St Mary Redcliffe Church

In 1574 Queen Elizabeth is said to have proclaimed the Parish Church of St Mary Redcliffe to be the "fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England." Bristol’s most historic and beautiful building, the St Mary Redcliffe Church is one of Bristol’s treasures with its magnificent exterior of flying buttresses, pinnacles and spire.

The building has a splendid interior with fine stone vaulted transepts with 1200 gold covered roof bosses, beautifully carved by mediaeval masons, which act as keystones locking the masonry that forms the vaulting.

The Dangling Conversation

(a song by Simon and Garfunkel)

Its a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.
And you read your emily dickinson,
And I my robert frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what weve lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.
Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theater really dead?
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
Youre a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.

The Lady Chapel, Bristol Cathedral

Bristol Cathedral, near College Green, is on a site that has probably had a church on it for over a thousand years. It is the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Bristol.

In 1220 the Elder Lady Chapel was added by Abbot David and used for quiet services and also for the Blessed Sacrament. In 1298 the Abbey was rebuilt and the Choir and beautiful Eastern Lady Chapel were completed two years later, the Centre Tower and Transepts added in 1460-80. In 1539 the Abbey was closed and the Nave demolished.

Photograph was made with Hasselblad 501C, 50mm Carl Zeiss Plannar lens and using yellow filter. The film is Kodak Tmax 100 rated at 64, developed with Rodinal in N process using semistand agitation. Printed in MGIV FB Ilford paper developed in Ansco 120 and Ansco 130, 3 minutes, archival processing, and selenium toning

THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL

Bristol Cathedral began as the Norman St. Augustine's Abbey in 1140. The chapterhouse, still standing, dates from 1165, and the Elder Lady Chapel from 1220.

The Norman abbey church was rebuilt from 1298 onwards, but the new church was still incomplete at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 when its nave was demolished.
In 1542 the church was made the cathedral of a new Diocese of Bristol and was dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity.

The nave was eventually built during the 19th century and the building was completed by two towers at the west end in 1888. It is a hall church with nave, aisles and choir all at the same height, and the most significant example of a hall church in Britain.

Photograph was made with Hasselblad 501C, 50mm Carl Zeiss Plannar lens and using yellow filter. The film is Kodak Tmax 100 rated at 64, developed with Rodinal in N process using semistand agitation. Printed in MGIV FB Ilford paper developed in Ansco 120 and Ansco 130, 3 minutes, archival processing, and selenium toning

THE CORONA

The Corona is the east end of Canterbury Cathedral named after the severed crown of Thomas Becket (St. Thomas the Martyr). Becket was murdered in the quire (choir) of the cathedral on 29 December 1170. Four years later a disastrous fire destroyed the eastern end of the church. After William of Sens had rebuilt the Quire, William the Englishman added the immense Corona as a shrine for the crown of St. Thomas (with a new shrine for the main relics in the form of the Trinity Chapel between the Corona and the Quire). Later, Redinald Cardinal Pole and William Temple were buried there.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corona,_Canterbury_Cathedral

Photograph was made with Hasselblad 501C, 50mm Carl Zeiss Plannar lens and using yellow filter. The film is Kodak Tmax 100 rated at 64, developed with Rodinal in N-3 process using semistand agitation. Printed in Ilford paper developed in Ansco 120

Ornament of The Thistle's Chapel

The Order of the Thistle is Scotland's great order of chivalry, and membership is considered to be one of the country's highest honours. The Order is traditionally given to Scots or people of Scots ancestry, who have given distinguished service. Appointments are entirely in the personal gift of the Sovereign.

The Order of the Thistle has roots in the Middle Ages, but the presentday order was largely created in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland (King James II of England). The nave of Holyrood Abbey was adapted as its chapel, but in 1688 the Abbey was ransacked by the Edinburgh mob, furious at King James’ Roman Catholic allegiance. After that, the Knights of the Thistle had no chapel of their own for over 200 years

The image was made with Hasselblad 501C with 250mm Zeiss Plannar lens, a yellow filter and Kodak Tmax 400 rated at 320; The negative was developed with Rodinal 1:50 with N process; The print was developed with Ansco 120

GRANDEUR OF THE CATHEDRAL TOWER

Canterbury Cathedral is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and part of a World Heritage Site. It is the Cathedral of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of All England and religious leader of the Church of England. As well as being the mother church of the Diocese of Canterbury (east Kent) it is the focus for the Anglican Communion. The formal title is the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ at Canterbury. This central tower of the cathedral was completed in 1496, replacing a Norman tower, tower with a steeple; it is built of brick and faced with stone. The bell at the top is called Bell Hary.

I used a 6x6 Hasselblad 501C and 50mm zeiss plannar lens with yellow filter. The film was Tmax 400 rated at 320, developed in Rodinal, and the print was made on Ilford Multigrade IV FB Glossy paper developed in Dektol and ansco 120.

GLASGOW CATHEDRAL

There is little known about the church buildings which stood on the site of the present Cathedral until the early part of the 12th century. The first stone building was consecrated in about 1136 in the presence of King David I and his Court when John (1117-1147) was Bishop. Destroyed or severely damaged by fire, this cathedral was succeeded by a larger one consecrated in 1197. The reformation done in the early 14th century, and the next major rebuilding was come later in the 13th century. After the Reformation a wall was put across the nave to allow the western portion of the nave to be used for worship by a congregation which became known as the Outer High. This congregation worshiped in the nave from 1647 until 1835. The congregation which used the Quire was for a time called the Inner High. (A Walk through Glasgow Cathedral, The Very Revd. Dr. W. J. Morris.)

I used a 6x6 Hasselblad 501C and 50mm zeiss plannar lens with yellow filter. The film was Tmax 100 rated at 64, developed in Rodinal, and the print was made on Ilford Multigrade IV FB Glossy paper developed in Dektol and ansco 120.

THE CHOIR

England’s first truly Gothic buildings belong to the last thirty years of the twelfth century and Canterbury is among one of them. It was on September the 5th 1174 that the whole of the eastern part of the Cathedral of Canterbury was consumed by fire. The rebuilding occupied about ten years. It is characteristic of the English cathedrals to extend a long way east-wards of the central tower: nowhere is this more strikingly in evidence that at Canterbury. Moreover the whole of this part of the cathedral miraculously escaping the German bombing in 1942, remains as an authentic and very little altered building of the last quarter of the twelfth century. In most English cathedrals the choir is separated from the nave by a screen; at Canterbury not only is this the case, but the separation is further marked by a broad flight of steps leading up to the screen, the choir floor (but not its roof) being much higher than that of the nave. (Clifton-Taylor, The Cathedral of England, 1967; http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Canterbury)

I used a 6x6 Hasselblad 501C and 50mm zeiss plannar lens with yellow filter. The film was Ilford HP5+ 400 rated in 320, developed in Rodinal, and the print was made on Ilford Multigrade IV FB Glossy paper developed in Dektol and Ansco 120.

THE BELL HARY TOWER

At Canterbury, the great central tower was finished externally towards the end of 1497, but some work still remained to be done inside, and it was not until six or seven years later than Wastell constructed the fan-vault here, his smallest but also his loveliest. Bell Hary, is a great central tower or it better say as the finest in the land, with a lantern type which means that usual lighting is enchanting. Admittedly the fans are again truncated, but here this does not matter because the four central ones melt into the four corner ones in a design of exquisite intricacy, rendered all the more telling some years ago by the application of colour to the stonework, probably in accord with the original practice. To gaze up at this vault at Canterbury is like peering into some finely wrought Gothic casket. (Clifton-Taylor, The Cathedral of England, 1967)

I used a 6x6 Hasselblad 501C and 250mm zeiss plannar lens with yellow filter. The film was TMax 400 rated in 320, developed in Rodinal, and the print was made on Ilford Multigrade IV FB Glossy paper developed in Dektol and ansco 120.

THE GREAT CLOISTER

CLOISTER (Lat. claustrum; Fr. cloitre; Ital. chiostro; Span. claustro; Ger. Kloster). The word "cloister," though now restricted to the four-sided enclosure, surrounded with covered ambulatories, usually attached to coventual and cathedral churches, and sometimes to colleges, or by a still further limitation to the ambulatories themselves, originally signified the entire monastery. The cloister, with its surrounding buildings, generally stood on the south side of the church, to secure as much sunshine as possible. A very early example of this disposition is seen in the plan of the monastery of St Gall. Local requirements, in some instances, caused the cloister to be placed to the north of the church. This is the case in the English cathedrals, formerly Benedictine abbeys, of Canterbury. Canterbury Cloisters built by Henry Yevele. Canterbury cathedral had more than one cloister; there was usually a second connected with the infirmary.(Clifton-Taylor, The Cathedral of England, 1967; http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Cloister

I used a 6x6 Hasselblad 501C and 80mm zeiss plannar lens with yellow filter. The film was TMax 400 rated at 320, developed in Rodinal, and the print was made on Ilford Multigrade IV FB Glossy paper developed in Dektol and ansco 120.