Take Twelve—
Canterbury Cathedral…
This was a ridiculously difficult shot to get right. It was taken in practical darkness, with a six second exposure, about 5 yards from the site of Thomas Becket or Saint Thomas of Canterbury’s assassination.
The idea was to get a partial blur, with substance throughout the movement. The guy is supposed to represent media tourism: religious, political, print, social— and he’s a bored tourist at that. No longer believing anything he sees…
The great Cathedral space which was childhood…
Viginia Woolf
Author: DB James
It's one of the finest things we do; write about our lives, because not only do we reveal our minds through revelations our thoughts provide us—
But it gives us an incentive to be honest...
It's almost impossible not to consider the value of thoughts with the fairly steady flow of them; their rudimentary worth, relevance to our lives and the importance to the people who have them. It's easy to see how distorted a thought can become when left to constant re-examination and how faceless victim/culprit dichotomies are given grounding by a name or a hover-card. If the last few weeks has demonstrated anything, it's how something as simple as a pen-stroke can release the burden and stresses they invariably cause. I've had glimpses into how fears, confessions, pains and crises can be put right by words creating deeds by changing little parts of the world. And I shouldn't be surprised: we write about things and repeat ourselves about things that have meaning to us.
It keeps me humble...
View all posts by DB James
Just a Little Background Noise 2.0 
You are a magician! I bet this was a difficult shot! Wonderfully executed! Goosebumps! Exclamation points!
Thank you so much 😀
Well, to say it was dark is an understatement; there were a few lanterns but they didn’t really illuminate anything. there is the drip-feed of a skylight to the left, but this is about 30 feet below the surface and completely indirect, which made it difficult to focus of course.
The movement we tried to go for was a step forward, back forward – slow, quick, slow, in the opposite direct to the body, which was more deliberate turn – that’s right, bad language in a cathedral 😮
I almost quit at one point; I was practically on the floor, about 4 inches from the stone with a tripod – it was a case of being nearly almost everytime… but I loved this one.
i’m glad you didn’t quit, i love this shot
Thank you, glad you like it – I’m glad too, I really didn’t think it was going to come off though!
I did not realise you participated in the Weekly Photo Challenges…I had a (recently canned) blog in which I too participated but got bored with the challenges and the lack of followers. Likes were great but no followers. (Can’t say I blame them :P) So maybe here, I too can throw the odd interpretation in. I echo your commenters’ comments on your interpretation – GREAT shot, truly eerie! Beautiful too, the colours, the arches and the wisps of ethereal blue…
I wouldn’t normally do something like this, it kind of messes with my aesthetic – but when ‘eerie’ came up, I thought of this shot and the right royal pain in the behind it was. 😀 Thank you !!
that is interesting 🙂
Thank you very much.
This photo is very fitting for the challenge – definitely eerie but also very incredible 🙂
Thank you very much, that’s really lovely. It’s nice when things all come together, eventually