Christmas Lights in the High Street
The story behind the photo
Text and photo © John Walmsley
How to turn this:
into this:
My town, Guildford (30 miles SouthWest of London), has two hills with the river running between them. Every Christmas, the local council strings Christmas lights across the High Street all the way up to the top and I’d long thought this would make a good photograph.
But where to stand? It didn’t work from the hill opposite but I thought it might from the top of the church bell tower down by the river. The minister allowed me up to do a recce. Stone stairway winding it’s way up and up, round and round, getting narrower as it went. Towards the top, only shoulder width but, once outside, the view worked.
First photo: doesn’t look very promising but the angle is right and there are no obstructions. The Christmas lights are there but too early in the day to be turned on.
I explained I needed about an hour or so up there as dusk and darkness arrived. No problem, he said, come back on Christmas Eve at 3pm and he’d let me up there. Carol Service was to begin at 3.30.
Thinking ahead, I wondered what the shoppers might think if, in the gathering gloom, they looked up and saw a the outline of a man atop the tower pointing a long black thing at them. Off to the police station so they were forewarned. Sitting there waiting my turn, I saw loads of officers come and go, all fairly trim looking except for one much more portly one. Suppose I had not warned the police? Suppose a worried shopper had rung in and a team of heavily armed police had come thundering through the Carol Service? That would have spoiled the mood. Suppose they had been led up that narrowing stairway by the more portly officer?
Come the day, I arrived with backpack and heavy tripod. The minister unlocks the stairway door and, as I’m about to begin the climb, he says “Of course, the bells will be on”. Must admit, I hadn’t thought of that, of course they’d be on. I emerge onto the roof area and set up the tripod. My ears are nicely level with the louvres so the full force of the bells hits me. The Christmas lights are just beginning to show.
The surface up there is lead, so quite soft. I brought some stiff plastic so the tripod legs would not damage it.
Camera on tripod and I stand back to see if it’s level. What I do see is the tripod and camera swaying gently in rhythm with the bells. Now I think about it, of course they are. Bell towers are designed to move, to sway with the movement of the heavy bells, otherwise they’d snap and fall. No chance of a sharp image from a moving tower. Great.
But, all is not lost (c’mon, it’s Christmas after all). At 3.30pm the bells stop, the Carol Service begins and the tower comes to rest. I can start. I shoot for the next hour with the lights becoming more and more prominent as darkness falls. You can adjust things in Photoshop but it’s always best to start with as many frames as possible. I’m finished. The Carol Service is over and everyone has left. I decend slowly and let myself out.
Altogether, the photo took 5 hours of my time in organising, shooting and post-production work, but I hope it looks like I just wandered by and went ‘Click!’.
The spire at Salisbury Cathedral.
I rarely photograph in or from churches or cathedrals but once photographed the inside of the spire at Salisbury Cathedral for fund-raising. At 404 feet (123 metres), it’s the tallest church spire in the UK. For a photographer with an aluminium camera case and heavy tripod, that’s quite a climb. The Dean waved me off warning to check my watch before entering the bell room. “You don’t want to be in there when they go off”, he said. It took 20 minutes just to reach the spire and, as there are no windows, there are no nice views either. Slowly took the photos. Job done. Careful look around to be sure I hadn’t left a lens somewhere (couldn’t face that climb again) and down I went. The Dean greeted me and asked what sort of lighting I’d used. Something made me say, “Oh, it was inspired”.
Season’s Greetings to you all and the very best for 2024!
Texts and images ©John Walmsley. All rights reserved.
John Walmsley’s Linktree.
John Walmsley is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the Society of Authors. His work, in one form or another, is at the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain Library, the National Art Library at the V&A, the V&A Museum of Childhood, Liverpool Museum, la Bibliothèque nationale de France and the University of California, San Diego, Library.
With a wide range of other artists, he has recently taken part in group exhibitions in Sydney, NYC, Los Angeles, Arizona, Texas, Tbilisi, Sao Paolo, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, France and Bangkok with others to come in Rome, Glasgow and Guildford.