Chipping church

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PHOTO
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!

QUOTO
"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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PHOTO
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.

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

QUOTO
"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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PHOTO
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!

QUOTO
"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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PHOTO
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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PHOTO
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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photograph (c) T. Boughen

"X" and the pebbles

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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"

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Self-portrait with photographs

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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

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Five-pointed rose

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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

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photograph (c) T. Boughen