The Christmas Tree Festival in St Laurence church

I chose today to finish the exterior photos of St Laurence church for the regeneration project which Camilla is heading. I knew she would be there as she is also running the annual Christmas Tree Festival which began yesterday. I needed her to open the rear door into the old graveyard which is no longer a public space so that I could record that side of the church as well as the wonderful old oak tree in the centre of the old cemetery.

Once I’d finished outside I thought I’d wander round the tree festival and bumped into several old friends, who were acting as volunteer guides and coffee servers. I continued to use my recently acquired wide angle lens as I wanted to see how it functioned in low light conditions and implications of architectural limitations.

The church has become a centre of ‘inter faith’ rather than solely a place for Christians to worship. Now it has become a centre for community use, with music, dance, meditation, children’s groups, choir practice and at this time of year a the tree festival. Community Groups are invited to bring and decorate their trees and offer information about what their group aims to achieve. It has become more and more popular and today while I was there at lunchtime large numbers of people began to arrive as I prepared to leave.

While I wandered around the church at one point I stood in front of the altar. I had a sudden idea to try to combine two images into a panorama to see how using a wide angle lens might affect the perspectives. I’m rather impressed. I only took these two shots hand held with no particular preparations other than trying to repeat the same exposure.