Critique Welcomed Aspects of St. Alfege

[Peter Roberts]

Wanting to finally finish the last few frames of a film that's taken me three months to get through I used them do some reconnaissance for a project I have in mind. The parish church of Greenwich, St Alfege, will feature in it.

Along the side of the church is St. Alfege Passage which features a fine terrace of Georgian houses.



There were originally two churchyards. Both were cleared in mid Victorian times when town centre churchyards were becoming overcrowded and unhealthy. St. Alfege Passage leads to the second of these which was cleared and laid out as a public space in 1850. Unsuprisingly this is named St. Alfege Park. Look closely in the undergrowth around the walls and gravestones can still be found where they were stacked all that time ago.



Finally the church itself. Rebuilt 1712-1714 after the original medieval church collapsed during a storm St. Alfege, like St. Pauls, suffered from incendiary bombs during WW2 but survived.


All: Minolta SRT 101b / Rokkor 28mm f3.5 / Yellow filter / FP4+ / Rodinal

 

[Ralph Turner]

Great stuff! The light particularly pretty in the first and last frames. Hope all goes well with your project.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

From what I understand, it seems to me an excellent project to rediscover the remnants of past periods that have - at least partially - survived the times. Definitely interesting. I am unable to provide a true critique, as requested, but to me the photos seem very well taken, expressive, meaningful. The first one in particular has a cut and light (and a human) that does not go unnoticed. Perhaps, for me, the contrast is a bit exaggerated and a few more details (again: for me) would not have hurt.

 

[Peter Roberts]

Great stuff! The light particularly pretty in the first and last frames. Hope all goes well with your project.

Thanks Ralph.
Like most of my projects I'll probably find it difficult to bring to a satisfactory conclusion. But it does no harm to have a goal in mind.

 

[Peter Roberts]

The first one in particular has a cut and light (and a human) that does not go unnoticed. Perhaps, for me, the contrast is a bit exaggerated and a few more details (again: for me) would not have hurt.

Thanks for commenting Gianluca, it's appreciated.
Those are my thoughts exactly. Human interest is necessary, particularly with a longish shadow in this case, but it needs to be a bit nearer to the camera I think. I'll have to work on that to get it right. Those sort of contre jour shots are usually a compromise between shadow and detail.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

but it needs to be a bit nearer to the camera I think

The distance is more than OK in this case, in my opinion.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

I really like the first two shots! What's the timeline on your project? Will we see it here?

 

[Peter Roberts]

Thanks, Gary.
In view Gianluca's comment regarding the first I revisted that image. I rather suspect that some detail has been lost by reducing it to post here so I'm pleased you liked it.
Timeline for the project? Now that the wonderful autumnal light is upon us I estimate a couple of months at the most. The project is pretty self-contained so hopefully there's no room for getting endlessly carried away expanding it. I'm thinking it'll be about ten images with a linking narrative so I'll probably submit it to Hamish. Thanks for your interest.