The Churches Conservation trust

We have now visited and photographed two of the churches cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.


These are:

Holy Trinity, York


Old St Stephen's Church, Robin Hood's Bay

Edward of Middleham

whilst looking around the interior of St Helen & the Holy Cross in Sheriff Hutton, we came across the tomb of Edward of Middleham, the eldest son of Richard III. We discovered that Edward is the only Prince of Wales to be buried in Parish Church.

See the Wikipedia entry here

Churches in York & Beyond

A flurry of activity of the last weekend, coinciding with the first day of spring and the best weather of the year so far. We headed up to one of our favourite part of the world, the villages north of York. So, there are photographs of churches in:

Sheriff Hutton
Stillington
Sutton-on-the-Forrest
Farlington &
Marton-in-the-Forrest

We then headed into York itself, stopping to take photographs at Strensall & Huntington on the way.



In York, we were able to take another photo of Minster from the South-East as well as a shot of Holy Trinity and a better one of St Michael-le-Belfry, miraculously without tourists or car obscuring it!



As most of the churches we visited were open, we were able to take many pictures of the interiors, so there are new images in the Church Architecture, Monuments & Memorials, and Stained Glass Sections.

Creating a map of photo locations

Many people have asked me how I created the locations map, so here's a brief tutorial.

The system I used involves storing the geo-data of each photograph on a publicly shared Google Spreadsheet and then using the Google Map api to generate the map.

The key is to ensure that your photographs and images are 'geotagged', that is they have longitude and latitude data in their EXIF file. You could achieve this by buying a geo-imaging system that fits onto the hotshoe of your DSLR such as this one:

Jobo Geo-Imaging System

but at £140, this is a bit of an investment.

A simpler, and cheaper (as in free) way is to use Google Earth and the freeware program Geotagger. This software is for Mac only, but if you are serious about photography, you already have a Mac, right?;-)

Once Geotagger is installed, make sure that it is added to the dock. When you run it, it won't do anything except open. Load up Google Earth and find the location where you took the photograph. Fortunately, churches are pretty easy to find from the air; other landmarks might need a bit more careful consideration. Double click the location to ensure that it is the centre of the screen and with Google Earth still open, open a Finder window and navigate to your photo. Highlight the photo and drag it unto the Geotagger icon on the dock (Geotagger must be running). The geo info is then added to the image's EXIF data.

To create the map, you will need to have a Google account. If you haven't got one, you can get one here.

You will then need a Google Maps api key and Google Spreadsheet api key.

Create a Spreadsheet for you data, including columns for Title, Description, Longitude, Latitude and Rank.

For the Description, I have html to link to the slide page, with a tag to show the thumbnail in the format of:

<a href="http://www.fotochurch.co.uk/Yorkshire/A-E/slides/aberford-T.html">
<img height=50 src="http://www.fotochurch.co.uk/Yorkshire/A-E/thumbs/Aberford-T.jpg"></img></a>

The Rank is just a numbered list, assigning a number to each image for the list.

You may need to change the longitude and latitude to decimal and there are many tools on the internet that will do this for you. Just remember that if the image is west of the meridian (as many are in the UK and North America), you will need to add a minus sign in front of the longitude.

Creating the code for the Map is, as you would imagine, highly complex. Fortunately, there is an excellent online tool available HERE. If you follow the instructions on this site and complete all the relevant boxes, you will be able to generate html code that can be used on your web page to show a location map of you photos.

Whitby Abbey, Lincoln Cathedral and Coventry Cathedral

In the ruins section, we have uploaded images of Whitby Abbey and the original Coventry Cathedral which was destroyed by fire during the Blitz.



We are again indebted to Stephen Brown for allowing the use of another one of images, the Chapter House at Lincoln Cathedral

Monuments, Memorials and Graveyards

Graveyard 4.jpg
Originally uploaded by Jono Brennan

This image is, bizarrely, my most viewed image on Flickr.

It was partly for this reason that the Monuments, Memorials and Graveyards section was established; I figured that there is an appetite out there to see images of this sort of thing. I do have many other similar images, hopefully uploaded in the near future.

Stephen Brown Photography

We are delighted to be allowed to use images from Stephen Brown, who is an excellent landscape photographer. Please check out his website:

www.stephenbrownphotography.co.uk

His photograph of Chiddingstone Church in Kent is fantastic.



Please note that Stephen is a commercial photographer and his images cannot be used without purchase

New Photos

With the 're-vamping' of the site comes additional images.

New sections have been created for Scotland and Ruins as well as additional images in the Stained Glass, Architecture and Monuments galleries. There are tons more to be uploaded in these galleries in the next few weeks.

In the existing galleries, there are photographs of the following new churches

Sutton on the Forest
Whitby Abbey

Website Development

We have eventually made the transition to providing images for download without purchase. Most images, unless otherwise specified, can now be downloaded for use in publications, leaflets, PowerPoints, etc without charge under a Creative Commons Licence. All we ask is that you leave the subtle watermark in the bottom left-hand corner on your image. We believe that it is not too intrusive.

However, you are still not able to use any image for commercial purposes. If you want to use an image for this purpose, please contact us to discuss our commercial pricing structure.

Long time, no see

Its seems crazy that I haven't posted any photos or made any blog entries for nearly 6 months. Where has this year gone?

Anyway, I do have a number of shots of Churches to upload as well as expanding the site to include church interiors, stained glass, icons and artefacts, and items of architectural interest.

More soon....promise.