Up in the Gods

Shining a light on the mysteries of Peterborough Cathedral

By Paul Clarke Photography

April 14^th, 2021

I have had some unusual commissions. Prince George's Official High Chair (though sadly without the young princeling actually in it). A tank rolling through the streets of Camden while the founders of Brewdog threw cans of beer from the top of it to adoring crowds. And, courtesy of Dr Jonathan Foyle, the details of the ceilings of Peterborough Cathedral.

I'm not going to attempt to describe what these images and symbols represent: you can look Jonathan up to find out more about the great talks he gives and the books he writes about cathedrals. He's very much an expert in their history and significance, as well as being a thoroughly lovely man.

But it's interesting to look at some of the photos here a little more closely, with some notes on how they were taken.

One of the most obvious points to make is that these ceilings are not only very high up, but they're also pretty dark. 80 feet (25 metres) is a long way, when you're talking about features of this size. Jonathan was very keen to get clear, sharp images – not only to be great illustrations for his work, but also so that precise details might be revealed, shedding better light on the interpretation of the imagery.

And there is, to be blunt, some pretty strange imagery up there. Musical instruments, evangelists and kings, and some stranger, darker stuff. A few of my favourites here:

So how do you get an image this sharp of something so small, dark and far away? You could work with a tripod – once that's positioned properly, darkness becomes fairly irrelevant, as you can just take a very long exposure to catch enough light. But setting one up for every shot would have taken AGES, moving and repositioning for every detail. So I took a simpler approach.

I mean, you do want to be in and out of a job quickly when you're confronted with things like a monkey lecturing an owl, while riding backwards on a speeding goat... (No, I have no idea.)

Although I used a fairly ordinary 24-105mm zoom lens for the wider shots, I wheeled out the big gun for the details. The truly monstrous Canon 200-400 f/4 L. Lenses with this sort of distance ability are generally "prime lenses": a single focal length. But this beast zooms, and also has a built-in magnifier to give it a maximum length of 560mm at an aperture of f/5.6. (I am laughing in that photo – courtesy of Rob Carter – because I've just remembered how much it cost.)

And it is very, very sharp. But to use it hand-held and not have everything blurred by my shaking hands does mean adding some light. Enter the 5000 lumen torch. This was pointed at the relevant part, shot taken (several, to be sure one was perfectly sharp) and job done.

Neck still hurt for a week afterwards though.

Being a perfectionist, I wasn't going to let a little helium balloon get in the way. (You did spot it, didn't you?) Some careful editing later, and it's airbrushed from history.

There's no real magic to it – you just need to find something similar elsewhere, and carefully copy and borrow from it to make what you need.

Come to think of it, that applies to a lot more than photo editing.

The other main editing note applies to all work with an architectural component. You line up the camera as carefully as possible, but the geometry still needs a bit of a tweak in post-production – to ensure verticals are vertical, lines that should be parallel actually are, and to iron out some of the inevitable distortions that you get through even the best glass.