Campion Hall revisited

I do enjoy, increasingly, the visits to Oxford’s various chapels and in particular to the Permanent Private Halls: the tranquillity and calm provides a wonderful tonic to the hustle and bustle of every day life.  This is never more true than in the summer vacation when the Chapels, Halls and Colleges are mostly free of the students.  Today Campion Hall had just a skeleton staff.  I was greeted like a long-lost friend and given free access to their chapels.

Uniform cloud cover meant that the all-important weather was more favourable today than on my fist visit, although the Lutyens Chapel clearly benefits from bright sunshine.  However, in the Lady Chapel, the benefit of diffused, cool, natural lighting was immediately evident.  This being my first revisit to the chapel, I had the chance to compare the colour balance and saturation of the original edit with the chapel itself.  Clearly the colour temperature of the natural light has a vital part to play in the Lady Chapel.  This visit there were significantly more evident blue hues than on my initial visit, giving a cooler, but more realistic appearance to the illustrated sky.

I had hoped that the remedial work to the plaster in the Lady Chapel would have been completed by the time of this visit: sadly not, so there was again the need to replicate the intricate shadows that fall on the plain white walls as I retouch the bare plaster.

Substantially more time was spent setting up the shot, ensuring that the camera was mounted perfectly centrally within the room so that the reflections in the stone floor were aligned perfectly.

The improved lighting conditions allowed me to pull more detail out of the plain glass windows, better revealing the metalwork.  Additionally, a greater level offine detail could be seen within the mural.  I am sure that secondary visits to most of the site would result in marked improvements in the quality of my work, but it is rarely possible or feasible.

Dominic Price (2019) Campion Hall Lady Chapel (revisited)

Dominic Price (2019) Campion Hall Lady Chapel