Mass, Rain, Guinness

Not enough orange.

 

Ok, all jokes aside, I see the connection here between Faith, Weather and Drunkeness. Very interesting. A question: The depth of field is very nice, extending back all the way from the booze to the belltower. Why, though, are the booze barrels on the left trimmed so snuggly?

 

Second question: What were you doing in a dark alley with this much booze?

Question No1: because they're left oriented in any case and to ensure the belltower pops up in the tiny space provided. And so pedestrians can get by unimpeded by beer barrels and cretins wielding cameras.

 

Question No2: bugger off and mind your own business. What's it gotta do with you?

Good one Phil.

Is this wet or intoxicating? Your sober thinking would be very much

appreciated. Thanks to all.

Brilliant composition. I'll tell you, my favorite aspect of this photo is the saturation, and I'm not speaking in the film way, but in the liquid way. From the liquidity of the Guinness, only a fond memory for myself, to the walls which ooze dampness, to the church which in and of it's self can often be concidered saturation, religious saturation. Their is feeling of pennance and delivery from sin. The wicked to the sublime (you choose which is which!)

 

Thank you for a wonderful image.

How very interesting. I admire Jason's analysis betweent the Booze and the Church. Very interesting how they have had such a relationship.

 

However, Michael's observation regarding the "feeling of pennance and delivery from sin"" is nearly opposite the impression I had, not that either of us are right or wrong. My sense was that the viewer is shown a situation where booze was chosen instead of the Church. It is so dominant in the composition that it is, to me, the element of most importance, and therefore the chosen of the two. But then, there's Jason's idea of the union of the two, so....

Great composition & contrast.

I have some strange impression about the way the barrels are framed on the lower part of the frame. I can't really say what, but something doesn't seem completely right there. I wonder if it might be the very lower left corner, where we see a fuzzy part of a barrel that gives this impression of jumping into something and missing the beginning... As it is, I feel I miss something in the foreground that I wish I could find, to create a stronger graphical opposition between foreground and background.

 

I don't exactely know what it is I'm missing here, but I'll make the lame suggestion of cropping out the bottom to entirely remove the lower left corner with the unsharp barrel. It's not the perfect solution for me but I think it helps somewhat with my foreground problem.

 

Another solution would have been to physically remove this unsharp barrel (and any others not visible in the frame) and maybe point the camera silightly lower to have more of the side of the barrels that are already visible. I don't know...

I too find Jason's analysis fascinating and, as always, eloquent and compelling. But I myself find a more compelling interpretation by looking at the dichotomy of the Mass and the Guinness thats all tied to together by the Rain. For as was once said, the rain falls equally on the sinners and the saints.

 

But I think the dichotomy between the sinners and the saints is too judgmental and too, for want of a better word, "Christian". To me, I see it as a dichotomy of the ascetic and the (again for want of a better word) "dionysian". On the one hand, we have the Church and its strains of mortification, turning away from the world, its constant division between the spirit and the flesh. On the other, we have the dionysian tendencies of toward the mystic capacities of drink, the celebration of life and the unification of the divine and the earthly. And as supreme irony, the two poles have the similar symbol of the fruit of the vine as its vehicle to either divide (in the case of the ascetic) or to unify (in the case of the dionysian).

 

The dichotomy is not so outlandish when one considers that many western cultures have gone through the struggle of the social war between the church and the pub. This struggle goes on still. Its not uncommon for people when they decide that a social institution has lost relevance and meaning to find substitutes in other forms. We all may have known people who turned away from the rock of the church to find their social consolation in the gin mill down the street. Once upon a time I found myself saying "Upon this keg, I shall establish my church" when the body and blood of Christ was no longer beheld as keys to salvation. Indeed, it wasn't that hard to substitute of the mystery of the eucharist for the mystery of oblivion at the bottom of a pint glass. In fact it was perhaps easier: when one can find the eternal without changing who he is as a person, its always easier than doing so through actual or metaphorical mortification of the flesh. Yet when one wakes up (or sobers up as the case may be), one still has the realization that the rain is still falling on the sinners and the saints alike. Perhaps then, that's the call to find your own way between the two poles. That's how I see it at least.

 

See what a can of worms you open up, Phil, when you post a photo like this? Oh, by the way, its a great photo.

Oops. I wrote the screed above before reading Doug's words. See Doug? I agree with you I think.

wow.very good image.looking my picture,Im photographer in iran.

Interesting! Good linear prespective. Good contrast.

Thanks very much for your comnmnents on this pic. I'd not been here before, but I knew in an instant as I crossed by this alley that here was a scene worth photographing.The alley pointed directly at the church tower and was blessed with these freshly delivered barrels for the pub next door. The dichotomy and potential for blend was all too plain to see. There wasn't a plan to put one before the other. The steps in the middle distance lead up as well as down. But they provided the posibility for the one to merge with the other and the kind of machinations I'm pleased to have read about here. And at that moment it started to rain again. The difficulty was getting the barrels close to the lens in sharp focus and a position which allowed the eye to wander from the barrels to the tower via the steps. Too low and the near barrels became obstacles to those behind. Too high and the tower moved dangerously close to the top of the frame. It was shot hand held and the smallest aperture I could get before hand holding became impossible was f/8. I shot at about 1/15 sec.

 

Having taken the pic I nipped into the second hand book shop next to the pub. A shop called Tall Stories with a good selection of second hand photo books. I thought that after I'd been in the book shop I'd nip back to the car, get my tripod and re shoot this scene with a smaller aperture. 15 minutes later when I emerged from the shop the barrels had gone to the cellar. The oportunity was over. I did emerge however, clutching a brown paper bag containing a wonderful book of B&W picks taken by a bloke called Donovan Wylie. All for the princely sum of 4.44 euros.In it he tells how after becoming Northern Ireland's yo-yo champion at the age of 10 he bought a TLR for a tenner a couple of years later. And how, after leaving school, he worked as a photographer for a Santa's Grotto for six weeks. During that six weeks he saved up the money to make a "short, rootless wander aroud Ireland". He was aged 15 years. Here's a shot from that book entitled "Ireland Singular Images". The picture is simply entitled "Dublin". I might get in to trouble for posting the picture in which case it will have to come down again. But I think the risk is worth taking. That's a packet of Players No6 in the cot. Ireland's great for candids. Thanks again.

This is photography at its best! So much has been already said that I dare not add anything. Only my admiration to you and your very wide abilities with the camera!

Fine Art!

Excellent perspective and really nice composition.Youve handled the lighting really well

a little less holyness - symbolic to our world !

yjis is a very good image. pesonally i think that the building in the background is an obuse for this image (not that u have much to do with it). without that building the open space would add so much power to the image.