If you’re looking for a particular post please use the search box below
Passing through the cloisters of Chichester Cathedral this afternoon the sun was filtering through the arches and I decided to make use of it for some contrasty monochrome photography, catching some of the visitors moving by with a slow shutter speed.
Photos taken 18 July 2024
I’ve long wanted to visit the mill at Quarry Bank in Cheshire, and in April my opportunity finally came during our holiday. I went with no preconceived ideas about what I might photograph, just following in instincts. We started off in the mill building, beginning in the administrative offices…
Click on any image to see it enlarged.
Capturing good photos of the mill machinery was tricky, but there were lots of opportunities for grimy details!
When the sun came out it created some lovely contrasts through the mill’s small windows.
Styal Village was where many of the mill workers lived and this cottage has remained unchanged since the last inhabitants moved out in the 1980s. By the state of the interior, it had very little work done before that to improve living conditions.
Over in the apprentices’ house we learnt about where the child workers at the mill lived and the conditions they endured.
Photos taken 19 April 2024
During our holiday in Derbyshire in April we ventured across into Cheshire to visit Jodrell Bank, home to the third largest steerable space telescope in the world. I’ve driven past the site before and was eager to see this astonishing piece on engineering at closer quarters.
The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell and the largest of the three telescopes on site is named in his honour. It’s so powerful that if someone were to make a mobile phone call from Mars it would be able to pick up the signal! As a result, anyone who comes on site is asked to switch off their phone (or put it in airplane mode) as the signals from it could disrupt the telescope’s sensitive work. This made for a very quiet day and it was refreshing to see people going about without their eyes glued to their phone screens!
The visitor centre on site, which has a cinema and a large space explaining the telescope’s history and the work done at Jodrell Bank was also very striking. It’s a modern, circular building and this slit in the side lines up with the sun perfectly on the longest day of the year.
I spent quite a while capturing the lines and light sculpting the interior….
Click on any image to see it enlarged.
Photos taken 21 April 2024
When I received my Ondu 6x6 Rise pinhole camera I asked if Elvis Hallilovic, the maker, might be able to include one of his 3D printed grids. This enables me to divide the film frame up into thirds, using each of the camera’s three pinholes to expose them. It took me a while to find an opportunity to use it, and even longer to finish off the roll of film, but I recently scanned my developed negatives, excited to see the results.
For some of the photos I simply opened all three pinholes at ones, creating a triptych which shows slightly different slices of the same scene, as in the photo above. For others I made three separate exposures of different but related scenes, as you can see below. Some of the slices worked better than others but I’m sure this will improve as I become more used to framing up the top and bottom pinholes.
After my visit to St Mary’s in North Stoke (above) I headed down to the beach at Climping where I created this seaside triptych.
The next photo is a slice of hotel life, taken while I was staying in Somerset in February. Again, I’ve slightly mis-framed the top slice, but I like the effect this creates.
Another themed triptych - this time different perspectives on one of the fountains at the Barbican in London.
The Barbican’s architectural lines also offered some great opportunities for the triple layered effect, including on self portrait by the stairs. All I need to do now is figure out where I might use this effect again - watch this space!
Photos taken January to June 2024
During a fleeting visit to Chichester in June I had time to return to the Cathedral, a place I used to see on a daily basis when I worked in the school here. The sun was creating some lovely effects, painting the building with pools of light - just the sort of illumination I love!
This shaft of sunlight was shortlived - after a couple of minutes the sun had moved around and it had vanished.
Photos taken 20 June 2024
With some spare time on my hands I took a short diversion on Friday to visit St Andrew’s Church in Whitestaunton, a day ahead of a concert I was due to give there. It’s a beautiful medieval building which proved to have a lovely acoustic for recorder playing, not to mention some lovely architectural details.
A little ecclesiastical comfort.
I found this regal lion carved into one of the flagstones in the side chapel.
Photos taken 24 May 2024
The striking bronze exterior of the Welsh Millennium Centre
There was a time when Cardiff Bay was the largest coal exporting docks in the world, but you’d barely know it now. Known among the locals as Tiger Bay, on account of the fierce tidal current in the nearby stretch of the River Severn, it was home to workers from more than fifty countries at its peak. As coal exports declined it fell into a state of decay and the local area lost its sense of purpose for many years. Today it’s a thriving destination for tourists, the arts and the Senedd, home of the Welsh government, so I was excited to explore the architecture with my camera.
It may have been a Saturday when we visited, but the Senedd was open for visitors and it was fascinating to compare its in-the-round central chamber with that at the Scottish Parliament Building, which we visited last spring. Looking up from the viewing gallery allows you to see the cedar lined funnel which brings light and ventilation into the debating chamber.
Back out into the public area of the building, the funnel leads into a ceiling with the most amazing, swooping lines. These lines are made from Western Red Cedar cladding, a timber chosen because it will require no treatment for a century or more.
I spent ages looking for interesting juxtapositions withing the lines and these three are my favourites. I’m sure it contains many more possibilities, given enough time and a variety of different focal length lenses!
After lunch we popped into the imposing Pierhead building, which was built as headquarters for the Bute Dock Company in 1897. It was designed by William Frame, whose mentor was William Burges, the architect of Castell Coch, which I visited last year. With its Victorian gothic brickwork and colourful ceramic tiles you can definitely see the shared architectural genetic lines between these two buildings.
Some of the ornate details to be found among the terracotta features of the Pierhead. Click on any image to see it enlarged.
The terracotta fireplace caught my eye, but I wonder how clean those colourful tiles in the hearth would have remained in the days of coal fires?!
Looking back down that imposing staircase.
Photos taken 6 April 2024
In early February I visited a muddy field in Devon in the hope of visiting a quiet redundant church. The welcome from the resident sheep was warm enough, but the door of the chapel remained steadfastly closed, despite my best efforts to persuade it open. Two months later I found myself in the area again so I decided to have another try.
I quietly let myself in through the gate and carefully picked my way across the muddy field. The sheep had gone, replaced by a solitary but equally friendly pony. I suspect visitors are infrequent, especially in the winter, so I stroked his nose to say thank you for the welcome.
My destination was Ayshford Chapel, a 15th century building built as a private chapel for the Ayshford family who lived next door at Ayshford Court, but today it’s cared for by the Friends of the Friendless Churches.
To my delight, despite this winter’s incessant rain, the door responded to my weight this time, opening to allow me a glimpse of the beautiful, salmon pink interior - a reward for my persistence. For a small chapel in such an isolated spot the depth of colour was wonderful - a lovely contrast to the greyness of the skies outside.
To my joy the sun also came out periodically, bathing parts of the chapel with a golden glow - exactly the sort of light I love seeing in churches, albeit infrequently this winter.
On the altar I found the Ayshford family bible, stored in a beautiful wooden casket. To avoid the attentions of mice and the droppings of bats it was protected with a transparent plastic box but I lifted this off for a few minutes to take my photos. before covering it up again.
Even when the sun went in the light was beautiful; the gently coloured coloured glass allowing soft pools of light to catch the simple oak pews.
A few smaller scenes from around the chapel. It was only when I checked my photos later that I realised a small snail was resting up beneath the door hinge!
Click on any of my images to see them enlarged.
The small organ was covered with a cloth, but I sneaked a look beneath. I don’t know how often it gets played but the bellows still work and I spent a few minutes pedalling away to play a little Bach.
The chapel’s one big memorial, to two members of the Ayshford family who died in the late 1680s.
Just before I departed the sun appeared again and I think these are probably my favourite photos from my morning at Ayshford Chapel. Thank goodness I gave it another try - my persistence was definitely rewarded!
Photos taken 5 April 2024
I’ve really enjoyed working on my new ‘Station ghosts’ project, but until this point most of my photos have been taken while I’ve been travelling, as I wait for trains to arrive. Last week I took a more deliberate approach and headed into London with the express intention of using some of the underground stations as backdrops for my ghosts.
The day before I called out to my friends on social media to suggest stations which had interesting architectural features to act as a stage, and I received some fantastic ideas. The station at Canary Wharf was already on my shortlist, with its dramatic top-lit escalators descending into the gloomy depths, so this was where I started my day. Sure enough, the escalators at both ends of the station gave me plenty of opportunities to catch some movement among the commuters passing through.
From Canary Wharf I headed for the Jubilee Line and this meant a change of trains at Westminster Station. The heavy, brutalist architecture has so much potential, but I only managed to capture a few frames before a member of staff told me photography wasn’t permitted, so I moved on. I was pretty certain this wasn’t true, but had no evidence so it didn’t seem worth arguing. Having checked the Transport for London website I discovered I was indeed correct and photography (providing it’s for one’s own interest and not a commercial shoot) is permitted. This was a useful lesson learnt and next time I’ll take a printout of the relevant page of the TfL website with me as evidence!
Heading north on the Jubilee Line my first train terminated at West Hampstead so I took this as an opportunity to use the Art Deco architecture as a backdrop for a photo. The next station up the line (Kilburn) has similar, even more photogenic features, but it was too bright to achieve a slow enough shutter speed - that will have to wait for another day.
From Kilburn I strolled the mile or so to Kilburn Park Station, on the Bakerloo Line, which is even more photogenic. The exterior and interior are decorated with beautiful glazed ceramic tiles but the feature that really interested me was the elegant cupola above the two escalators. I’d gone armed with a suitably wide angle lens and was delighted to find a staircase between the escalators, from where I could safely capture the movement of people descending into the depths, with the cupola above them - exactly the framing I’d hoped for.
Photos taken 3 April 2024
I made my first visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford today, after a long absence. I’d hoped to be able to train my camera towards the skies, testing the new model’s tracking abilities on aircraft in flight. Sadly the sky was full of white, puffy clouds but not planes. Instead I simply photographed what interested me and these two images were my favourites from the afternoon. They may not share a common colour palette but one thing they do have in common is their purpose - portals through which aircraft scale to head off into the skies. I’ve always loved the architecture of the old hangars at Duxford, but there was something irresistible about the way the light was catching these elegant wooden doors.
The metal doors to one of the more recent hangars are more industrial in nature, but their weatherbeaten metal was positively glowing in the sunshine and addition of a red tractor and yellow trailer made a colour combination I just couldn’t pass up!
Photos taken 29 March 2024
