Neon bar

click photo to enlarge

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

INFO
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

click photo to enlarge

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

INFO
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

click photo to enlarge

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

INFO
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

click photo to enlarge

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

INFO
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

click photo to enlarge

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

INFO
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

click photo to enlarge

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

INFO
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

"X" and the pebbles

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
This section of "no parking" yellow hatching on a slipway to the beach at Morecambe, Lancashire, was still littered with a few pebbles thrown up by the last storm.

QUOTO
"Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in."
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), English poet, essayist and school inspector, from "Dover Beach"

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 36mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Self-portrait with photographs

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
Not, perhaps, the most revealing of self-portraits, but sometimes the interest of this type of image lies in the clues it offers about the subject!

QUOTO
"Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden by what we see."
Renee Magritte (1898-1967), Belgian painter, commenting on his own self-portrait

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm macro (35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/20 sec
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Five-pointed rose

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
There must be millions of photographs of roses, however the opulent beauty of the flower, soft and enfolding - but with hidden barbs - makes us take more!

QUOTO
"There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted."
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French painter

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm macro (35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 1.3 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

A hill farm

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
The sunlight has pierced the clouds over this hill farm in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire, and revealed that spring arrives later on the English uplands.

QUOTO
"Yain, Tain, Eddera, Peddera, Pit, Tayter, Layter, Overa, Covera, Dix", (the old words for 1-10 that Forest of Bowland farmers used when counting sheep),
R. Waterworth

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 44mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Kirkham church

click to enlarge

PHOTO
The church of St Michael, Kirkham, Lancashire, the top of its spire scaffolded following damage caused by strong winds.

QUOTO
"An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches with spire steeples which point as with a silent finger to the sky and stars", Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 22mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Walking the dog

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
It's sometimes hard to decide who gets the most out of walking and playing - the dog or its owner. This couple, near the sand hills at Fleetwood, Lancashire, both seemed to be oblivious of the cold wind, and simply took great delight in each other's company.

QUOTO
"The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too."
Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English novelist

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 22mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

POTD
This image was Picture of the Day on 21st March 2007 on the French blog, PIXELMACNIAC.

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Chrysanthemum starburst

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
Looking like the explosion of an aerial firework, this chrysanthemum seems to have a warm heart and a cold exterior. Incidentally, today's quote reminds me of computer-generated poetry!

QUOTO
"Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy senseless merchandise."
from Humanitad by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish playwright, writer and poet

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 70mm macro (35mm equiv.)
F No: f18
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV
Flash: TTL (bounced)

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Promenade shelter

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
This new concrete promenade shelter at Cleveleys, Lancashire, has heated seating! Surely the whole point of a bracing walk along the prom is to blow away the cobwebs, exercise the body, and generate your own warmth!

QUOTO
"To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall."
T. H. Huxley (1825-1895), British biologist

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 24mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen

Working on "The Big One"

click photo to enlarge

PHOTO
Three workmen maintaining one of the lower (but still quite elevated) sections of "The Big One", the 213 feet high roller coaster at Blackpool, Lancashire.

QUOTO
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. The quotations, when engraved upon the memory, give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more."
Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister

INFO
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: Zoom @ 268mm (35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV

photograph (c) T. Boughen