Funfair, Skegness

On the second day of the new year in 2011 we visited Skegness in Lincolnshire. Winter at a traditional (i.e. tourist/commercial) seaside has always had an appeal for me. The silent funfairs and piers, the out of place colours and the locked up amusement arcades offer off-season note of melancholy that somehow appeals. This photograph, taken with my back to the sea, benefitted enormously from the dark sky that accentuated the bright colours of the roller coaster, big wheel, lights and shelters.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Canon 5D Mk2     2011

River Avon and Pulteney Bridge, Bath

These days I'm very much an "incidental" photographer. What do I mean by that? Well, the OED defines it nicely, thus - "Occurring or liable to occur in fortuitous or subordinate conjunction with something else of which it forms no essential part; casual" In other words photography is secondary to the main purpose at the time. A visit to Bath involved us looking at some of the architecture that we last saw about forty five years ago. It also involved regular showers of rain and dark skies alongside sun, the latter being something that I particularly like in my images, and which prompted this shot of the River Avon and Pulteney Bridge.

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

Dark skies and sunlight

Even the most prosaic photographic subject can assume a certain level of grandeur when it is sunlit against a sky of dark clouds. It's one of the reasons I like to go out with my camera when the forecast is for sunshine and showers. That wasn't what the meteorologists had in mind during a recent visit to Stamford: sun all day they said. Fortunately they were wrong and I managed to grab a shot of this old street as the sun broke through the overcast sky. Here's a couple of other shots that benefit from this kind of weather and illustrate my point.

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