This photo of the choir and chancel at Carlisle Cathedral has an expansive feel to it - but it was taken through the smallest of apertures (a slit of a window) in the tower wall that faces the choir.
Access was via a spiral stairway and then a walk along the clerestory. Making sure the camera was firmly fixed to the tripod - I leant it into the window aperture and then took a shot.
The photograph’s strength, for me, comes from its alternative perspective, emphasising a different plane. Instead of the usual ground-level view that reveals the full expanse of the cathedral, this composition suggests that even such beauty has its bounds. There is a sense of the building as a single cell, living within a world of its own.
It is always worth taking time to speak to the people who know a building and asking whether there are places from which it might be seen differently. A hidden stair, a roof space or an overlooked window can offer more than an unusual photograph - it can loosen the building from the familiarity that has settled around it.
The photograph depends upon a contradiction: a great volume of space revealed through a narrow opening. We imagine ourselves looking freely across the cathedral, but our view has been carefully constrained. It reminds us that every photograph is shaped by where we are allowed to stand.
A different viewpoint does more than show us something new. It dismantles what we thought we already knew. The familiar building becomes strange again - and in that moment, we begin to see it and ourselves in a different light.
Photographs taken from unusual angles help us see the world, and perhaps ourselves, differently. They remind us that there are myriad ways of looking at a single space, a building, a person or even a problem. In this sense, the impact of a photograph can extend far beyond its composition, opening up the possibility of seeing what is familiar from an entirely different point of view.
Readers of the Genius Loci Digest
What stays with readers
That aura, those echoes - the muted light is transporting. What a space to feel rooted in history. I'd love to make that journey myself; you've stirred the opera lover and architectural dreamer in me.
From the heritage portfolio
Choose how to join, share or support Andy Marshall's work
Connect with me on: Bluesky / Instagram / Facebook / X / Tumblr / Flickr / Vimeo / Pixelfed / Pinterest
Member discussion