Objective
The objective was to produce a panel of images of stained-glass church windows in Rushcliffe and the Vale of Belvoir.
The intention was to show how the light enhanced the beauty of the glass, and, for this reason, the photographs were taken during the day.
The churches listed in the Pevsner Architectural Guide to Nottinghamshire and the Southwell and Nottinghamshire Church History Project were used to identify which ones had coloured glass windows to photograph.
https://southwellchurches.nottingham.ac.uk/_main/hindex.php.
In some instances, requests had to be made to church wardens to gain access because some were only open at certain times of the day/week or month.
Once all the images had been taken and viewed it was clear that a lot of consideration had to be given to how the images were to be processed and presented.
The approach to image selection, editing & mounting for presentation: -

  • Each 500 mm wide x 400 mm high mount board to have two A4-size prints.
  • Prints in ‘portrait’ mode.
  • A4 prints to be set into apertures slightly smaller than A4 to ensure mounts overlap the edges of the prints.
  • Mount boards to be black with white core.
  • All windows to be ‘square on’ with parallel sides.
  • Stonework/masonry to be removed & replaced with solid black colour: Only the glass and tracery to be retained.
  • Images to be arranged in the mounts so that the final panel has reasonable symmetry and colour balance.
  • Images to be arranged so that the bottom of the windows align through across the panel.
  • The same with the tops of the windows.

The Panel: Setting-out
The exhibition wall at Bingham Library allows for a panel of two rows of ‘landscape’ 500 mm x 400 mm mount boards.
To create the desired effect, and to give us the opportunity of having a good number of individual church windows displayed, it was decided to have two individual prints set into each 500 mm x 400 mm mount.

Because of the different shapes and aspect ratios of the individual church windows, careful consideration had to be given to how the windows could best be displayed to create a balanced and symmetrical panel in terms of window shape. A balance of window colour across the panel was also required.
The desire to include photographs from as many of the participating photographers as possible was also achieved.

Having settled on the arrangement with two rows of mounts, each with two portrait format ‘apertures’, we had to decide on what size the apertures should be.
It was decided that the images (after any necessary editing) would be printed onto A4-size (297 mm x 210 mm) glossy paper with no borders.
Apertures in the mount board to be cut slightly smaller than A4 to allow the mount to overlap 5mm onto the edges of each print.

Over 80 individual church windows were photographed with the 20 individual images selected for display shown here.
Click on an image to enlarge.