A unique look

October 29, 2026

If you’ve been following my photography for a while now you’ll know about my interest in pinhole photography - perhaps the oldest and simplest form of the genre. From time to time I dabble in another lo-fi form of photography too, using a plastic Holga camera. This simple machine has a plastic lens and a single shutter speed (around 1/100 of a second) but somehow the lack of bells and whistles means you have to work harder to find images.

Back in February I had a work trip to Somerset and decided to go old school with my camera equipment, taking just a Holga and a pinhole camera with me. One morning I stopped off at St Andrew’s Church in the village of Old Cleeve and decided to use the Holga to capture a collection of images here.

The Holga has an interesting look. The centre of the lens is surprisingly crisp, but the sharpness towards edges of each frame falls off quite quickly, creating a beautiful, dreamy effect. I’ve never used the camera in a church setting before (at least not indoors), so I wasn’t sure quite how well it would work. I mounted the Holga on my tripod but then realised I’d forgotten to bring my shutter release cable. Ah well, so be it - I just needed to do it the old fashioned way, using my finger on the shutter button, but taking care to keep really still and not jog the camera mid-exposure!

A selection of smaller vignettes from around the church - click on the images to see them enlarged.

I love the soft light inside an old church like St Andrew’s - so atmospheric. Towards the end of my visit the sun finally came out and illuminated the end of the choir stalls.

Close focussing isn’t a particular strength of the Holga, but I was lucky enough to judge my distance just right for these ornately carved characters on the ends of the pews.

Overall, I was delighted with the results from my lo-fi photoshoot at St Andrew’s - definitely a worthwhile experiment and one I’ll try again sometime. I guess it just goes to show that expensive gear isn’t always necessary - a £21 eBay bargain can sometimes do the job just as well!

Photos taken February 2026

Glastonbury Abbey

June 8, 2026

A visit to Glastonbury is always memorable, whether that’s because of the historic buildings or the interesting characters you tend to see around the town. When we visited last November the weather didn’t really play ball, with grey skies and no interesting light, but the autumnal leaves on the trees did a grand job of bringing some vivid colour to the ruins of the medieval Abbey.

Photos taken 5 November 2025

City of London Churches: St Andrew, Holborn

June 7, 2026

Progress on my City of London Churches project may have stalled since Covid struck, but from time to time I get back into the City to fill in some of the gaps. Last October that took me on a visit to St Andrew’s Holborn, a church I last visited fleetingly many years ago.

After being destroyed during the Great Fire of London St Andrew’s was rebuilt, like so many churches in the City, by Sir Christopher Wren. Sadly it was bonded during the Blitz in May 1941, leaving only the walls and tower standing. The decision was taken to restore it precisely to Wren’s design, so today the building has a very crisp feel of newness, while sporting a 17th century design.

My visit this time was a very quiet one and I largely had the church to myself. Although the architecture is beautiful it feels a little too perfect to me - for some reason the churches which have had longer to age and acquire some imperfections seem to call to me more, photographically speaking.

Photos taken 29 October 2025

Angels everywhere

March 16, 2026

When a friend told me about a church in the Cambridgeshire town of March with a hammerbeam roof covered in angels it immediately went on my ‘must visit’ list. It’s taken a few years for that to happen, but with an unexpected Saturday off in January I knew I’d be heading for St. Wendreda’s Church.

The moment I walked in and looked up, I wasn’t disappointed - what an astonishing roof! There were literally angels everywhere, all of them lovingly carved over 500 years ago. Between each of the side windows I found an angel holding a musical instrument - a detail I simply couldn’t ignore as a musician myself. You can click on any of the images to see them in greater detail.

Of course, many churches like this were plundered and destroyed during the Reformation, but fortuitously St Wendreda’s survived. It’s believed the town’s guildsmen entertained King Henry VIII’s men in a nearby hostelry, plying them with copious amounts of food and alcohol. At the end of the night they made off with the church silverware, but neglected to set fire to the roof, so the angels survived to smile down at congregations for another five centuries!

A modern detail among the ancient elements of the building…

When I arrived it was fairly overcast, but as the morning wore on the sun came out and I became mildly obsessed with the way the pews were being illuminated by pools of sunlight.

The stonework and stained glass caught the sun too…

I’m always on the lookout for smaller details - in this case some of the beautifully carved characters around the pulpit.

…and other details around the church - decoration on the choir stalls, old certificates, brass plaques and stained glass in memory of people long gone. Click on the images to see them enlarged.

In a church where the roof is the star of the show, it’s easy to overlook a straight image of the nave, but that shaft of sunlight makes it special.

Naturally I found a moment to lie on the floor and really enjoy the hammerbeam roof and those angels, even if the other visitors did think I was a little strange!

By the time I emerged the clouds were long gone, replaced by azure skies and golden sunshine.

Long shadows in the north porch.

Photos taken 17 January 2026

Work in progress

March 11, 2026

St Denis East Hatley

I support a couple of charities who look after redundant churches - after all I spend a lot of time in the buildings they care for taking photographs. One of these is the Friends of Friendless Churches, who do wonderful work rescuing and restoring buildings which might otherwise crumble into the ground. One such church is St Denis’ at East Hatley in Cambridgeshire. It was abandoned in 1961, left to decay for over 40 years, and it wasn’t until 2005 that the first restoration work to save the building was carried out. Over the last decade the Friends of Friendless Churches have taken ownership, building on this initial work and returning St Denis’ to a state where it could be opened to visitors once more.

I visited on a gloriously sunny summer’s day and had the place to myself, aside from the cave spiders which live beneath the floorboards and no doubt a few bats roosting in the rafters. The interior now looks wonderful, but it’s still awaiting the addition of one more item - a new stained glass window at the eastern end of the church. Hopefully this new window, designed by Aidan McRae Thomson, will be made and installed over the next couple of years, which will give me an excellent excuse to make a return visit.

Photos taken 31 August 2025

The church above the lake

November 14, 2025

Just a few miles from the church of St Peulan stands St Mary’s, Tal-y-Llyn. This time I was able to park right outside this incredibly remote church and was rather surprised to be greeted by what sounded like a swarm of giant bees. In fact there were no insects, but the sound I was hearing was the whine of motorbikes racing around Anglesey’s motor racing circuit four miles away. Evidently the wind was blowing in my direction to carry their sound!

St Mary’s is all that remains of an Anglesey town that was wiped out by the plague, sitting on a raised mound overlooking Llyn Padrig. Despite its isolation, it was originally built as a chapel of east to Llanbeulan, the place I’d just come from.

Opening the simple oak door I found a simple space with a huge contrast gloom at one end and the clear leaded windows at the other. It took my eyes a minute or two to adjust, but fortunately my camera was able to cope with the relative darkness.

Once again I found some delightful small scenes to photograph, many of them bathed in golden sunlight.

This accident building is simply built, but built to last with immensely thick walls, as you can see from this small window. Just to emphasise its rural location, there were cows right outside the window!

More little details, and a lone butterfly…

As I went to leave I couldn’t resist one last photograph, capturing the soft light cast through the archway onto the weathered west door.

Photos taken 18 July 2025

A day of two churches

November 13, 2025

While I was staying in north Wales in July I built in some free time for photography and knew ahead of my trip that it would probably include some churches. The Friends of Friendless Churches look after a number of redundant churches in Wales, so I head to their website in search of places to visit. I found three churches, all within a few miles of each other on Anglesey so that was where I headed, feeling uncertain whether I’d manage to visit all of them in a day.

My first church of the day was St Peulan’s, which stands beside a narrow country road in Llanbeulan. It soon became clear there was nowhere to park by the church, so I found a safe spot half a mile down the road, donned my walking boots, and walked back. The first view of the church comes across the hedgerows and fields - a small island in a sea of green. The path down to St Peulan’s is a a narrow track, deeply rutted from farm machinery, so I was glad of some sturdy footwear.

Stepping inside the church I was immediately struck by the beautiful soft light, despite the harsh July sunshine outside. The scene below immediately captured my imagination, with its simple pews and the thoughtful flowers and framed photograph on the windowsill.

Looking around the church I found some beautiful small scenes to photograph, illuminated by the sunlight, including a stone font, which may have originally been -art of an ancient altar.

I was inevitably drawn to the small harmonium organ, but sadly it didn’t look like it was in a fit state to be played - something I’ve done in other churches. I sneaked up into the pulpit whose slightly raised view gave me a different view of the church, with a hymn book in the foreground.

I always find the small details of churches, particularly fascinating, and at St Peulan’s this includes a sneaky autograph left behind a Victorian glazier, scratched into one of the leaded light windows in the 19th century.

After an hour or so I’d had my fill of this small but perfectly formed church and headed on towards my second destination for the day, the photos from which I’ll share in a separate post.

Photos taken 18 July 2025

Verdi with a twist

October 13, 2025

I often take photos of musicians at work, but one day back in late June a rather different opportunity came my way. For many years now the Summer Music in City Churches festival have used my photos from the City of London churches in their publicity material, website and concert programmes. Sadly I’ve rarely been able to hear any of the concerts though as the festival always tends to take place when I’m away in Wales, teaching on a course. This year I found myself in London on the day of their big choral concert at St Giles Cripplegate, so I popped in during the afternoon rehearsal to take a look.

I knew their concert featured the Verdi Requiem, a piece I’ve loved for a long while. However, I hadn’t realised that their performance had something of a twist to it. Instead of a full symphony orchestra to accompany the choir, this role was to be covered by a rather unorthodox combination of two pianos, organ and percussion!

Initially I was rather sceptical as to how this cut down combination of instruments could possibly work, but as the afternoon wore on I realised that in fact it was a work of genius! Arguably, a symphony orchestra could provide a a much larger sound where it was needed, but this curious ensemble worked far better than I expected, providing a fascinating combination of timbres.

As everyone was setting up I had a brief conversation with the percussionist, Tristan Fry. It was only later that I learned this unassuming chap has had a very long and illustrious career, performing with symphony orchestras, rock bands and much more. The fact that he was the timpanist on one of my all time favourite Beatles songs, A Day in the Life, was just the icing on the cake!

One of my favourite photos from the afternoon was of the organist, taken while he was playing. I realised I could include both him and his reflection (the mirror allows him a direct line of sight to the conductor who was standing many feet away, behind him) in the image. But I had to take this quickly as all the time I was standing in the right spot to catch the photo, I was entirely blocking his view of the conductor!

Photos taken 28 June 2025

Sunkissed pews

July 13, 2025

During our holiday in Yorkshire, back in April, we visited the town of Pickering and took a look in the Church of St Peter and St Paul while we were there. I didn’t take many photos but the light was glorious and I couldn’t help but marvel at the wonderful wall paintings.

It was difficult to decide which parts of the wall paintings to photograph but I went for this section, featuring St George slaying the dragon.

A pool of light on the terracotta floor tiles.

Beautiful light in the south aisle.

Photos taken 22 April 2025

A project rebooted

July 7, 2025

Over a decade ago I started a project to photograph all the churches within the Square Mile of the City of London. Once upon a time there were over 100, but the Great Fire, a dwindling resident population, historical town planning and the Blitz have gradually whittled this number down. Yet even today over fifty remain and before Covid struck I’d visited about four fifths of these with my camera. After the pandemic many of the churches were slow to reopen so I’ve focused my photographic interests in other areas for the last five years.

Last week I decided the time had come to reboot my dormant project and I began with a revisit to St Dunstan in the West, in Fleet Street. Over the intervening years my skills and style have evolved so I fear this could become the photographic equivalent of painting the Forth Bridge, but I’m looking forward to improving upon some of my earlier efforts.

St Dunstan in the West is one of two churches with the same name, but St Dunstan in the East, near the Tower of London, remained an empty shell after being bombed during the Blitz and is now a beautiful garden space. Its western cousin is an unusual building. From Fleet Street it looks like a typical, rectangular City church, but when you head inside you find an octagon nave! Although an Anglican church, it shares its space with the Romanian Orthodox Church and London’s Romanian community. This is evident on one of the eight sides, which has an ornately carved wall, creating a private chapel, as you can see above. The three photos below show more details from this corner of the church.