Thursday Doors: Chartres Cathedral
Posted on April 13, 2017
As promised, this week we feature some of the mightily impressive doors of the great cathedral of Chartres, often said to be the most beautiful cathedral in France and certainly a high point of French Gothic architecture dating from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.
As you would expect, the principal entrances seek to impress:
As I recall, my second-ever contribution to Thursday Doors was this mouse’s-eye view of one of the main entrances:
It’s worth seeing from the inside too:
This is the entrance to the crypt:
And finally, this qualifies as a door, I think, although technically speaking it’s actually a reredos – a screen that once stood behind the high altar, but is now just propped up against a wall:
Next week we’re back to the usual diet of tatty secular doors.
Thursday Doors 13 April 2017
Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise
Posted on April 13, 2017
I was very surprised to turn around while at the annual medieval fair in the town of Rancon to see that I was being stalked by a witch. Although from her reaction I think she was rather surprised too.
Tuesdays of Texture: Not sure what it is, but it doesn’t look great…
Posted on April 11, 2017
Down by the river in Confolens there’s a dead tree stump, with this growing on it. I’m guessing it’s a fungus of some sort.
Tuesdays of Texture is hosted by Narami at De Monte Y Mar
L is for ladder
Posted on April 7, 2017
This image of a ladder with its strong shadow is a good subject for monochrome treatment. Photograph taken at Taronga Zoo, Sydney.
Thursday Doors: Chartres (1)
Posted on April 6, 2017
After last week’s detour around redundant shopfronts, we’re back on more familiar ground with the first of a few posts featuring doors from the cathedral city of Chartres. Next week I’ll focus on the cathedral itself, but for now, to maintain some sort of continuity with last week’s post, let’s start with a couple of commercial premises that are obviously still going concerns:
Shutters count, don’t they?
A couple of old doors from the same residential street in the old part of the town:
And this one is obviously a replacement of the original:
Finally for this week, the premises of an Appart’Hotel (for self-catering holidays):
Thursday Doors 6 April 2017
Weekly Photo Challenge: Security
Posted on April 6, 2017
‘Security’ is generally a serious subject, so all the more reason to allow a little levity sometimes when dealing with it.
This sign can be found outside a chandlery (and key-cutting) shop in the town of St-Junien, in the Haute-Vienne département of France.
Macro Moments: Week 35 – Pineapple
Posted on April 5, 2017
It usually comes out of a can, of course, but the surface of a fresh pineapple is fascinating when viewed in close-up.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 105mm f2.8 macro lens. 1/20 at f8 ISO4000. Cropped and edited in Lightroom.
More macro images at Susan Gutterman’s macro challenge here: Macro Moments: Week 35
Tuesdays of Texture: Sculpted Saints
Posted on April 4, 2017
Lots of texture in this detail of a selection of saints to be found at Chartres Cathedral:
More submissions to Narami’s weekly challenge can be found here
I is for iPhone
Posted on March 31, 2017
A close-up of the camera on my iPhone looks almost alien when taken out of context:
Thursday Doors: A Vendre
Posted on March 30, 2017
Something a little different this week…À vendre: For Sale.
Here in rural France there are innumerable properties, both residential and commercial, for sale. Many of these – perhaps even the majority – have been up for sale for many years. And they are, frankly, unsaleable.
When it comes to commercial properties – shops – the economic consequences of improved transport links and the spread of car ownership have left many rural communities with little more than the bare essentials available locally. In our village, for example, there is a boulangerie, a pharmacy, a ‘superette’ and – bizarrely – two hairdressers.
There are also plenty of empty shops optimistically displaying ‘À Vendre’ signs – as they have been for many years, to judge from the distinctly dated style of the shopfronts. Here are a couple of examples:
Of rather more architectural interest is this failed enterprise – hairdresser, parfumerie and purveyor of fishing supplies. Obviously, nothing worked:
Even large towns are proving incapable of supporting smaller local shops, as these two examples from Confolens illustrate:
Normal service will be resumed next week, with some reassuringly knackered doors from the cathedral city of Chartres.
Thursday Doors 29 March 2017
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