A few weeks ago, I visited Sherborne Abbey with some friends who were singing with the choir In Ecclesia Exon. While they rehearsed, I photographed the beautiful building and some of its contents. I’ve photographed cathedrals and abbeys many times before but on this occasion I was trying to find something a bit different from my usual.
It was a hot day but the inside of the abbey was cool and refreshing. I decided that a subtle blue tone on these photographs would reflect the coolness of the stone as it felt to me at the time. Not so long ago I wrote about testing photographic toners to see what they do. These images are scanned from black & white negatives and toned digitally, although now I’ve seen that I like the blue tone I will make some blue prints the old fashioned way.
All of these pictures were shot with a Canon T90 on Ilford Delta 3200 film. I tend to like wide lenses when shooting in churches and these photos were taken with a Canon FD 17mm f/4 and a Canon FD 50mm f/1.4. Other photos on the roll were taken with a Canon FD 24mm f/2.8 but they didn’t make the cut.
Jonathan Gazeley 