Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 24mm, 1/350 sec, f/13, ISO 500.
My last day photographing in Yorkshire was spent at Fountains Abbey, founded by Benedictine monks in the year 1132 and closed in 1539 by Henry VIII (along with all other monasteries in the country). It’s clearly worse for the wear after nearly 500 years, but spectacular, and well worth a lot more time than I was able to give it.
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 28mm, 1/250 sec, f/11, ISO 500.
There are a lot of fun archways and windows throughout the complex. This next image is a rather obvious composition, but the symmetry is satisfying nonetheless. The crumbling stonework below the window adds some depth to the narrative, and lifting the shadows inside the building adds some depth to the perspective. The sun was in and out of the clouds that day; I think this image would have been better without the direct sun, but in a place like this I don’t usually wait long for the light to change because if I wait in one place I am just as likely to miss another spot that is better the way it is now. Unless a composition is truly compelling, I usually feel like I may as well just keep moving and see what strikes my fancy. Landscapes—especially “grand” landscapes—are a different animal, because it is usually weather and light that makes them special and if you don’t like something you pretty much have to wait for things to change. With things like architecture, if you don’t like the direct sun on a wall, turn around and look across the street where the other wall will be in shadow. One’s lack of omnipresence is a continual challenge in photography, and forces you to decide whether to keep working a scene or to move on. In towns and cities (and old monasteries) where there are so many compositions near at hand, I tend to move on relatively quickly.
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 47mm, 1/250 sec, f/11, ISO 500.
The weather has taken its toll on this next section of the structure. Most of the stonework was not eroding in this manner, so clearly the stone was not the same type throughout the structure. The reds and yellows seem out of place here, and remind me of colors from Arizona.
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 120mm, 1/250 sec, f/11, ISO 500.
The abbey’s cellarium, below, is a magnificent space with beautiful arches. The stonework is thinly covered in moss now, but I assume that it was once a drier space when it wasn’t missing windows and doors. I really like this image, but I have to admit that it is an obvious one and even though I had never seen a picture of this place previously, it is easy enough to find almost identical images online. So, even though I like it, part of me feels like I shouldn’t. But the image is mine regardless, and I am happy to be able to share it.
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 24mm, 1/6 sec, f/11, ISO 500.
This final image is a different view of the cellarium and is at least a little less obvious than the previous composition. I was travelling light as I explored the abbey, having left my tripod, tilt-shifts, and fisheye in the car. I was pretty happy that a handheld image at 1/6 sec and ISO 1600 could turn out so well, but I am sure that a more leisurely visit with my usual tinker’s-wagon of gear would yield some more unique compositions.
Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 24mm, 1/6 sec, f/11, ISO 1600.
Thank you so much for following along. This post covered the last day of my Yorkshire trip, but I will have one more post next week to share some stray images that didn’t fit in the other posts. I hope you’ll come see them, too.
4 responses to “Fountains Abbey”
Picking up on: even though I had never seen a picture of this place previously, it is easy enough to find almost identical images online. So, even though I like it, part of me feels like I shouldn’t. But the image is mine regardless, and I am happy to be able to share it.
Here is TS Eliot … well, my version of his insights:
… our tendency to insist, when we praise a photographer, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else.
We dwell with satisfaction upon the photographer’s difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors.
Whereas if we approach a photographer without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead photographers, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.
Great work. Fountains Abbey is as special as you show it to be.
Thank you, Rob. I don’t think TS Eliot has been mentioned on my website before! (Maybe you can send me a link to quote that you adapted…) Hanging above my fireplace is my rendition of Festhelltinden mountain in Lofoten, Norway, taken from part-way up the same bridge that every other photographer who has ever been to Lofoten has used to get their version of that scene. But I love it nonetheless and, next time I am there, if the lighting & weather are at all interesting, I will be standing on that same bridge to give it another go. It’s a special place, and I don’t really care if I wasn’t the first—or only—photographer to be there. I will say, though, that being an outdoor scene, there is infinite variation to the lighting and weather; in the case of the Fountains Abbey Cellarium, there is very little variation: if it is overcast, the lighting is almost identical coming in the windows and doorways. So any variation really needs to come from the composition, and I have to admit that I didn’t work very hard to find something that wasn’t pretty obvious.
Eliot, T.S., 1972 [1919]. Tradition and the Individual Talent. In Eliot, T.S., ed. Selected Essays, 1917–1932. London: Faber and Faber Limited. p. 13 – 22.
Not sure if you can get it on the internet, though.
Looks like I might need to add a bibliography page to my website. That’s…unexpected.