkling water, leafy trees or ducks and their young that attracted my second glance, it was the colours, textures and shadows of our legs and footwear against the dry, dusty ground.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: iPhone

Rainbow houses, Gloucester

"Rainbow houses" was the way the local paper in 2020 described the transformation of some aged Gloucester houses by brightly coloured paint. It's not unusual to see terraces where each house is painted a different colour but usually those colours are taken from the tasteful and traditional selection that established paint manufacturers offer. I'm not aware that the screaming colours of these houses are widely sold: they must have been specially mixed.

I quite like what has been done here in small doses in a few locations. But if it were to be more widespread I'm sure it would soon lose its charm.

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

Yachts on Weymouth Bay

The shot above was taken with the camera's lens at its maximum magnification. I took it because I spotted the solitary yacht with the pink/purple sails among two classes of smaller yachts that seemed to be sailing in groups or engaged in some kind of competition. The dash of colour was essential for what would otherwise have been a quite boring composition. Shooting into the sun gave the sea a very monochrome look which accentuated the overall lack of colour and made the coloured sails more prominent.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Snowstar, Ramsgate harbour

Most of the boats in the harbour at Ramsgate, Kent are white. On the day of our visit there were several grey, Royal Navy  boats, a bright orange pilot boat, and few others sporting bright colours. But, the predominant colour was white indicating to me that they were mainly private yachts and launches. The Snowstar stood out with its blue, yellow and orange and it suggested to me that it would make a good foreground subject against the boring white boats. I looked at the boat to see if I could deduce its purpose but nothing told of what it did when it set sail. However, a quick trawl of the internet indicates that it has been, and may still be, a boat that takes anglers out into the English Channel for a day's fishing.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Burgundy gloves

I regularly take photographs where a person or people are the main subject. However, most of those are family shots, hardly any of which feature on this blog. Consequently I have few photographs featuring masked people, a prominent marker of photographs taken in the Covid years of 2020, 2021 and 2022. Recently we were in a coffee shop and, as my wife was geeting the drinks, I noticed the low sun was producing brightly lit areas and deep shadows, as well as recording the masked and unmasked customers. So, I took this photograph making my wife's burgundy leather gloves the nearground subject.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Mandarin drakes under the branches

The mandarin duck is a perching duck, closely related to the wood duck or Carolina duck. It is an introduced bird in Britain but one that has become an established breeding species to the extent that there are as many or more than in most of the eastern asiatic countries in which it is indigenous. In the Forest of Dean they are common, particularly at Cannop Ponds where the tree-surrounded pools offer an ideal habitat. These birds were enjoying the shelter of the bankside trees. Through the viewfinder the muted colours of the water and branches next to the strong colours of the drakes reminded me of the  compositions of some Japanese art.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Lavender and lilac are colours

Earlier this year, when the lilac was in blossom, I railed against the white and the dark purple versions that can be seen in some gardens. It seems riduculous that a beautiful plant, that is the source of a particular colour name, should be made to be anything other than that colour. But people are like that - different, they think, is better. My hackles rose again the other day when I came across a cultivar of lavender that is white. It seems to me that every white lavender is a missed opportunity to enjoy the original and best lavender-coloured lavender, like this example in our garden.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Unexpected colours

Generally the colour of water relates to what lies beneath or to its surroundings - the colour of the sky or overhanging trees, for example. However, sometimes it is an unexpected tint. In the photograph above the green doesn't seem to correspond to any reflected objects but does sit nicely as a complement to the buff of the reeds and the blue of the cloudless sky. In fact had the green not been there I probably wouldn't have taken the shot.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Cyclamen flowers

Over the winter months a few pots of cyclamens have brightened our conservatory. Though they look like delicate plants they actually thrive in lower temperatures. Now, with the days lengthening, the sun higher in the sky, and other colours coming into view in the garden, I set out to photograph the pink flowers against their multicoloured backdrop. A macro lens with a shallow depth of field achieved the somewhat "dreamy" image that I sought.

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

Sallow Vallets Inclosure, Forest of Dean

The small plantation of conifers in this photograph form part of an area of the Forest of Dean known as Sallow Vallets Inclosure. I caught them at a point in the afternoon where the low sun was illuminating only favoured areas of the undulating ground, the cold shade of the tree trunks contrasting with the strong sunlit colour beyond. This oddly named location is today largely given over to challenging cycle tracks. Sallow Vallets refers to its original appearance as an area of small valleys (vallets) where sallow (a low, bushy form of willow) grew. Inclosure is an old form of the word "enclosure" describing a piece of "waste" land taken into cultivation.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Autumn afternoon light

Some of the best light for capturing the colours of autumn can be found in the afternoon. Find the right angle to the sun and you can engineer greater colour saturation and stronger contrast in photographs. In this part of the Forest of Dean the trees, mainly beeches, were showing to great effect as we walked among them.

photos © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Early autumn bracken

I've always known bracken. As a child it was common on the hills on which I played. As an adult I have enjoyed watching the plant's life cycle - its slow uncoiling from the ground, through its expansive, arching greenness, to a slow subsidence through a palette of orange, gold, brown and black. One of the houses where we lived had bracken in the garden, under a willow by a stream. There are those who see bracken as an invasive pest that forces out more interesting plants. I can forgive its trespasses because of the year-round beauty it offers to the sharp-eyed observer. The plant above was growing under oaks in the Forest of Dean, the onset of autumn driving the green from its fronds and replacing them with brown.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Lumix FZ1000 2

Catalogue index pages

Thumbing through a DIY store's paper catalogue I was struck by the way the coloured edges of the index system produced a pattern when I bent them. So, thinking that a close up would not be without visual interest I mounted my macro lens on the camera and took several shots. This is the best of the bunch but I think there's a still better shot to be had if I can find it.

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

Field maple leaf

It's a little early for deciduous trees to be losing their leaves but a field maple I know has begun to do so. I suspect that it is suffering distress because not on all the branches have the leaves taken on a yellow tinge rather than the usual deep green of summer. Field maples are popular hedging plants in some parts of Britain. Elsewhere thay are usually single, taller trees. In autumn they naturally turn a fine, golden yellow, matched only by the lime tree. This leaf had caught itself on the arris rail of a fence and, havng no camera to hand, I snapped it with my phone.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Phone