St. David's

After looking back through my posts, I find that I left out a day.  And it was a beautiful day at a wonderful venue.

On Monday, we checked out of our accommodations in Saundersfoot, Wales and we drove to the town of St. David's to see one of the oldest churches in the UK, St. David's Cathedral.

This building has over 1000 years of history.  Just imagine what can happen in 1000 years.  How many generations have come and gone, each having their turn to be stewards of the church or to turn their backs on the church.

When we arrived in the town of St. David's we followed a sign for parking, which took us down a street that was wide enough for one car but was not one-way!  And then we found that the parking lot was full.  We circled it twice and found that it was still full!  So we drove back up into town and followed signs to a parking lot a little farther away and finally found, and paid for, parking.

The town was a little like a coastal vacation town in that it had many restaurants and souvenir shops all crowded together in the most popular area, which, of course, was the street leading to the cathedral.

The weather was very changeable the day that we were there.  When we were entering the cathedral, it was raining and dark.  When we came out we found that the sun was making an appearance!

On the way into the Cathedral
the sky was cloudy and
the day was wet.

On the way out of the Cathedral
The skies were clearing
The sun was shining

A dramatic difference from the first image
And after only two hours!

As we entered the cathedral, we were privileged to hear a part of a concert given by a young lady with a beautiful voice accompanied by a young man on the piano.  Just beautiful!

I grew up in churches with just the sanctuary and some Sunday School classrooms.  But this cathedral had so many rooms.  I could only guess at their purposes.  One room was called the "quire", which, if spoken, sounds just like "choir".  I wonder if that is a coincidence?

There was so much beauty in the architecture and the "decor" (for lack of a better word).  

The ceilings were works of art!  It is hard to imagine how they could make those designs in those times and up so high!  The next two pictures show some of this beauty and intricacy.

At first I though this was tapestry.
Upon closer examination I found them to be painted on the wood ceiling panels.

This intricate ceiling is in the main tower that you can see in the exterior images.

This next image is of the Lady Chapel.  I have no idea why they call it that.  The interesting thing to me is the plastering.  Many of these old stone buildings have fairly rough, uneven stones in the walls, but by all of the windows and doors they have smoother stones, such as you can see around this window.  I assume that this view is what they looked like when they were new.

The Lady Chapel at St. David's Cathedral

Most times when Annette and I are out shooting, I finish first and stand around waiting for her to finish.  (However, she is getting quicker with her camera work.)  On this day, the cathedral really spoke to me.  I had such a sense of awe and wonder as I walked around.  This day I was the last one to finish and Annette was outside waiting for me.

So with that in the back of my mind, I was hurrying through the remainder of the cathedral and I made this image of the organ's pipes.  I have looked through my files and there is only one image.  The image before this one was of a different subject and the image after was of a different subject.  This was a quick grab-shot.  But it turned out to be one of my favorite images of the trip!

I love the newness of the organ juxtapositioned with the oldness of the building.
I love the composition.
I love the lighting and how it highlights the new organ and puts the old components in shadow.
I love the arched window on the left and the way the light fills its alcove.
I wish I would have included the point at the bottom of the picture.

What do you think?  Is it OK or should I throw it on the trash heap?

Well, that's our trip.  It was wonderful, interesting and stressful and I'm glad for the opportunity.

Norfolk, UK

After finishing up at work, Annette and I still had Friday, Saturday and Sunday to explore more of the UK.  We decided to go to the King's Lynn area in Norfolk.  So bright and early on Friday we were on the road.

We had heard that there were some interesting multi-colored cliffs along the coast, so we took A149 past King's Lynn up to Hunstanton.

We drove in to Hunstanton to get the lay of the land, but, as you may have gathered by now, I hated driving in the tiny streets of the towns, not knowing if I had the right of way or if I was supposed to be a courteous driver and let the other guy go first!  So one of the first things I looked for was a parking lot!  It seems there is no, I repeat, no free parking in all of England!  So I paid for parking in a large parking lot.

This was around lunchtime so we went into a Fish and Chips stand and ordered some...

wait for it...

Fish and chips!

They gave us a big paper plate of French Fries, which they call chips, and then they plopped a big piece of deep fried fish on top of the fries.  If you wanted a "take away" fork, they wanted 10 pence.  If you wanted a packet of Tartar Sauce,  they wanted 10 pence.   We didn't know what to do with the fish, so we just ate it with our fingers.  But, it was fresh out of the fryer and it was hot!  I hope no one was looking!  If they were, they probably thought, "Look at those uncouth Americans!"

As we walked around Hunstanton, we made our way to the beach.  At one end of the beach we could see the beginning of the cliffs.  But we didn't have our cameras with us.  What were we thinking!?!

So we went back to the car and left that parking lot to go to another parking lot on the other side of the cliffs.  And paid for some more parking!

Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the cliffs.

The first two show the difference an hour or two makes.  As we walked up the beach, the sky was dark and stormy.  As we walked back the beach, the sky had all but cleared.

I liked the stormy sky, the sunlight on the cliff and the patterns in the sand.
All of these accentuated by the direction of the sunlight.

Notice the difference in the sky and in the light on the cliff.

Any time there is a sea or ocean with a rocky shoreline, there will eventually be shipwrecks.  I felt we were very fortunate to find these remains of a ship.  I have heard that the tide and storms can cover up the remains of ships for years until another storm comes along and uncovers them!  The skeleton of the ship was steel, so I guess this was not Leaf, the Lucky's wooden sail boat!

After photographing the cliffs until there was no more sunlight, we hurried back to King's Lynn to find our hotel.  The front part of the hotel was a beautiful older building with a lot of character.  However, they had added to the hotel in an ultra-modern style.  Seemed like an interesting contrast.  Maybe they thought, "If you can't match them, try something different."

Saturday, we got up and wandered around King's Lynn.  When we started out walking, there were no people about, just the shop keepers opening up.  By the time we were ready to go back to the hotel, the sidewalks were getting full.

Notice anything familiar?

Have you ever been anywhere where you needed your tripod, but you didn't have it with you?  I have. That tripod is heavy and cumbersome and will draw strange looks from people!

But that's the situation in which I found myself for this next picture.  I wanted most of the picture in focus, which meant that I needed a small aperture, which meant a long shutter speed, especially early in the morning with a strongly overcast sky.

So what's a photographer to do?  Well, the ground is steady.  So I set my camera down on the curb and took a picture of the Customs House.  It wasn't quite straight so I tucked my camera strap under the one edge of the camera and got it straight.  I liked the way it turned out with the cobblestone in the foreground.

The Customs House

Keep Clear
I still haven't figured out the double yellow lines.

 King's Lynn had its own cathedral; a large stone building that was over 700 years old.  The front door was open so I went in.  Churches are places of worship and I always try to respect that.  In addition, I heard a couple of voices deep in the church and I did not want to disturb them, so I just took a couple of quick pictures and left.

For this picture, I used the same technique as the Customs House.  I put the camera on the floor to steady it for the picture.

We have all been involved with organizations that have been at a place where they had less money than  ideal.  

We have all been involved in organizations where one subset of the people want to do one thing and another group wants to do another.  

So the leaders of the organization have had to make choices.  Compromises have to be made.  Decisions have to be made.

This next image is an illustration of those situations.  At the beginning, the designer of the church specified a beautiful arched window.  But a lot of decisions are made over the course of 700 years.  Someone decided to cover up the window, well, most of it.  Then someone else, at another time, had to decide to replace some of the blocks.  Look at the result of these decisions.

King's Lynn Cathedral Window after 700 years

Even though the flight was at noon, we wanted to stay near the airport the night before the flight.  So we decided to drive up A149 along the coast on Saturday and then make our way to London.

One of my favorite images from this drive is the one below with the windmill and the ominous sky.

And so there you have it.  A wonderful trip to the United Kingdom.  And the best part is...We survived driving on the left without damage or injury.

Talk to you soon.