Tag Archives: St. Edward’s Oxford

The Dambusters & beyond

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Celebrating the RAF: An exhibition of photographs and rare archive material

With today’s celebrations in London, 100 days after the 100th birthday of the RAF, I found time to visit The North Wall Gallery which is hosting a joint venture with St. Edward’s School, Oxford (20 June – 17 July 2018) an exhibition of photographs, military artefacts and largely unseen private papers and diaries in a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the RAF.  Many of the individuals featured in the exhibition are former pupils of St. Edwards, including Geoffrey de Havilland, Douglas Bader and Guy Gibson.

St. Edwards - North Wall (low res)

St Edwards - North Wall (low res)The early days of the RAF – 1914

The exhibition has a mightily impressive section on the Dambusters, including fascinating diagrams of the bouncing bomb in addition to photographs before and after the raid.  One of the most personal items is a letter written by Guy Gibson to his headmaster and which has the memorable postscript “Was Awarded V.C. yesterday”.

St. Edwards - Gibson

Overlooking the exhibition is a huge reproduction of a stained glass window housed in the school’s dining room. On 19 November 1955, the school was officially presented with the commemorative window, pictured below, by the Air Council of the RAF in ‘recognition of the fine record of boys from St Edward’s in the Royal Air Force’.

St. Edwards RAF (low res)

I plan to visit St. Edward’s School later this summer to photograph the stained glass windows of their chapel, but it would seem foolhardy not to photograph the RAF window as well, if given permission.

M2 Wk6: Exhibition Guidance

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Week 6: Independent Reflection

For the first time in this Module, I have had the chance to focus upon my research project.  Rather than just bolstering the portfolio, I spent time investigating the most appropriate light conditions and it was interesting to see just how dramatically the colours of a stained glass window change.  While the warmer, more vibrant colours of a cloudless sky produced preferable image colours, it had the negative effect of introducing shadow into each pane of glass.  Consequently, the light of a bright, but overcast day was best:  it was reassuring to confirm that I had been photographing the chapel windows in the most appropriate conditions thus far.

I also chose this time to revisit the first stained glass window that I photographed in 2013, using multiple exposure blending.  Aware of the limited time that I have available to my research project during this Module, it was concerning that the post-production editing took eighteen hours.  However, the this produced and image of markedly better quality than the 2013 original and more importantly, the finished image is more true to the original.  This advancement is thanks to a number of changes… an new camera body; a better tripod head and greatly improved image editing technique.

It is clearly the case that all aspect of my work have improved over the past five years and I am confident that through this project I will see further improvements.  It would be wonderful to discover a most efficient method of post-production, although realistically I cannot see this diminishing greatly.

Thinking About Spaces

With a plans to host an exhibition of my work, it is clear that my studies would have benefited from more time being spent on this week’s topic.

I am very much aware that there is a huge difference between an appropriate space for exhibiting and a space that will draw the crowds (perhaps unwittingly).  Perhaps the most ideal location for hosting an exhibition portraying the stained glass windows of Oxford’s chapels would be within a chapel.  This could be easily achieved in St. Luke’s Chapel, now part of Oxford University’s Conference & Events venue portfolio: Virtual Tour.

stlukesexhibitionsetting2__venue

While a stunning and perfectly themed location, capable of accommodating 70+ people for an exhibition, sadly St. Luke’s is a little out of the way and would only attract those who intended to visit the exhibition.  Passing tourist traffic is not at all high and it is only open when a client pays for it to be open.

To maximise footfall, the location of choice would be Aiden Meller Gallery on Turl Street in the centre of Oxford.  An almost-pedestrian street popular with tourists and locals alike.  Working in my favour, it has already hosted an exhibition in 2017 of Pre-Raphaelite cartoons for stained glass.  Importantly, the gallery is also a dealership, used to marketing and selling art work, and is exquisitely capable of hosting exhibitions to the very highest level with knowledgeable curators on site.

Aidan Meller shopfront

Google Street View (2017) Aiden Meller Gallery, Turl Street, Oxford

While neither of these locations are any great distance from me (each being less than 3km away), right on my doorstep is The North Wall, just 300m away.  Part of St. Edward’s School and just a few meters away from their chapel, The North Wall Arts Centre is a flexible, multi-purpose arts complex which contains a theatre, drama studio, dance studio and art gallery.  Located in the most affluent part of Oxford, this would certainly be more readily visited than St. Luke’s Chapel, but falls outside the typical stamping ground of visiting tourists.  However, The North Wall is very accommodating, always open to visitors and has a resident curator.

St. Edwards - North Wall (low res)

In addition to my project work, this week saw me attending the Athletics World Cup at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in London.  As I was purely spectating, this was my first visit there without a full frame camera and white lens, relying instead on the Canon G3 X.  It was inevitable that the combination of smaller sensor size and small aperture lens would result in less crisp images, but with static shots the comparative lack of quality was not very noticeable.  However, unsurprisingly, it struggled rather more with action shots – that said, the results were far from disappointing.

Project Development

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St. Edward’s School Chapel

Although there are a number of school links within my project, St. Edward’s School Chapel is one of just two school chapels to feature.  New College School; Magdalen College School and Christchurch Cathedral School are all choir schools, linked directly to the Oxford Colleges with whom they share their name.

The Chapel at St. Edward’s School was completed in 1878 and houses an assortment of stained glass, mostly depicting religious scenes.

Teddies, as it is more colloquially known, has a wealth of famous alumni and author Kenneth Grahame was an outstanding pupil there.  In 1936, four years after his death, his time at Teddies was remembered in an impressive stained-glass window by English designer Christopher Rahere Webb (1886-1966).  The window depicts one of stories from Dream Days, a collection of Grahame’s children’s fiction: Its Walls were as of Jasper.   Published in 1902, the book was illustrated by American painter Maxfield Parrish, from where Webb gained much inspiration.

Dream Days - Maxfield Parrish (low res)Maxfield Parrish (1902) – Its Walls were as of Jasper

In a summer of mostly clear blue skies, I was fortunate to gain access to the chapel on one of the few overcast days.  The window was at head height, resulting in images that demonstrated no converging verticals.  The batch of photographs for this window were shot at f/8.0, using the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II and the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, at 312mm.

Although the window features just two support bars, their integration is such that I opted not to attempt to remove them – indeed, had I done so, I would have had to replace them with identically placed (but thinner) calmes in order to maintain the grid design.   Consequently, the window appears below, essentially, as it is viewed within the side chapel.

St. Edward's - Kenneth Grahame (low res)

Kenneth Grahame window (Christopher Webb, 1936) St. Edward’s School Chapel

Project Development

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St. Edward’s School Chapel

On entering the building, to the right there is a small Memorial Chapel that adjoins the bell tower and spire.  The east window therein comprises three lights dedicated to the memory of William Robert Weatherley who attended St, Edward’s School from 1922-1927 and was a Senior Prefect.  After St. Edward’s, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford.

Pembroke College Record (William Robert Weatherley) - (low res)The Pembroke College Record 1933-1934 records the dedication of the window by the Master of Pembroke College, Rev. Frederick Homes Dudden (page 9):

On 5 December 1933 the Master dedicated a window in the memorial chapel of St. Edward’s School, Oxford, to the memory of William Robert Weatherley, who was in residence from 1927 to 1930, and whose death at so early an age was a shock to the many who knew him well and appreciated his delightful personality.

The memorial window states Ob. 1930 – obijt mortem, meaning, he died 1930, at the age of just 21 years.

St. Edwards - William Weatherley (low res)

Shot at 85mm, using the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, and presented above with the actual spacing of the three lights, this window highlights a drawback of capturing such a scene in just one photograph: while the final image is an acceptable 15.8MP, each individual light is little more than 600 pixels wide – a tragically low resolution for such an impressively detailed and lavish work of art.  The colour and detail of the feathers in the angel’s wings is worthy of far more attention and warrants in itself a return visit.

Notwithstanding, the removal of fifteen support bars dramatically protracted the editing time, adding almost an hour per bar to the finished work.

St. Edwards - William Weatherley (detail)

Addendum:  Happy to have completed this work, I did a final check through the batch of images only to realise that the final skin tones were far too dark and too saturated.  With tree shadow working across the window from left to right, it has been difficult to balance the tone and colour of the angels, but I have now re-edited the skin tones to something far more in keeping with the actual window.

St. Edwards - William Weatherley - RE-EDITED(low res)

William Weatherley window (Artist unknown, 1933) St. Edward’s School Chapel

Project Development

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St. Edward’s School Chapel – update

At the time of publishing, I had only limited knowledge of the window of St. Edward’s School Chapel, but am now in the position of being able add some key facts in an update to the original post HERE.

St. Edwards - William Weatherley - RE-EDITED(low res)

Dominic Price (2018) William Weatherley Memorial Window [Christopher Well, 1933 St. Edward’s School Chapel]

The east window over the altar in the Memorial Chapel was presented by W.H. Weatherley in 1933 in memory of his son William Robert Weatherley (F, 1922-7), a former Head of School, who died at the age of 22; it was designed by Christopher Well.  Hunter, N. (2013) St. Edward’s 150 Years. London: Third Millennium