Gables, Clouds and Rainy Skies - Photographic Friday

Another instalment of 'Photographic Friday'. I haven't done these in a while, especially since I established my architectural photography blog on Tumblr - ::Architecturally Gothic::. If you like my photography work, I recommend looking at that. I'd like to get a few more followers, too! I've watermarked all of my architectural photography with that blog now - if it's going on Tumblr, it needs to be watermarked so attribution doesn't get lost if people reblog without source. 

Anyway, this is a set of photographs from over a week ago. I actually made myself ill by going out and photographing this set - or rather significantly accelerated the progress of a cold straight into the worst parts. I've ended up missing college and not really doing much for over a week, and I'm worried I will get behind. 

Columba hotel, named after the Saint. Dramatic skies. Photo by me.

This is one of a whole heap of photographs I took of Inverness for a university project, and the only day I had to go in take photographs happened to be one of frequent torrential downpours, and I got soaked (despite my umbrella and coat) and the following day felt like death, and have spent most of the following week ill in bed with some sort of bad cold, perhaps the flu. 

At least the Scottish Baronial gables are pretty. Note the stepped gables - these are called 'corbie-steps' or 'corble-steps' from the Scots word for crow; "corbie", or just 'crow-steps'. At some point I'm going to have to take a picture of some crows perched on them - there are enough crows about the place, but the seagulls keep chasing them off. 

Close up of Columba Hotel sign and gables and dormer. 

In a break from the rain the clouds were really rather snazzy. Again, the gables of the Columba Hotel (and a cute wee dormer window). Scottish Baronial architecture dominates Ness Walk, with the all narrow windows, many gables (and roof goes up to the wall and stops, instead of overhangs past it. This is very common with Scottish roofs. There's often a sort of hidden lead gutter called a raggle, behind the wall, otherwise water would get in.) These photos are for a college project. I’m doing an analysis of the current architectural context for a site, so I pretty much photographed the entire area around it…

Gables all in a row. Photograph by the HouseCat

Another photograph from Ness Walk. Many of Ness Walk’s gables all in a row, against the clearing clouds. It did rain again after that, but at least the weather was dry for a moment. The old parts of Inverness are beautiful and full of character - it’s a shame they demolished so much of it between the 1950′s and ‘70s and replaced a lot of it with ugly box buildings. A lot of Inverness’ older districts make me think of a scaled-down Edinburgh. There's even a prominent city-centre castle on a hill!

Gothic windows. Photograph by the HouseCat 

Gothic Revival apartments/offices/accommodation (I can’t remember which portions of this building are what), opposite the Cathedral, in Inverness. I took this photo because of the Gothic Revival details on an otherwise very Scottish Baronial building - bridging the Scottish Baronial style of most of Ness Walk (and the Castle across the river) and the Gothic Revival style of the (perpetually unfinished) cathedral.

Here's another combination of Gothic Revival and Scottish Baronial. I think the two columns either side of the gable might be chimney-pots, either that or they are purely decorative - I'm not actually sure! The blind round 'window' in the centre is a cinquefoil Gothic tracery, and the tops of the windows have been pointed to Gothic arches, but still retain the overall 'vertical rectangle' feel of Scottish Baronial windows. The crow-steps are capped wit fancy stone, but are still very much crow-steps. It's a well executed hybridisation of what in this case are two medieval-revival styles. I think this particular building is either offices or a hotel. 

Hopefully these pictures have been enjoyable. I think my architectural photography is certainly improving, and I really must update my Tumblr with more photography. 

Columns, Sunsets and Skies (and no zombies)

I haven't died! I haven't been abducted by aliens! I haven't been turned into a zombie! Don't panic!

I have not been posting much recently because I have been really busy with my professional art and even busier at work - especially in my new role as choir mistress, as we now have Christmas celebrations coming up and I am running them through traditional carols. Running a choir is a LOT of hard work! 

I had so much Hallowe'en-related stuff to post that I never got around to that I have decided to schedule it all for next Hallowe'en instead. I made very easy folded paper leaves (they are so simple that they don't count as origami!), made several designs of paper-craft cards, made my own Halloween wrapping paper, designed the pumpkin (which features a portrait of my cat), dressed up in two different costumes (including turning up at work dressed as a pirate for not one but two Hallowe'en parties I helped at), done my own fancy make-up, and decorated the house for the occasion. I was also going to write about Samhain, which is what I actually celebrate... Expect all that next year instead. 

I also have excellent news - I am now an aunty! My little sister gave birth to a baby girl last week. She's really cute in all the photographs, but I haven't been able to travel to England to see her in person yet. I am very excited to be someone's mad aunt :-3

I also have the grumpy news that I have a stinking cold/possibly the flu and am hiding in bed where my anger at being ill can't be taken out on anybody too much, although I am driving poor Raven up the wall. I might as well do something useful, and post something that people will appreciate, and I intended to put these up last night, but they're going up here today instead. 

Architectural Photography

I went out a couple of weeks ago and took these pictures. I really liked the light late in the afternoon. The nights are drawing in early, and it starts getting dark at around 15:30hrs, and even before then the light is already dimming, and it gets light quite late, too. Soon the days will be very short indeed.

Anyway, as you can see I have been out enjoying the autumn evenings. I love taking photographs in the evenings, as the shadows really bring out the various planes of the buildings. Buildings are often made up of lots of flat planes, especially modern buildings that focus more on form than ornament for visual interest, so they can look flat and dull, more like a pattern than a three dimensional structure. I have no idea what this building is called or who designed it, but it is overlooking the main street towards the bridge and is fairly recent. I saw the sun gleaming off the balcony railings and just had to take a photograph of this moment before the sun shifted and the gleam went. The sky was blue with perfect fluffy clouds. 

This used to be the Inverness branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland but is now The Caledonian, a Smith & Jones pub (Raven went there for part of a night out partying for Hallowe'en, it's apparently quite nice.). The building in the foreground is the Town House, which I have featured before in ::this:: post. Unlike most Invernesian buildings of that period, it is Neoclassical rather than medieval inspired Gothic Revival or Scottish Baronial. There are other Neoclassical buildings in the city (notably chapels) but in general pointed arches prevail over fluted columns. Of course, Neoclassical has been a preferred style for banks seeking a style that embodies balance and order, unlike the fancy and fantasy and spiritual (church) connotations of Gothic Revival architecture. Famous banks built in that style include the Bank of England building in London by Sir John Soane. Oddly, I always thought that the pub had previously been a theatre, until I saw an old photograph from when it was still a bank. 

The pink around the window frames is from the coloured lighting they have to illuminate the building at night. Something similar has been done with buildings around the railway station and the library, both also Neoclassical architecture. While it is very pretty, I do wonder about all the electricity used, and ponder about if such lights should be turned off at about 22:00hrs, but I'm perhaps being the overly-green fuddy-duddy. Anyway, I like the columns - it's a facade in the Corinthian style, with acanthus leaves on the column capitals, fluted columns and an entablature and pediment with figures in the tympanum, but I didn't get a clear photo of that part of the building (I will have to try again). 

I would really like to find out more about the history of this building, who designed it, when it was built, etc. but am not sure where to look. I'd also like to find out exactly what the statues in the tympanum depict. My first port of enquiry will be the local library, and then the museum. 

The Caledonian is not the only Neoclassical building in Inverness, as I have previously mentioned. This building is on the corner of Academy St. and Baron Taylor St. (or the next one over) and is a mixture of Art Deco and Neoclassical sensibilities. There's probably a name for this sort of style, but I regret to admit that I don't know it. It's quite ornate, but all the forms have been simplified. This is actually the one of the first photographs (all of this building) I took on that afternoon, and the sky was still quite blue. 

Hopefully my next blog entry will be a little more Goth, rather than just some photographs of interesting old buildings. While I really would love to learn when various local buildings were built, in what order, and with what modifications, I'm not sure that everyone else reading my blog would be interested, and if I wanted to go down that path, I would be better off starting a blog uniquely about architectural history.

Spires, Skies and Shadows

More From The High Church Graveyard

I keep going back there, and each time I spot something else that intrigues me, something I did not capture the previous time. It seems that whenever I think I have exhausted it of material worth photographing, that something else catches my eye. Today was a trip out with the "proper camera", which is a Canon 300D, and Suzy of ::Suzy Bugs:: let me borrow some of her lenses, for a bit more experimentation. 

Shiny different lens to play with meant that I could take pictures of details up on the roof of the neighbouring church, which as they are rather pretty (especially the spire) became the focus of my little expedition. I did not actually take that many pictures of the graveyard itself. 

If Vertical Was Going To Be Impossible,
Diagonal Would Have To Do!

The spire is reasonably high on the Free Church North (at some point I will have to find out exactly how high, but it is definitely one of the taller spires in the area) and getting a shot in full of it with the lenses to hand was going to be impossible. (I have taken a photograph encompassing the whole church,  but on a different day, with a different lens) so I decided to focus on various points that interested me. 

Dramatic Clouds

Sometimes it is more the clouds than the architecture, or the combination of clouds and architecture. I think a plain blue sky is, while sunny, quite dull, and much prefer some interest in the form of clouds to balance out the image. Today it was blue skies and patchy white clouds, and these provided a lovely sky and a lot of nice shadows from the bright sunshine, which on the spire really gives a sense of the various facets of the octagonal roof. I love the pinnacles. 

Clouds Don't Always Appear When I Need Them

Clouds don't always appear where and when I need them, though! I took this photograph from reasonably close to the base of the steeple, but far enough back to get enough of a diagonal to have some sense of perspective. I tried taking a photograph really close to the base, but it did not really have the same effect. I really wanted to portray how high and imposing and solid the steeple is. As it does rise a way above the church, and is thin in relation to its height, it can seem rather elegant from a distance, but up close it is very solidly built, and for this picture I wanted to show some of that. 

Pinnacle or Steeple

This mini-steeple or pinnacle is part of some adjoining ecclesiastical buildings. It is much smaller than the steeple with spire (and for that matter, the spire) on the church itself, and I presume it is technically a pinnacle rather than a steeple, but I always think of pinnacles as the miniature spires decorating a full-sized spire, atop a steeple. If it protruded from a wall, I would call it a turret. At some point I will have to rat out that book of architectural terms that did rather well on historic architecture, but I think it is back in England, somewhere in my father's loft. Regardless of what it is, I love the details of the false slit windows and the arches that elaborate them. It is reminiscent of the towers on the spire, which also have arches and false-slit windows. I'm getting lost in pedantry. Whatever it is, I think it looks nice, which is why I took the photograph. 

A Rather Fancy Vent

This photograph was taken to capture the texture of the tiles and the lichen growing on them. I heard that lichen grows best in clean air, which is good news for the city of Inverness as the roof is covered with the stuff! I think the little white "light house" is actually a rather fancy cover for a vent. I love it when mundane things are made needlessly ornate, because why shouldn't functional things be beautiful too? If it were up to me, everything would be designed to be at least as beautiful as functional. Things need to be fully functional, of course, but beauty can still exceed that! 

Finally!

I managed to finally get a photograph of the roof of the Catholic church across the river that I actually like. The spire is quite short, wooden and painted red - rather different to the other buildings in the area. The ornate front door of the Catholic church faces away from the afternoon and evening sun, and with mountains behind, it is soon in rather dark shadow, which means it is usually rather awkward to photograph. Sometime in the near future I will have to visit during morning hours to get a good photograph of the front of the building because it is really quite something. 

You Can See Tiles!

This is the steeple on what is now the funeral home opposite the High Church on the other side of the river. I love the conical roof and the open columns. Unlike most of the other churchy buildings in the area, this one is not in the least bit Gothic in terms of architecture, but it is still rather fabulous. It is far more austere, which is quite fitting for a funeral home. I wonder if it was purpose built as such, or is a re-purposed church. 

Cobwebs!

I also got to play with Suzy's macro lens while she was busy using the other lens to photograph a rather large rabbit. It is these sorts of decorative details on the monuments that I love, especially when they are still crisp centuries later. 

The First Five Tries Weren't Even Sharp...

Tomorrow (Saturday) I will be at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness, which is across the road from Eden Court, for the Inverness Highland Games  & Armed Forces Day. I will be there with owls and raptors. I will also have the point-and-shoot camera with me, so hopefully next week's photography slot will be themed on that building - quite a modern departure from this week's!