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St Paul's Cathedral

Hi Amanda,

I'm back from that extended break. Just wanted to make you aware as a courtesy that I submitted in a written request to the communications director of St Paul's to be given permission to shoot inside the cathedral with a tripod and recently received approval for this (normally all photography, tripod or not, is forbidden). Originally I had hoped to be given access to the cathedral outside of regular visitor hours so that I would have a clear view of the interior without pesky tourists in the way, but it appears that I've been given an early morning slot (8:30am to 9:30am) within normal visiting hours, so I'll just have to get there as early as possible and work with the few visitors keen enough to get there at 8:30. In any case, it should be possible to improve greatly on our existing imagery such as this one and I wanted to ask for your input on what other views or details you'd like me to gather. Of course I'll try to go for all the typical 'grand views' such as looking down the nave to the altar, and the apse (and I'm sorry but I'm still not convinced about correcting the verticals unless the vertical angle of view is simply too extreme, but we'll have to agree to disagree about that), but what else would be useful for the article? Let me know in any case. I've been given permission for the 30th of May so there's no urgency. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 08:20, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

  • Hi again. Just wanted to let you know that the St Paul's photography was a success and I'll probably be putting the photos on Commons on Monday (I'm away over the weekend). I wasn't able to take all the photos you listed as time was fairly limited. I had just under an hour, but due to the nature of my photography, each image takes 5-10 minutes in total to take. Not a 5-10 minute exposure obviously, just the time it takes to set up and shoot all of the component images. Also, I was (un?)lucky enough to have the Press & Communications Director escorting me around for the entire duration, so I wasn't able to relax and shoot as freely as I would have liked, but obviously the opportunity to take quality photos is usually extremely limited so I can't complain too much. The views I definitely got were:
    1. Looking down the nave
    2. Looking directly up at the dome
    3. Looking diagonally across the central space showing the dome
    4. One of the two organs from a diagonal angle (it's very difficult to shoot a photo of the organ straight on as the two organs face each other in the choir)
    5. Looking down the choir towards the nave
    6. Looking down the choir towards the high altar
    7. A diagonal view of the choir focusing on one side of the stalls
    8. The high altar itself
    9. The Chapel of St Michael and St George
  • The views that I unfortunately missed or ran out of time for were:
    1. The pulpit
    2. The brass screen. My escort wasn't sure what you meant and I couldn't find it either. I googled it afterwards and it appears that there is a brass screen in the crypt but I didn't have time, nor possibly the permission, to photograph down there. What I did photograph was a black wrought iron screen with gold details which was on either side of the high altar on the eastern side. I'm not sure how well that turned out as I was pressed for time by that point and the cathedral was starting to fill with tourists, making photography progressively more difficult as time went on.
    3. Any additional photos of ornamental detail, as I simply ran out of time.
  • Anyway, I have high hopes that what I did manage to take will greatly add to the rather limited quality photography that we have of the cathedral. I'll add all the photos to the article talk page early next week (probably Monday as I said) and let you and others think about how best to incorporate them into the article. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 09:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Florence Baptistery

Hi! "Because it is not known in Art as "Florence Baptistery". That is journalistic shorthand for when the writer is counting column inches." I must say I disagree, as do all these authors, from Ruskin ("...the glorious Cimabue mosaic of Pisa, and the roof of the Baptistery at Parma (that of the Florence Baptistery is a bad example, owing to its crude whites and complicated mosaic of small forms).")... - Modern Painters) onwards. Normally Italian cities only have one baptistery, so locating at or near the cathedral is superfluous. Johnbod (talk) 04:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I've made comments - I hope not enough to prevent me in future from banging on about how useless these lists are, as I often do! Good effort anyway. Johnbod (talk) 15:11, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

St Stephen's, Walbrook

You're certainly not shy in speaking your mind on architectural critique. :-) As for whether I took a photo that meets your description, I'm not sure. I took another that was not quite as wide as the one that currently illustrates the article. The image was originally wider than the view below, but I cropped it as I thought the composition was better that way. The vertical view extended higher, showing a little of the ceiling of two tallest central pillars in the middle foreground, but it was all a bit too distorted.

Alternative view, taken from directly at the entrance doors of the church

Is this anything like what you were looking for? The coffered ceilings are no more visible in that photo than the one in the article though. I could just revisit and shoot something more specific if you like. I've still got a few more churches in the City of London area on my to-do list so it wouldn't be much of an issue. Also, do you prefer to bounce discussion back and forth on each other's talk pages? I tend to prefer to keep it in location and I don't mind if it's yours or mine, as long as it's in the one place! Ðiliff «» (Talk) 09:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Ðiliff , OK, I'll respond here.
Re: not shy etc, If you have looked at the blog page on which I have used your photo of the west front of Wells, you'll understand why. Nobody else has ever analysed that building with that type of insight, previously. There are only a few of us around who look at ancient architecture so analytically. However, what I am going to say here isn't my original research, it's Nikolaus Pevsner's. He is somebody that I wish I had known. He was right onto it with his description of St Stephen's, Walbrook.
St Stephen's is, as I said, with due acknowledgement to Pevsner, a building of extraordinary subtlety. Superficially, it looks like a centrally-planned church, but it isn't. It is a church with a nave, transepts and aisles, constructed on modules that are best understood on paper. It is a longitudinal church, that just happens to have (like St Paul's) a dome covering not only the centre nave section, but also the width of the innermost aisles. The width of the aisle exactly equals the distance between ...... this is getting too complicated.
On one hand, because the church has such a wide dome for its size, it was ideally suited for "church in the round" . But unfortunately "church in the round" masks the architectural subtleties. As for that stone altar, I am both appalled by it and terrified of it, knowing what happened to the building in the Blitz. I don't know how they repaired the floor, but whoever installed the lump of rock would need to have been fairly sure that it was solid and that the altar wasn't going to suddenly disappear down a sinkhole into the crypt.
I am going to say it again: You would minimise the distortion by allowing a slight inward taper above eye-height. The diagonals have a forcing effect which causes everything to splay, regardless of how straight you may know it to be. If it was a drawing on paper, then the optical effect would cause the centres of the verticals to converge and the tops and bottoms of the verticals to splay out. The effect is most marked on the two side columns near the oriole windows, because they are the most affected by the diagonals of the cornice. and the diagonal coming in from each lower outer corner, at the bottom of the plinths.
I think what is needed is a shot from the west that isn't necessarily wide angle. An oblique view that reveals part of the coffered roof, part of the arched compartment and part o the dome would be wonderful. You might need to position the camera higher, above the level of the plinths, say half-way between the bases of the columns and the top of the wainscotting.
I have just thought, looking at your image, that one way to reinstate the longitudinal plan would be to use carpet.
What other churches have you photographed?
Have you found your way to St Dunstan in the East? It is at its most beautiful in the autumn, when all the red and yellow leaves hang in the traceried windows like stained glass.
I don't know what your plans are, after this, but the truly great cathedral that is most lacking pictures is Durham Cathedral. It's not hard to get good views of it, across the river, see Architecture of the medieval cathedrals of England, but interiors are another matter. Amandajm (talk) 11:11, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I haven't been to St Dunstan in the East but I've been concentrating mainly on interiors, and there isn't much of an interior left! Having said that, from the photos I've seen, it has the potential to look fantastic and I'll definitely add it to my to-do list. Unfortunately autumn is some time away so I'll have to see how it looks in the springtime/summer instead.
What other London churches have I photographed? Quite a few:
  1. St Magnus-the-Martyr
  2. St Margaret Lothbury
  3. St Mary Aldermary
  4. St Vedast Foster Lane
  5. St Mary-le-Bow
  6. St Martin-in-the-Fields
  7. St Bartholomew-the-Great
  8. St Andrew's, Holborn
  9. St Etheldreda's Church
  10. St Mary Abbots
  11. Brompton Oratory
  12. Westminster Cathedral
  13. Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street
  14. All Souls Church, Langham Place
  15. Holy Trinity, Sloane Street
  16. St Patrick's Church, Soho Square
  17. All Saints, Margaret Street
  18. St Clement Danes
  19. St Mary le Strand
  20. St Bride's Church
  21. King's College London Chapel
  22. St Luke's Church, Chelsea
  23. St Giles in the Fields
  24. St Lawrence Jewry
Now that I put them all down together in a list, I realise just how many! Still left on my list are a few that I've Googled and found to be interesting/beautiful/notable, but some not easily accessible due to infrequent opening times, or geographically distant (I live in SW London and many of these are on the east side of the city) or charging entry (I've tended to avoid them for now, and given I'm doing this on a volunteer basis and not as a tourist, I can't justify paying entry to so many churches), etc.
  1. Temple Church
  2. St Mary-at-Hill
  3. All Hallows-by-the-Tower
  4. St Olave Hart Street
  5. St Katharine Cree
  6. Bevis Marks Synagogue
  7. St Helen Bishopsgate
  8. Christ Church, Spitalfields
  9. Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family in Exile
Actually, another of my little projects is to visit as many of the cathedrals around the country as I can, and I'm thinking of doing a road trip in the near future to accomplish this. I'm going to run be faced with the same problem of being asked to pay entry for many of the cathedrals, not to mention many of them will likely prohibit photography (and some charge EXTRA for photography on top of the entry charge). I'm not against the practice of charging for entry to tourists per-se, as I know they need to maintain the cathedrals somehow, but if I'm going to photo-document a large volume of them and make the resulting images available to the public for the greater good with the goal of educational use, it seems slightly unfair to charge me for the 'privilege'! I could write to each of them individually and ask if they will allow me special access as a 'Wikipedian photographer' but from my experience, they are slow to reply (if they reply at all) and if they will grant this access, they usually want to arrange a specific time, which isn't going to be practical for a visit to many cathedrals on a single trip. In other news, I did write to Westminster Abbey on your suggestion, but I just today got the response "I regret to have to tell you that we are not in a position to sanction your request to photograph in the Abbey church", with no further explanation. Anyway, I'm rambling. I'll finish up the St Paul's images today and as I said, put them on the article talk page. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 09:29, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Ðiliff, that is all fantastic!
The problem with the Abbey is that it's a "Royal Peculiar". Probably the only way to do it is to write to HM the Queen.
Now, All Hallows by the Tower is important, for a number of reasons, not the least that it contains one of the most incredible font covers in England. Carved wood. Almost certainly Grinling Gibbons. In order to get to photograph it, you will permission from the rector and possibly wardens. It is unlikely that the verger will say "Go ahead" because the policy is that it is not to be photographed. It may be forty years since someone actually took a good set of photos. There are a couple of images online, but you would do much better. The crucial point for you to make is that so fragile and precious an object needs to be properly and thoroughly recorded for posterity.
With regards to the cathedrals, the person who can dispense with all the red-tape is the dean, but they are generally very busy. However, in each case there is a canon of the cathedral who is in charge of the fabric of the building. If you look up the websites, this person will often be listed as "Canon Sacristan" or something of the sort. Don't muck around; just ring the person up. There may also be a lay person who is in charge of building conservation. They are very useful people to know. Particularly if you want to go up into the galleries or out onto the roof. Amandajm (talk) 11:19, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Well, I visited All Hallows by the Tower yesterday. Some of the photography was a success, some not so much. The main nave view was a failure as the light shining through the main glass windows behind the altar was much too glaring, but... I did manage this:
It was all locked away in the baptistry behind a cast iron door with perspex glass, but I asked permission to photograph it and they didn't seem to mind opening it up for a couple of minutes. Actually they told me that they were keeping an eye on me in case I stole the silverware, not because of the carving! Ðiliff «» (Talk) 21:29, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Beautiful, David! You were so lucky to get that! It's a terrific picture. Amandajm (talk) 14:52, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations

Well done on Wells! Whiteghost.ink (talk) 02:53, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, precious again, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:17, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank You! Gerda Arendt,
Was that you who got rescued by RAF helicopter? Well done, anyway! Martinevans123 (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Martinevans123, no, unfortunately I'm a bit old for scrambling around on church roofs, the way I used to. Such a pity! I have a serious interest in roof drainage. Amandajm (talk) 11:23, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Share the love! Martinevans123 (talk) 12:36, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Martinevans123, that was really, really fascinating! So, if I tell you that I love industrial steam engines, bobbin lace, standing stones, fairground organs, netsuke and the works of John Sell Cotman, what will you come up with? Amandajm (talk) 12:48, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
... another one of those roof drainage videos. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:50, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Martinevans123, No, no. Two in the same evening would be too much excitement! I am trying to get my head around an article I want to write on The Sistine Chapel. It is like a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces of information completely missing. Amandajm (talk) 13:05, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Ah, Amanda, you're so adorable.... here's all you need to know Martinevans123 (talk) 13:15, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Martinevans123, rather self-indulgent, somehow.... if you like wallowing in paint...... After that, I think I will just go and listen to Allegri's Miserere ...... It's 23.32 in the land of Oz! Over and out! Amandajm (talk) 13:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Da Vinci Vehicle

Hi. Please see the L da Vinci Talk page. Regards, Hengistmate (talk) 06:35, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Margaret Rodgers

I only added that so it could link back to an Australian category (not being very interested in the Anglican church of Australia), although I do often visit (mainly ancient) Anglican cathedrals and churches in England (although I have to admit it crossed my mind that there might be no female clergy in the Sydney diocese and I probably should have investigated what a deaconess was).--Grahame (talk) 02:40, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

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DYK

Hi. I added a new Alt 1 as you suggested. See if you think it's good to go now. If not, can you suggest an Alt that would work better? Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:48, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your time reviewing this and your helpful advice! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
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