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Well I've been lockin' myself up in my house for sometime now
Readin' and writin' and readin' and thinkin'
and searching for reasons and missing the seasons.
The Autumn, the Spring, the Summer, the snow.
The record will stop and the record will go.
Latches latched, the windows down,
the dog coming in and the dog going out.
Up with caffeine and down with a shot.
Constantly worried about what I've got.
Distracting my work but I can't make a stop
and my confidence on and my confidence off.
And I sink to the bottom and rise to the top
and I think to myself that I do this a lot.
World outside just goes it goes it goes it goes it goes it goes...
and witness it all from the blinds of my window.
-Avett Brothers -- "Talk on Indolence"
confident mature businessman - Confident mature businessman against white background, Model: Dan Sanderson MUA: Thao Nguyen, Clothing Stylist: Tanya Rudolpho. To Download this image without watermarks for Free, visit: www.sourcepics.com/free-stock-photography/24718661-confid...
Confident, simple sensible salon solutions, is an online retailer in the hair and beauty market. From an extensive sales showroom and an online store open 24 hours a day the company provides access to a range of exclusive hair & beauty products including a sizeable amount of organic and natural solutions.
Scan of a photo of Mom and Dad seeing Krista stride off somewhere down the front walk. Taken in Detroit (I think) in 1966 or 1967.
Lesson No.2, Trooper - The more serious, confident you look. You have already got half the battle won.
Confident, simple sensible salon solutions, is an online retailer in the hair and beauty market. From an extensive sales showroom and an online store open 24 hours a day the company provides access to a range of exclusive hair & beauty products including a sizeable amount of organic and natural solutions.
We all wear a mask. Part of self-discovery and moving forward confidently is removing yiur mask. "Go confidently in the direction of yiur dreams" (Ghandi)
Last autumn, we felt confident enough to start arranging things in the new year. One of these was a show by Chinese acrobats that Jools wanted to see. She got Jen, Sylv and a friend to go. And yesterday was the day of the show. I made it clear it wasn't for me, but I would go up to rephotograph some City churches and we would meet up afterwards for a meal before coming home.
When we arrange things, we don't know what slings and arrows fate might throw at us. In Tuesday's case, it was a Tube drivers strike, and no last minute talks fixed that. I could arrange my trip to avoind using public transport other than the train up and back home, which were unaffected. Jools thought they would be OK, as their tickets were for the Odeon, which she thought was in Leicester Square, but it turned out was the old Hammersmith Apollo. Now, usually this would not have been a problem, but on Tuesday it was.
They arranged to leave an hour earlier than planned and try to get a taxi, which they did after waiting in line for an hour, getting to the theatre just half an hour before showtime, leaving them only time to get a snack.
Their journey up was done outside rush hour, the show ened at five, and they had to get back to St Pancras. Which would prove to be an adventure.
For me, however, it was a walk in the park. And to add to the pleasure of the day, I would meet up with my good friend, Simon, owner of the Churches of East Anglia website, just about every word and picture done by his own hand. His website also covers the City of LOndon churches, so I asked if he wanted to meet up; he did, so a plan was hatched to meet and visit a few churches, one of which, King Edmund, he had not been inside. He wouldn't arrive until jsut after ten to get the offpeak ticket prices, I would get up early as a couple of the churches would be open before nine.
A plan was made, and I had a list of chuches and a rough order in which to visit them.
The alarm went off at five, and we were both up. I having a coffee after getting dressed and Jools was to drop me off at the station, and as we drove in the heavy fog that had settled, I realised there was a direct train to Cannon Street just after seven, could I make it to avoid a half hour layover at Ashford?
Yes I could.
Jools dropped me off outside Priory station, I went in and got my ticket, and was on the train settled into a forward facing seat with three whole minutes to spare.
The train rattled it's way out of the station and through the tunnel under Western Heights, outside it was still dark. So I put my mask on and rested my eyes as we went through Folkestone to Ashford, an towards Pluckley, Headcorn, Marden to Tonbridge, Sevenoaks and so onto south east London. The train filled up slowly, until we got to Tonbridge which left few seats remaining, and at Sevenoaks, it was standing room only, but by then its a twenty minute run to London Bridge.
After leaving London Bridge station, the train took the sharp turn above Borough Market and over the river into Cannon Street. I was in no hurry, so enoyed the peace and space of an empty carriage before making my way off the train then along the platform and out onto the street in front. A heavy drizzle was falling, so I decided to get some breakfast and another coffee. Just up Walbrook there was an independent sandwich place, so I went in and asked what I wanted: faced with dozens of choices, all made to order, I had no idea.
I decided on a simple sausage sandwich and a coffee and watched people hurrying to work outside. I had all the time I wanted.
I check my phone and find that opening times were a little different, but St Mary Aldermary was open from half eight, so I check the directions and head there.
It was open, mainly because there is a small cafe inside. I ask if I could go in, they say yes, so I snap it well with the 50mm lens fitted, and decide that something sweet was called for. They recommended the carrot cake, so I had a slice of that and a pot of breakfast tea sitting and admiring the details of the church. Once I had finished, I put on the wide angle lens and finished the job.
Just up the lane outside was St Mary-le-Bow, which should also be open.
It was. Also because they had a cafe. I skipped another brew, and photographed that too, and saw that the crypt was open too, so went down the steps to that. Simon tells me that the church got it's name because of the brick arched crypt: bowed roof.
A five minute walk past The Bank of England was St Mary Woolnorth and St Mary Abchurch: both open, and both recorded by my camera and keen eye.
It was now near to ten, so I texted Simon to let him know to meet me at St Edmund, and I set off in the wrong direction. I only realised this when I was the other side of The Bank, so checked my map and retraced my steps and went down Lombard Street.
The rain was still falling gently, and I was damp, so found shelter under a balcony, as the church was not unlocked. The smell of tale piss rose from the pavement, it wasn't pleasant.
Simon arrived, we shook hands and reviewed the plans, and with it being nearly half ten, thought we would give Stephen Walbrook another go. And wonder of wonders, it was open! The church has been reordered, which isn't to everyone's taste, but the doughnut in the centre can be removed if needed, and Wren's church is still there, including the wonderful painted ceiling.
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It's always a bit of a surprise to find that in so many of the City churches you can spend half an hour or so and be on your own. This isn't true of St Stephen Walbrook, which is something of a mecca for all sorts of interests. The unprepossessing exterior belies what many consider to be Wren's most fiendishly clever interior, and then there is the added controversy of what has happened to it since.
An 11th Century foundation, though rebuilt in the 15th Century on a slightly different site on the other side of the Walbrook. Destroyed in the Great Fire, the Wren workshop rebuilt it 1672-80. Unlike the jolly churchwardens at St Nicholas Cole Abbey, who entertained Wren with dinners and drinks to make their church a priority, the churchwardens here demanded Wren's best work, and rewarded him handsomely with the promise of a personal gift of twenty guineas in a silk purse. That's about five thousand pounds in today's money - not much to a rich man like Wren, perhaps, but it was on top of what he earned for the work, and in any case it seems to have done the trick.
Wayland Young notes that the church is admired by foreigners for a logic rare in English architecture, and by Londoners for the quaintness of a building so dull outside having such lightness and beauty within. The proportions are exquisitely correct, music in stone, with a long view down to the east for all the fact that this is a series of intersecting cubes. Wren's pews were removed in the 19th Century, which only added to the mathematical delight. Many of the craftsmen here would also work on Wren's St Paul's Cathedral.
These days the exterior is rather more exposed than it ever has been since Wren's day. Shops clustered around it, and the main entrance at the west faced into a narrow passage. Now, a vast building site stretches to the west of the church, soon to be filled by some glass and concrete lump, no doubt. The old setting must have accentuated the surprise on entering, to find it so full of rational light. In Wren's day, people must have come in here and thought they were seeing the future.
But the future has caught up with St Stephen Walbrook. Blast damage from the Blitz was repaired, and glass by the great Keith New was installed in the early 1960s. But the church was suffering subsidence, and by the 1970s it was in danger of collapse. So came the controversial reordering under the hands of Lord Palumbo. The church was cleared of all clutter, the 19th Century mosaic floor was removed (indeed, the floor of the church was completely rebuilt), Keith New's glass was sent into exile at Norwich Cathedral, and instead of the previous long vista from the west towards the reredos, a huge central altar, the work of Henry Moore, was plonked down under the dome. It looks pleasingly like a vast, ripe Camembert cheese. But of course this completely changes Wren's intended perspective, hence the controversy. There is no doubting the quality of Moore's altar - it is, after all, what many people come to see - or the quality of the restoration as a whole.But perhaps these disagreements are good things, because they show how much buildings like this still really matter to people in the early decades of the 21st Century.
St Stephen Walbrook has a good collection of memorials from the late 17th Century onwards, many of which you can see below. The best is probably that to John Lilburne, Citizen and Grocer, who died in 1678. His Latin inscription tells us that he was of the ancient family of Lilburne in Sunderland in the Diocese of Durham, and that by his wife Isabel his eldest son was George, hoc posuit monumentum, who 'placed this memorial'. John and Isabel stand either side of the inscription in the fashionable clothes of the time, while up above a skeleton dances with a buxom woman behind a garland held by two cherubs. A memorable memorial.
This church will be known by many people as the birthplace of the Samaritans, the charity set up to provide emotional support to anyone struggling to cope, or at risk of suicide. Chad Varah, the vicar of St Stephen Walbrook, had been profoundly moved when taking the funeral of a 14 year old girl who had killed herself in his previous parish, and after moving here in 1953 he dedicated a telephone line in his study that would be open to anyone who wanted to talk. The number, Mansion House 9000, soon became widely known, and within ten years there were branches of the Samaritans all over England. The name was not chosen by Varah, but rather became common usage after a newspaper headline about the service refered to it as such. The telephone that provided the original service is on display inside the church.
Simon Knott, March 2022
For all you blondes who have been asking, we now have a group in-world, . Brilliant Blondes, search and IM any blonde to join, if you like, show us your brains and beauty!
When I got to the beach, I was at first very worried about what other people were noticing about me and wore a swimsuit cover unless I was taking pics. But after a while I noticed people either didn't care or liked me so I walked up and down the beach in my bikini just like any other woman.
"Are any of us so different from this tree -- strong, full, with a life almost unnoticed? And who among us does not grow and prosper when someone shines even the smallest bit of sunlight upon us? What more do I need to know of God and faith?... If I cannot see the face of God in a flower or a shaft of light, why should I expect to see it in ideas and books?" - a Jesuit priest
"Like a grain of fire, God plants His undivided power, buries His thought too vast for worlds, in seed and root and blade and flower..." - Thomas Merton
The men in the community of Nirona seemed to hold the magic of color creativity in their hands while the sharp, confident women exuded it through their chunky jewelry and intensely embroidered costumes.
Lacquer Art, Nirona Village
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Seen parked on Chamber street in Edinburgh Chenery Travel J888RWC a Setra S315HD C49FT. Photo taken 15/08/15
Last night was was the birthday celebration of a good friend of mine, and as per usual, I asked the host for a quick portrait.
She has an awesome wall paper that I thought would be great for a backdrop, and went with a one light set up.
I chose the umbrella instead of a softbox so I could light the background a little as well as being easy to set up..
A great night with many laughs.. Happy Birthday Steve.. (no, this isn't Steve..)
Strobist info:
YN560 @ 1/32 through umbrella camera right.
Triggered with CTR-301p's
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