A Flickrmeet

On Monday David took the day off and we met up with the Oxfordshire Churches group from Flickr for another day of church photography. It was so nerdy but still good fun. The big advantage of going with the group is that they call the churches ahead of time and make sure they will be unlocked. And it was nice to meet some new people. Here's the little group at our break for lunch in a pub:



Far left is Allan, who is from York, has a PhD in Art History, and going to be ordained a minister in the Church of England in about a year. Next is Martin, who is the administrator of the Flickr group. He does drawings of churches as well as photos and his day job is in social work.

Across the table is Eric Hardy, a delightful 80-year-old who has excellent eyebrows and more energy than the rest of us. Next to him is his wife of 53 years, Anthea, whose face I've sadly cut off. Eric and Anthea also collect Buddhist sculpture and their son is writing a book on Hindu temples. They were all very nice and interesting to talk to.

The downsides to the day were that the churches were pretty far away, the weather was terrible, and the three churches they chose weren't super interesting to us (no old murals or carvings). But we still got some nice photos and David finally got an opportunity to try out his wide-angle lens with a tripod. Here are some pics I snapped of the artistes in action:




And here's a brief look at the three churches.

1. Church of St. Peter & Paul in Shiplake

The main attraction of this church is its stained glass windows, which are from an abbey in France that were rescued during the destruction of the French Revolution. There was also one carved capital - the human face in the right photo is Richard, Earl of Cornwall, the guy who founded Hailes Abbey.





2. St. Nicholas Church in Rotherfield Greys

The main attraction of this one is the Knollys Monument, a tomb of a noble family from the 16th century. The wife was the cousin and Lady-in-Waiting of Queen Elizabeth I. They had seven sons and seven daughters, which made for a nicely symmetrical monument.




3. St Margaret's Church in Harpsden

This one just happened to be located near the others so they chose it as a third one. It had a nice interior, some brass memorials and some pretty tombstones.





Phew, now I'm caught up on blogging the present! Hopefully soon I can return to Spain and Morocco (which David is going to help me with!). I'm also on track to finish the final version of my dissertation today! Very exciting. The rest of the week will then be spent on finalizing my three smaller essays, and I hope to turn in all the papers on Monday or Tuesday.