Wells Cathedral, Somerset, England

[Manfred M]

A few quick shots of Wells Cathedral in Somerset, England. Not a great day for shooting; bright sunshine...


1. The west face of the cathedral






2. Ceiling and walls






3. Scissor Arch

[pschlute]

I like the last one Manfred. The organ pipes and architecture compliment each other

[DanK]

I agree with Peter. it's the most unique of the three. If you have more in the capture, I would try going a little wider. Since a good part of the visual interest is the shapes, it's a shame to crop the edges off them.

Frankly, I don't find the first interesting as an image, even though the building itself is interesting.

[pschlute]

Wells is a very interesting place, of which the cathedral only forms part, albeit a major one.

I still find it quite astonishing that today in the UK we have big issues with very recent building works, last 70 years or so..... cladding falling off, fire risks not addressed, and concrete (RAAC) that is crumbling in hospitals and schools. Yet 849 years ago, without advanced science or computer models, the architects and artisans of the day began to build a structure that was intended to last. And last it did.

[LenR]

The US Photographer, Bruce Barnbaum captured some amazing B&W images of English Cathedrals in the 1980's
See attached for some examples including Wells. I concur with Peters observations regarding the building of these magnificent cathedrals........
https://johnfordfoto.com/english-cathedrals/

[DanK]

Len,

Thanks for posting. Some of these are truly spectacular. He found ways to weave the lines of the cathedrals into remarkable compositions. Even the ones with a common viewpoint, like the second, are done in way that emphasizes lines and shapes.

Given when he did this, he may have had other reasons for using B&W, but I think even at the present it's a good choice because it removes everything but lines, textures, and tonal contrast.

Truly inspiring.

Dan

[pschlute]

Thanks for the link Len

[Manfred M]

Thanks for all of the comments. I have rather limited post-processing tools along with me and plan to clean up the images once we get back home.

I know Barnbaum's work at the English cathedrals from his book, The Art of Photography. He was fortunate enough to have the areas of the churches he was working in roped off. If I remember correctly, he shot his works using a large format field camera.

I had no such "luck" at this popular tourist site and working with all of the tour groups walking through the place limited where and how I could shoot.

Dan - I understand your comment, but have cropped a lot of my images in a way that cuts out parts that I feel are not contributing to the composition. This can be the tops of heads in portraiture, eliminating the sky in landscapes and cropping architectural elements. Some people like this approach (obviously I do) while others do not. That is a matter of taste. I feel that ensuring that the crop appears to be deliberate, rather than accidental is important to make this approach work.

In terms of the images, the reason for the first shot is just to act as an "establishing shot", to show what the cathedral looks like. The light was terrible, so a fair bit of tweaking to make it (and the third) image look decent.

[LenR]

Correct Manfred. I participated in 3 Barnbaum workshops in the late 80's and early 90's.
The making of the English Cathedral images was discussed at length. All were shot in B&W with a Linhoff Technical camera on Kodak Tri-X 4x5 sheet film. The making of the prints required no small measure of "Dodging & Burning"

[DanK]

Interesting. I would imagine using a large-format film camera or a very high-density digital camera would help considerably with large prints of those images, given the amount of texture and detail. For display on our monitors, of course, it doesn't matter.

Re cropping: of course, this is a matter of taste. I too often crop off parts of objects that I don't think contribute, and I think I once posted a snapshot of Renoir's peonies a long time ago to show that some great artists have done the same. My point was that to my taste, the crop in the second detracts. It's also not quite symmetrical; look at the edges of the open spaces. But there is no arguing over taste