Christ Church Cathedral – Vyner Memorial Window

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Before a stained glass window is designed, preliminary sketches are produced.  The sketch below must be early in the process as it is significantly different from the Vyner Memorial Window in situ.

This window shares a frustration with The Catherine Window: it is obscured in part, but this time by a suspended hoop chandelier. Once again, this precludes the straightforward capture in a single image. Additionally, three of the four lower panels has dense foliage behind them, dramatically darkening their appearance on such a bright day.

My gaze was drawn to the only well-lit lower panel which featured another incarnation of Eunice and Timothy (previously photographed at the Chapel of St. Nicholas).  Interestingly, this features a very rare example of Burne-Jones’ initials on the wall just behind Eunice.  Being at head height, this would require little or no correction for converging verticals and featuring just one support bar, post-production work would not be too demanding.

The completed image was composed from 12 originals shot at 85mm using the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, set to f/8.0, with an exposure times ranging from 1/160 s to 1/13 s.

Shot at 400mm using the Canon EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, there is a dramatically different theme to all of the tracery lights when compared with the early preliminary sketch: