TOUCHSTONES

March, 2005

When I was invited to speak at the May 2002 Royal Photographic Society meetings in Edinburgh, we decided to make use of the opportunity for a family vacation. Not sure we would ever have the chance to get to Scotland again, Donna requested we go to Orkney to visit the Neolithic sites at Skara Brae. Little did we know the door we were opening when we headed north to Orkney. The island became a siren’s call for me and each time I return I am drawn back to places I previously photographed, still trying to distill the essence into that one frame. St. Magnus Cathedral is one of these places.

On our first trip to Scotland I brought both my Deardorff 5 x 7 and a borrowed Korona 5 x 12. I had only one lens for the 5 x 12, a 300 mm f9 Nikkor normal lens, so my options for its use were limited. In addition, trying to combine family time with good photographic work was challenging, to say the least. The afternoon this first image of the arches was made was serendipitous. I had the 5 x 12 with me and was hoping to actually use it. The boys wanted ice cream. We had come to St. Magnus Cathedral and decided to divide and conquer. Donna got the boys; I got the opportunity to make an image.

St. Magnus is a beautiful Romanesque Viking era cathedral. It is still in use by the Church of Scotland but under the protection of Historic Scotland and open to visitors. After spending a few minutes looking around inside I decided to make an image of the architectural detail along one of the sidewalls. I don’t know enough about structural architecture to know if the stone arches serve any purpose other than as a design element but I was interested in the design and sense of weight they added to the building.

After setting up my camera and figuring out the metering I began to make my exposure. Only then did I realize that it was 3:45 p.m. and the cathedral closed at 4. My exposure was calculated to be at least 20 minutes to include reciprocity failure. Thanks to the kindness, generosity, and interest of the site supervisor I was able to stay until about 4:15 to complete the exposure and pack up my equipment. The Historic Scotland warden was interested in my “old” camera and curious about what I was taking a picture so when the exposure was finished I showed him what was on the ground glass and how the camera worked. .

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Upon returning to Maine and processing the film, I had several strong images from Orkney. I used the first image of the arches for my next business card/bookmark. On the left end of the image carved in stone is the word “Gentleman” and on the right is a small plaque describing the adjacent tombstone. Neither bothered me. I recognized them for what they were and knew they fit into the composition. However, after looking at this image for a year the carving began to bother me. As I made more prints from Scotland this one drifted down through the stack of favorites, and I wasn’t sure why. Finally a friend made a statement that struck home. He said, “Boy those Scots are classy, they even carve their restroom signs in stone”. In actuality it is not the sign for the rest room, but is part of a carved tombstone where the engraving goes across the top and then down the sides. “Gentleman” happened to be the word that started down the side. However, the light went on – the word was drawing attention away from the arches.

I shot the ‘Gentleman” image in 2002, I returned to Orkney in 2003 and didn’t reshoot the image because I hadn’t figured out why it had lost its resonance. By 2004 when I returned for the third time, I understood why it wasn’t working and reshot a similar image on the other side of the cathedral. This set of arches had no tombstones or words. The two images are included here for comparison.