No new posts for a while

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I will be "otherwise engaged" for a while, so there will be no posts on PhotoQuoto for a few weeks. My last post is an image from my garden featuring flowers. In the background is sage and forget-me-nots. However, the white petalled shrub in the foreground is a species I an unable to name. If anyone can enlighten me I would be delighted!

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" Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding."
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Russian-born French painter

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Two of a kind

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A pair of venerable rowing boats on the River Nidd at Knares borough, North Yorkshire, their glowing, varnished wood starting to show the effects of use and weather.

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"A lot of people go through life like they are rowing a boat. They look at where they have been rather than where they are going."
Anonymous

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

61, 65, and more

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Green and red rowing boats lined up on the River Nidd at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, wait patiently for the first customers of the day.

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"Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat."
Jean-Paul Satre (1905-1980), French existentialist philosopher and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Cruising

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Cruising along the sun-dappled Lancaster Canal near Ellel Grange looks idyllic. But is this kind of linear boating a past-time that soon loses its charms?

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"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Kenneth Graham (1859-1932), Scottish-born writer (from "The Wind in the Willows")

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Homeward bound

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The wood-built fishing boat, "Helen Mona", constructed in Denmark in 1973, showing a Ballantrae (Scotland) identification code, but fishing out of Fleetwood, Lancashire, rides the tide up the Wyre Channel in the evening sunlight, heading for its berth, followed by some optimistic gulls.

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"In the morning be first up, and in the evening the last to go to bed, for they that sleep catch no fish."
English proverb

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

After the rain

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A holiday-maker on Blackpool's central promenade looks at the clearing sky, from beneath an ornate shelter, after the rain has passed.

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"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist (from "Venus and Adonis")

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The Wyre Channel

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The Wyre Channel snakes out to sea, marking the course of the River Wyre as it flows into Morecambe Bay. It is the deep water route taken by the ferries as they enter the port of Fleetwood, Lancashire. Here, a few holiday-makers walk along its banks, overshadowed by a dramatic sky recently cleared of rain, and the distant Cumbrian Mountains.

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"The sea washes all man's ills away."
Euripides (484?-406B.C.), Greek dramatist

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Tame calves, wild processing

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Taking photographs when the sun is at its highest isn't recommended: nor, usually, is placing your subject in the centre of the composition. And as for wild processing - well, make up your own mind!

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"The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk"
Ogden Nash (1902-1971), US poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Beach tractors

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Old tractors are used in the Ribble estuary at Lytham, Lancashire for catching shrimps and for launching small boats. I caught this vehicle and its distant companion against a threatening sky.

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"The winkle ship sank and the shrimp ship swam."
Anonymous, a Tongue Twister

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Holes

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I was in Blackpool looking at an exhibition today. The subject was worthy, but the presentation was dull. However, the pierced metal supports of the exhibition stands were very interesting!

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"Black holes are where God divided by zero"
Steven Wright (1955- ), US comedian, actor and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Big shell, little shell

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Two shells - both, I am told, varieties of the species Murex - laid on a mirror in front of a black background, with natural lighting.

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"I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world...perhaps you've seen it."
Steven Wright (1955 - ), US comedian, actor and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Beached hulks

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I don't know how many years these wrecks have been stranded on the banks of the Wyre estuary at Fleetwood, Lancashire. But time and tide are certainly taking their toll.

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"A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy."
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Scottish novelist and poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

I DO photograph birds!

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But only herons! It seems that herons are like buses - you wait for ages for one to come along, and then a few turn up all together! This one was stalking in the estuary at Arnside, Cumbria.

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"The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it."
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), English novelist

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

I don't photograph birds

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I don't photograph birds. I haven't got the lenses or the inclination. But when I come across one that is big, and lets you get quite close without flying off, like this grey heron by the Lancaster Canal, I sometimes point and shoot.

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"Craiget heron near the hill
Plenty water for the mill;
Craiget heron to the sea,
Fine weather it will be."
from "Spectator" (1st June 1895), herons as weather forecasters

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Constable's clouds

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As I walked along this country lane near Churchtown, Lancashire, cow parsley and may blossom lining my way, I looked up at the clouds and understood why the English painter, John Constable, spent much of his life trying to capture their transient beauty.

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"Spring goeth all in white,
Crowned with milk-white may:
In fleecy flocks of light
O'er heaven the white clouds stray."
Robert Seymour Bridges (1844-1930), English poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Alarming?

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If you own a lovely five-bay, three-storey house of 1720, that has an elegant doorway with a segmental pediment, fluted Ionic columns, a step that shows the wear of the passing feet of almost three centuries, and whose street-front is enlivened by a contemporary and delightful chequerboard of pebbles: a building that mercifully hasn't been scraped clean, but wears a patina of age, and is a pleasure for everyone who walks up the hill and passes it by, why do you stick a bright red alarm box on the front of it?

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"When we build, let us think that we build forever"
John Ruskin (1819-1900), English art and social critic

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Cafe chairs

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The ubiquitous, gleaming, metal cafe chair now comes in many incarnations - with metal slats, metal mesh, real wicker, plastic wicker, wood, etc. But all stack, and so all offer that indispensable photographic quality - repetition.

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"You should not paint the chair, but only what someone has felt about it."
Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Norwegian painter and engraver

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

You can't fence clouds

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Walking on the beach at Sunderland Point, Lancashire, I looked up and saw this cloud, apparently lower than its companions, drifting over the barbed wire fence that marked the edge of the cultivated land. It made me reflect that, just as you can't hold back the sea, you can't fence in the clouds!

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"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
John Lubbock (1834-1913), English banker, politician, scientist and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Long Row

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Long Row is the befitting name of this stretch of cottages in the rural industrial hamlet of Calder Vale, Lancashire. This housing was erected for the workers of the cotton mill that was built here in 1835. The mill is still working today, though powered by electricity rather than the river and mill pond of this deep little valley.

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"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,
Chapels had been churches,
And poor men's cottages princes' palaces"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist, (from "The Merchant of Venice")

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Dandelion field

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This field by the sea at Sunderland Point, Lancashire, seems to be growing dandelions as well as grass.

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" What would the world be,
Once bereft of wet and wildness?
Let them be left,
Oh let them be left, wildness and wet,
Long live the weeds and the wildness yet!"
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), English priest and poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

In the gallery

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The solar cell array set into the glass roof of this alternative technology centre in Blackpool made some interesting "Tron"-like patterns on the visitors to its gallery.

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"I use the gallery as if it were a doctor. I come for ideas and help - to look at situations within painting, rather than paintings."
Lucien Freud (1922- ), German-born British painter

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Sails on the sea

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At sunset a ferry sailing out of the port of Heysham, Lancashire, passes the Cirrus Array wind farm on the Shell Flat, 4.25 miles (7 km) off the Fylde coast.

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"To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Rusted heart

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This rusty heart, with its surround of spikes is a detail of a sculpture on Blackpool's south promenade. It is by Chris Knight, and is called "Desire".

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"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish dramatist

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The heart of the flower

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It seemed like I was looking at the heart of the flower when I focussed my macro lens on the centre of this tulip.

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"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears".
William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The Casino

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The most noticeable building in Blackpool is the 519 feet (158m) Tower. However, the best building, in my opinion, is the gleaming white Casino with its curved facades, built in 1939 by the architect Joseph Emberton.

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"The world is a gambling table so arranged that all who enter the casino must play and all must lose, more or less heavily in the long run, though they win occasionally by the way."
Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English novelist and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The Globe Theatre

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The Globe Theatre at Blackpool has a fascinating facade of curved metal, tinted various colours, that reflects the surrounding fun fair, casino, promenade and sky.

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"Theatre is, of course, a reflection of life. Maybe we have to improve life before we can hope to improve theatre."
William Ralph Inge (1850-1954), English author, churchman and professor

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

St Bees Lighthouse

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St Bees Lighthouse looks seaward from the high, red sandstone cliffs of St Bees Head on the westernmost tip of the Cumbrian coast.

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"When the tower is finished we do not stop,
But to each outhouse lamely hop,
And brush and brush till we're fit to drop,
With whitewash."
Harry A. Gray (written 1935), US plumber and lighthouse enthusiast

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Curves

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This curving metal "whale tail", on Blackpool's South Promenade, is a 26 feet high wind vane that rotates a bench so that the occupants are always sheltered from the sea breeze. The wind is no problem for the passing gull!

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"The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators"
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), English historian

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The Lighthouse

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A repeat of a shot I took a year ago that I felt I should have done better! It shows the Lower Lighthouse (built by the architect Decimus Burton in 1840) at Fleetwood, Lancashire, as the focal point in four patches of colour.

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"Anythin' for a quiet life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse."
Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist (from "The Pickwick Papers")

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The cafe window

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The design of this cafe on the promenade at St Anne's, Lancashire, has a nautical flavour, including porthole-style windows.

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"I went to a cafe that advertised breakfast anytime, so I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance."
Steven Wright (1955- ), US comedian, actor and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Bicker church

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This church has nestled in the Lincolnshire village of Bicker since the early 1100s. Additions down the ages, and successive restorations, have made it the miniature masterpiece we see today.

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"... to the nation as a whole each parish church is a record of the country's past ..."
Hugh Braun, English architect and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Summer colours in spring

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The sea, the sky and the light on the shelter at Cleveleys, Lancashire, all say summer. However, the passing cyclist's yellow fleece jacket tells the truth: it's the end of April, and not as warm as it looks!

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"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race."
H. G. Wells (1866-1946), English novelist and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Through the yellow

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I read recently that the acreage of oil-seed rape grown in the UK, which has been increasing year on year, rose by 17% in 2007. A recent walk near Folkingham in Lincolnshire left clothes spotted with yellow pollen and provoked more than a few sneezes!

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"There is no blue without yellow and without orange."
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch painter

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Chipping church

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The medieval church of St Bartholomew, Chipping, has an old and engaging roof feature that is not too common, and which puzzles many. The south-facing "dormer" window was added to throw light on to the rood screen, and subsequently (following the screen's removal) illuminated the pulpit, making reading easier, and the vicar more visible!

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"No churchyard is so handsome that a man would desire straight away to be buried there"
Old English proverb

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Self-portrait in cafetiere

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About eighteen months ago I started a self-portrait project. I decided, every now and then, to photograph myself reflected in the top of my favourite (actually only!) coffee pot. Here's the third image.

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"I paint self-portraits because I am the person I know best."
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Mexican painter

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Rust never sleeps

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Once the galvanized surface has broken down, and the rust has taken hold, corrugated steel becomes visually much more interesting.

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"It's better to burn out,
'cause rust never sleeps"
Neil Young (1945- ), Canadian rock musician and singer-songwriter

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The Tarn

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On top of the Bowland hill with the charming name of Nicky Nook, is a tarn that is unimaginatively called The Tarn! I photographed it in eerie early morning light, just as the low clouds began to lift.

QUOTO
"By the grey woods, by the swamp,
Where the toad and newt encamp,
By the dismal tarns and pools,
Where dwell the Gouls.
By each spot the most unholy,
By each nook most melancholy,
There the traveller meets, aghast,
Sheeted memories of the Past.
Shrouded forms that start and sigh,
As they pass the wanderer by.
White-robed forms of friends long given;
In agony, to the Earth - and Heaven."
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), US writer and poet, (from "Dreamland")

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Wolfhole Crag

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PHOTO
The last wild wolf in the British Isles was reputedly killed in Scotland in 1753. So Wolfhole Crag, one of the summits of shattered millstone grit in the Forest of Bowland, is likely to have carried that name for several hundred years.

QUOTO
“We have doomed the Wolf not for what it is, but for what we have deliberately and mistakenly perceived it to be... the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer... which is, in reality no more than a reflexed image of ourself."
Farley Mowat (1921- ), Canadian conservationist and author

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

On the moors

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PHOTO
The Forest of Bowland, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is a "forest" in the old sense of the word i.e. a "waste" that is good for hunting, but is no good for agriculture. It is mainly moorland with hill farms in the valleys and on the lower slopes. However, there are a few trees!

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"I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea,
Yet know I how the heath looks,
And what a wave must be."
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), US poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Newly-opened leaves

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On a misty, and overcast day in the Forest of Bowland willow and larch were showing their spring green. And so too was this recently opened cluster of sycamore leaves on a branch above my head.

QUOTO
"When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripples of rain."
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), English poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Beach huts

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PHOTO
Small beach huts, for daily or weekly hire, like these at Fleetwood, Lancashire, are a feature of many UK seaside resorts. Their bright colours and promenade location make them popular with families.

QUOTO
"Colour seems to radiate happiness and the spirit of modern life..."
Clarice Cliff (1899-1972), English ceramic artist

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Morning by the creek

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At low tide, in the early morning at Skippool Creek, Lancashire, the curlews and redshanks are the yachts' companions .

QUOTO
"Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing the golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy." (Sonnet 33)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist and poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Soft shell

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PHOTO
I don't know whether this shell - a gift from a child - originated in the sea or on land. But, I decided to photograph it in soft lighting and keep the contrast low - contrary to my natural inclinations!

QUOTO
" I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English scientist

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Focal Length: 70mm macro (35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Cross-bracing

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PHOTO
The damp, dark, dripping forest of iron legs and braces that is the underside of a Victorian pier such as Central Pier, Blackpool, has its attractions. Bold shapes, silhouettes, reflections and interesting light offer photographic opportunities of the minimalist kind.

QUOTO
"The more exponential the marketing of images is growing, the more fantastically grows the indifference towards the real world. Finally, the real world becomes a useless function, a collection of phantom shapes and ghost events. We are not far from the silhouettes on the walls of the cave of Plato."
Jean Baudrillard (1929-2006), French cultural theorist and philosopher

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 90mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Neon bar

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PHOTO
On a pier at Blackpool, Lancashire, not a pub but a bar. So, no hand-painted sign illustrating the name of the establishment, UK-style, but a glowing neon tube, US-style.

QUOTO
"A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, "A beer please, and one for the road."
Anonymous

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 124mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f9
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Sea-side seating

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PHOTO
This ornate cast-iron seating - all scrolls and dolphins - follows most of the perimeter of Blackpool's 1,118 feet (339m) Central Pier, and doubles as railings. It dates from the pier's opening in 1868.

QUOTO
"Ornament and structure were integral; their subtle rhythm sustained a high emotional tension, yet produced a sense of serenity."
Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), US architect

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 162mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f9
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Simon

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PHOTO
I met Simon as I walked on a public footpath through a farmyard on the Bowland Fells. The sound as I opened a gate to walk up the hillside brought him to his stable door. How do I know his name? It's engraved on a metal sign above his head!

QUOTO
"You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead!"
Anonymous

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 80mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.3EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Ward's End

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PHOTO
I don't know if there was a Ward who built this farmstead at the end of the cultivated land, on the edge of the moor of the Bowland Fells. However, looking at the ruin today, I can't help but feel that it was well-named!

QUOTO
"All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die."
William Johnson Cory (1823-1892), English poet

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 24mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

The village church

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PHOTO
A view of the village of Chipping, Lancashire, nestling at the foot of the Bowland fells, its ancient church standing tall through the haze of an unseasonally warm March afternoon.

QUOTO
"The parish churches of England are even more varied than the landscape"
John Betjeman (1906-1984), English poet, writer and broadcaster

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 300mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Back to the future

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PHOTO
The new promenade at Cleveleys, Lancashire, manages to be both futuristic and retro (1930s-ish). Consequently, I thought this split-toning (sepia/blue) effect applied to a black and white conversion would be a suitable finish, suggesting the posters of the past and the brave new world to come.

QUOTO
"You can never plan the future by the past"
Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Irish politician, philosopher and statesman

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Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 40mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen