> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Unruly Orb
- URL: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/unruly-orb/
- Published: 2018-04-20T14:34:11.000Z
- Updated: 2018-04-20T14:34:11.000Z
- Description: Minster Sculpting in the East Riding
- Author: Andy  Marshall
- Tags: architecture, Arts and Culture, Family, #exposure, #Import 2023-02-28 18:49

## I’ve always had it in my mind

that with the deliberate pre-ordination of light, and its movement over time, it might be used to fashion photographs as a sculptor might fashion a piece of clay into a work of art.

In the little town of Beverley in Yorkshire, I had been trying to do this for over 10 years by using an app to calculate and delineate the exact location where the sun might rise over the Minster.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/mof9f2nj1zj1gqij7h6sgl9c0u0lpaw3drfh/original.jpg)

On a promising morning in 2017 I set out from the town centre to reach Westwood Common, and with the Minster silhouetted behind me, I remembered the other occasions over the years I had tried and failed. On some I’d had my Dad with me - but even he had not survived the long journey - having died of prostate cancer in 2008.

Upon reaching the common and looking down the road I quelled my expectations. All too often had I been in this situation before but to be stoppered by a fog bank, or fast moving clouds from the east.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/rkxq8imm6gmrbw3nzkl7pcf7qc32mizf1j38/original.jpg)

I set out along the Common to where my app had told me was the best vantage point, and caught a shot of the Minster in the distance beyond a fog bank and beneath the stratosphere.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/rlsvs0zo9oqanryncdo3ubhpm5awnfelp0tx/original.jpg)

As the burgeoning light defined the edge of the horizon, I felt like a conductor before the natural light orchestra - the pause on my podium before the movement began - was represented with the checking of my camera’s settings.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/c01vmlmfpflyqqx0ucluqm0xe78m1rfaqksi/original.jpg)

## Then, as my face warmed to the glow of the horizon - it happened: a cuticle sun - and the birth of a new day...

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/6h00qfm0bf76fe7wqbhqqxlrlce0tqkfeye8/original.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/aaawsovljb792wsgaxwr5dt7ite2akr4mz76/original.jpg)

I wanted to catch the sun crowning the Minster and my positioning was slightly out, so - like John Donne before me - I moved that great unruly orb by walking several metres to the north and found my nirvana.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/5g8p6bsnq6i316kpz3wa8ijtkrxsy9v23v4v/original.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/9movi8fd7sbbgo2zth1foal545n4zcdvc93y/original.jpg)

Back in the present I had managed to sculpt the scene before me - the Minster permeated by the sun behind, set out like a giant Gothic cheese-grater - captured and caged with pre-ordained intent.

  
![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/mj839ivp49ohpza98stsj1eszl81ah2901ju/original.jpg)

During the final minutes of dawn, as the sun dissipated into the great blue, and with the scene finally pocketed within my camera, I felt an unravelling, a need to let go and I found myself crying uncontrollably - partly for what I’d achieved over time, but mostly for what I had lost.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/fwwloxqjns8yijicpfj86qsktysmni7fls80/original.jpg)

## Beverley Minster Prints:

## Beverley Minster Prints: