Harris Manchester College Chapel – Revisited

An important part of my work is to ensure that the printed images are true representations of the actual windows and with this in mind I revisited Harris Manchester College this morning.

In the summer months, Oxford heaves with tourists (too many years living outside the Westcountry prevents me from referring to them as grockles or emmets) who reduce movement to a crawl.  However, it was reassuring to see a small number in the chapel who I called upon to critique my proof prints.  Their observations I concurred with completely with regard to the saturation of colours within the light BJ 397 (Courage) and have consequently re-edited the image.

It should be noted that the photographs were originally taken on a bright, overcast day in late March, when the daylight colour temperature was less warm than today, as was the intensity of the light  (with today being partially cloudy).  However, since I had undersaturated some areas and oversaturated others, it was clear that the changes were not just as a result of weather or seasonal conditions.  The changes see an increase in the saturation of the helmet, together with a recolouring towards orange/gold; The wooden staff and hands have been desaturated; and finally, the red background drape has had a increase in saturation as well as a recolouring towards ‘pure red’ – I am not convinced that I have yet made sufficient changes to the colour of the drape.

The animated GIF to the left demonstrates these subtle changes (albeit with minimal wow factor in a 2-second cycle):

There is a lot of quality loss in a GIF, so below is a JPEG of the final re-edited image:

Courage – BJ 397 (Edward-Burne Jones, 1896) The Chapel of Harris Manchester College