Bradford Cathedral offered an 'After Dark' session, with the interior illuminated by discreet floodlights and lots of candles. It looked beautiful and was a good chance to experience the building 'in a different light', literally. Photographically it was something of a challenge but noise elimination software these days is very good at minimising that grain you get in dim lighting conditions.
As cathedrals go it's an intimate space, having once been a parish church, but it's lovely because of that. The lighting really enhanced certain features like the wonderful fifteenth century oak ceiling in the nave. The Tudor (1536), wood font cover, elaborately carved, was shown off beautifully by red spotlighting.
How beautiful!! It is a great building in any light, but even more so with candles.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, my family and I went on a special tour of Ludwigsburg Residential Palace, a place we know very well. But this tour started at dusk, and the regular lights were not turned on. Instead, we were all given a lantern, and in some - but not all - of the rooms, lamps of the same brightness as tallow and wax candles of old were lit, to show us how dark it really was back then - only the Duke and his wife and the highest-ranking court officials had more and better candles in their rooms, everywhere else was only lit by the lanterns the sevants would carry on their way from one task to the next. For parties and balls, a fortune was spent on candles. And one servant had no other job than administrating the hand-out of tallow and wax candles, and to make sure there was enough stock for festivities, and that nothing was wasted.
Really beautiful, and somewhat casting a mood of intimacy, to me. Is that why romantic dinners are candlelit?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you had the place to yourself.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos of a beautiful cathedral.
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