Week 11: Peer Review Presentation
Informing Contexts PHO702 – Peer Review Presentation – Transcript
Category Archives: Module 4
Project Development
Christ Church Cathedral – The Catherine Window Pt.2
Dominic Price (2019) The Catherine Window – The Angel ‘Victory’ [Edward Burne-Jones, 1878 – Christ Church Cathedral]
Typically I anticipate an hour of editing time for the removal of each individual support bar, but in this case it took over six hours to remove the four bars!
Before progressing further with the remaining two lights it seems sensible to revisit the cathedral in order to compare this image (and those of the three tracery light angels), since the lighting on the day was far from ideal and for the first time ever I also had to endure internal artificial illumination. It concerns me in particular that the skin tones for this angel are notably different to those of the tracery lights, when logic would suggest that the skin tones should be fairly constant within a single window.
To produce this image, 15 photographs were taken at 241 mm using the Canon EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, at an aperture of f/8.0 and exposure times ranging from 1/10 s to 1/125 s. As with all images photographed for my research project, it was taken using the Canon EOS 1Dx Mark II.
The photograph was taken perfectly head on, but at a slight angle (vertically) which necessitated a small amount of distortion correction. This is always applied as the final stage of editing, but for the purpose of the animated GIF below, I corrected and cropped one of the original images as well as the image prior to the removal of the support bars.
Dominic Price (2019) The Catherine Window – The Angel ‘Victory’: animate GIF illustrating the editing process.
Project Development
Christ Church Cathedral – The Jonah Window
I have not warmed very much to the van Linge windows I have witnessed thus far (New College Chapel and University College Chapel), but this window is fantastic – incredible detail and such vibrant colours for a work of art that is almost 400 years old. The fact that it does exist is something of a miracle: Christ Church Cathedral once housed a magnificent collection of windows by Van Linge, but almost all of them were destroyed not long after installation in the fury of Puritan iconoclasm during the English Civil War. Damage to this window is evident – the only calmes should be vertical and horizontal, but the web of other leadwork represents repairs to the panes of glass.
This edit is only partially complete as there is much cleaning still to do: once again this window seems to be home to many spiders and their webs feature heavily in the topmost light. It is a window that I would much like to complete editing, but then the same is true of most of those within the cathedral. Perhaps I can interest them in a the production of a publication as there is currently no guide to the windows (indeed, possibly no guide to the cathedral) once I have completed my Research Project.
Dominic Price (2019) Jonah and the City of Nineveh [Abraham van Linge, 1630 – Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford]
Project Development
Man vs. Machine – the merits of HDR software
In light of the nature of this research project, it may seem strange that today was the first time that I have ever tested HDR Exposure Merging within an image editing program. The test piece is a stained glass window I had recently photographed at Christ Church Cathedral and the images here show a small segment of that panel. The completed image of this panel (detailed HERE) required just over four hours of editing so I am interested to see what software can achieve in just a matter a moments:
Dominic Price (2019) Panel from Vyner Memorial Window depicting Timothy & Eunice [Edward Burne-Jones, 1871 – Christ Church Cathedral]
Edited by hand
Software-based HDR editing
It is interesting to note that I have opted for slightly greater saturation of colours and higher contrast (no surprise there) – however, this is an image that I have yet to moderate against the original. The one area in which the software falls down (arguably) is in its handling of the clames, with the lead being represented more three-dimensionally, whereas I have endeavoured to represent the image two dimensionally with the lead being rendered black.
The results are mightily impressive and for occasions when I require a quick, yet imposing solution for social media (or indeed for inclusion as a small part of a printed publication), this could provide a pleasingly simple solution. Of course, the digital removal of support bars can only be done by hand and that will add one or more hours per bar to the process!
Project Development
Hidden and Vanishing History
One of my earliest chapel visits for this research was back in May 2018. At the time I did not go to the trouble of editing the series of 60+ images, since I was displeased with the composition, with the background being so easily visible even at f/2.0. When given permission to take the photographs, I was advised that I would be the first person to photograph the windows. In a perfect world I would have returned for photo shoot at a later date, armed with a large sheet to mask the exterior. However, just two weeks after my visit the chapel was demolished… I was the first, last and only person to photograph the windows.
I have now edited the images, but although there is a striking elegance and simplicity to the six lights, I have no plans to print these because of the detraction of the cars. This is not beyond the possibilities of image editing, but it would be many tens of hours of work – time that I simple do not have at the moment.
Dominic Price (2018) The Crucifixion, St Hilda’s College Chapel, Oxford
Dominic Price (2018) The Temptation of Man, St Hilda’s College Chapel, Oxford
When the extensive building works are complete, there will be a new chapel at St. Hilda’s College, located within the new Boundary Building. I will make a point of enquiring about stained glass within the new building – these may be being rehoused, or perhaps something new is being commissioned?
Dominic Price (2018) Learning & Truth [Reginald Bell, 1935 – Somerville College Chapel, Oxford]
Focussing specifically on my research, the stained glass within places of worship can cause problems: On my planning visit to Somerville College Chapel (also in May 2018) I was confronted by an unexpected juxtaposition of huge window depicting Christ, within a nondenominational chapel. Further information about the window can be found in my original post HERE. At the time I was advised that some groups using the location had objected to the depiction of Christ and as a result the possibility of concealing it behind curtains was being considered.
I was minded of this just last week when carrying out a tentative visit to a very local chapel that has been undergoing restoration and improvement works for the past six months. The home of the Summertown United Reformed Church is an attractive chapel that features a stained glass east window clearly visible from my house. For a Presbyterian church, the inclusion of stained glass is unusual, so it was of little surprise on entering the building to discover that the east window is covered by an enormous curtain. The Minister commented that the windows had caused objections and upset in the past.
I am yet to see the window as my unplanned visit coincided with a snagging meeting between the Minister, architect and the foreman. However, I am intrigued as to what would have caused offence and also wonder why this chapel, purpose-built in 1893 would have featured a stained glass window in the first place. Sadly, such history may have been lost to time.
Pete Corson
The stained glass windows of Atlanta
Pete Corson is an Atlanta-based journalist who has shone a light on the stained glass windows in the churches of Atlanta, Georgia.
You can be a lifetime resident of Atlanta and still discover something new and wonderful behind a door you never entered. For many of us, those doors may be at the front of our neighbourhood church, where some of the city’s most breath-taking artwork can be found for free.
In what he describes as occasional photo tours, he first looked at the windows of Druid Hill Presbyterian producing a well-annotated gallery of 49 images HERE.
Today he published the second instalment, looking at the stained glass windows of First Presbyterian Church HERE which do look extraordinary and were designed by Tiffany, D’Ascenzo and Willet. There is a very thorough and detailed history published by the church itself: The stained glass windows of First Presbyterian Church
It is revitalising to read of another who believes that such works of art should be appreciated by far more people – clearly this problem was not only confined to my mind! Critical analysis of Corson’s photographic work highlights the development since his first set of images and those in the most recent gallery. However, all lack clarity and careful composition (image distortion is not uniform, suggesting that the photographer was not perfectly central to the window). I find it off-putting that some of his recent images are photographed with the background almost completely black whereas others portray very clearly the stone tracery around the glass. The reason behind this is simple: in metering off the glass, a darker window would result in an image showing more of the background, whereas for a bright window, the glass alone will be recorded. The intense saturation of the images suggests that these were recorded on a smartphone using HDR.
Pete Corson (2019) Pentecost [Nicola D’Ascenzo, 1939 – First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta]
Notre Drame
Notre-Dame de Paris – 15 March 2019
The ability of a building to tug at the heartstrings came as a surprise to many as they watched Monday evening’s shocking scenes of Notre-Dame de Paris engulfed in flames. The feeling was captured so perfectly on the front page of Tuesday’s Libération newspaper, with the most subtle play on words in the headline Notre Drame : Our Drama.
GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP/Getty Images (2019) The steeple and spire engulfed in flames collapses as the roof of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral burns on April 15, 2019 in Paris.
Listening to the live commentary on television, it was interesting to hear a number of Parisians comment that it was many years since they had visited Notre-Dame, although its simple presence provided them with reassuring comfort. The priceless artworks within were seen by an astonishing 35,000 visitors every single day and yet for many locals they were hidden in plain sight, on a to-do list sometime in the future. We are all guilty of taking for granted those treasures on our doorstep and while Notre-Dame may be a rare exception, it tends to be places of worship that are most easily overlooked whether locally or while on travels. I am atypical with regard to visiting places of worship: having travelled the world singing with a choir in many of the most famous cathedrals (including Notre-Dame), I am always drawn to places of worship wherever I travel, knowing that they will be a calm, quiet and beautiful sanctuary, away from the bustle of everyday life.
It saddens me that cathedrals, churches and chapels are not more routinely visited and one of the principals behind my research is to open the eyes of visitors (and locals) to the fabulous beauty of Oxford’s chapels. At the early planning stage, I was also keen to provide and archive facility for the stained glass windows, ensuring that even if completely destroyed, there was a high-resolution, high quality copy from which a facsimile could be created. This was brought home to me by the scenes of Notre-Dame, as images of burnt-out windows devoid of their priceless stained glass began to appear. Though reassured by the knowledge that all Her stained glass would be very well photographed indeed, photographs such as Martin’s, below, are rather haunting:
LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images (2019) Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April 15, 2019.
The following morning greeted the world with the news that the cathedral was largely intact and by some miracle, thanks to the protection provided by the vaulted ceiling, very few of the windows had been lost to the fire:
The whole episode made me wonder whether my time and efforts would be better put to use on an archiving project for Oxford’s stained glass, as had been my original plan. However, in taking dozens of photographs of each window in an exposure bracketed batch, I am already archiving all the information it is possible to record. It is those unedited photographs that would be requested by restorers, not the labour-intensive, final edited images that I produce.
Project Development
Exeter College Chapel
University vacation can simplify access to the college chapels. With the weather conditions looking perfect this morning (bright but with uniform cloud cover) and groundwork already in place for a visit at a ‘mutually convenient time’, it took no more than a brief email to the Head Porter for me to be granted access to Exeter College Chapel. Pleasingly I had the chapel to myself for the two hours before its 11am opening to the tourists and was given the keys to the organ loft which my preliminary had visit suggested.
Access to the organ loft was via narrow stone spiral staircase and the organ loft could have been more appropriately termed an organ shelf: there was room for little more than an organist to sit at the organ. Notwithstanding, thanks to some clever tripod usage I was able to take several series of photographs both of the stained glass and the chapel itself.
Dominic Price (2019) The Crucifixion [Clayton & Bell, 1859 – Exeter College Chapel]
With Easter soon upon us I also decided to capture a batch of one panel of the east window depicting The Crucifixion for me to use as an Easter card. This necessitated a batch of 15 photographs, taken at 400 mm using the Canon EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, at an aperture of f/8.0 and exposure times ranging from 1.6 s to 1/10 s: significantly longer exposures than those required when photographing the Cathedral’s windows in the brilliant sunshine.
I will return to edit the full height lights at a later date. These I am likely to leave with saddle bars intact as the window comprises two lancet lights of thirteen saddle bars each.
Dominic Price (2019) Tracery lights of the East Window [Clayton & Bell, 1859 – Exeter College Chapel]
My original intention with the tracery lights was to concern myself only with the small rose (not least because this lends itself so well to posting on Instagram). However, invisible to the casual observer and only evident during editing is the smallest stained glass light I have ever seen, located just below the base of the rose. As a result, this led me to crop the image to include this tiny blue flower – something I may well review as it leaves the composition looking very unbalanced.
Happy Easter!
Cosmic Microscapes
Neil H. Buckland – Meteorite thin-section microscopy
In week 2 of this module, while discussion Emerson’s “scientific division” and “artistic division”, I referenced my undergraduate years studying as a geologist. In those years, it was prior to the straightforward photography of rock and mineral thin sections viewed through a microscope. Consequently, the archived records of the thin sections were hand-drawn, with the images having to be facsimiles of the microscopic view, often taking ten or more hours to complete. This was work I loved to do, requiring fantastic levels of concentration and attention to detail – something that echoes in my current practice.
Dominic Price (1997) Porphyritic rock thin section, Mull
While the images were pen and ink, in a single colour, indicative of the standard plain light microscopy, we would constantly switch to the beautifully colourful cross-polarised light used in order to clarify the details and composition of the rock sample.
Carey Rose (2019) Meteorite thin section with visible colours altered by rotating one of the two polarised filters.
It pleases me to see the launch of an exhibition that reflects this area of scientific study, albeit working with meteorite thin sections.
Neil H. Buckland has always obsessed over detail: landscapes were his mainstay for fifteen or more years, with his approach being stitched landscape photography, using dozens of images for each completed photograph. He has taken this approach to a microscopic level, photographing 300 or 400 2×2 mm tiles of cross polarised meteorite thin section, then stitching them together to allow him to produce 4m wide prints.
While my work used a Leica Light Microscope, but Buckland opted to build his own rig, not least because with a depth-of-field of just 3.5 microns (0.0035mm), the tiniest vibration during the 4-hour long capturing of a batch of 300+ images would result in him having to start all over again. The result is a 25 Kg beast that is vibration-free:
Carey Rose (2019) Buckland’s rig is almost entirely custom-made for this specific purpose.
The results speak for themselves and reflect Buckland’s drive and passion: “I’m obsessed with detail. When I make these giant landscape prints, I want you to stand in front of them and feel like you’re there,” Buckland said. “With this custom rig, I can do that with a micro subject – not just giant landscapes.” Thus, the name ‘microscape’ was born.
Carey Rose (2019) Neil Buckland (and Brian) next to a completed print in his studio.
Buckland rather fell into this project following a request to supply a laboratory thin section image of a meteorite sample. On completing that task, he felt that he could do a much better job. Fascinated and inspired by the mysteries of science, he set out to blur the line between science and art.
The similarities between his practice and mine are striking – even down to the reasoning behind the research, followed by an almost obsessive pursuit for depth and detail. Both subjects (stained glass and laboratory thin sections) require transmitted light; both practices fulfil a similarly unique gap in the spectrum of photography and the execution is not dissimilar, with the need for atypical photography and then substantial amounts of post-production work.
The Cosmic Microscapes exhibition is current at the Frederick Holmes & Co. Gallery of Modern Art in Washington.