Photos of churches have featured on my blog many times. Not because I’m a religious man – I’m not – but because I find them interesting from architectural, historical, and cultural perspectives. Despite my secular nature, I can still appreciate the investment of effort, sometimes lasting centuries, that is poured into these structures to serve the faith of the, well… faithful.
Most of the churches I photograph are in the UK, because that’s where I live, but the occasional overseas example will find its way into the blog too, such as the one shown today, the impressive and colourful Parish Church of Saint Roma in Lloret de Mar, Spain.
The original church dates back to the 14th century, but the bulk of what is there now is far more recent, having been constructed last century.
Olympus Trip 35 & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
When I first saw the scan of this picture, my first thought was that it looked like a photo from a holiday brochure. I remember, before it was possible to find and book trips online, that we used to have stacks of these brochures in the house when we were planning a trip, all filled with similar shots of beaches, hotels, swimming pools, and local attractions.
Olympus Trip 35 & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I took quite a lot of photos looking down narrow streets while in Lloret de Mar. These are undoubtedly just average streets, the type to be found in many a Spanish town, but they are different enough to the streets I’m used to in the UK to draw my eye. A combination of the narrow widths, along with the signage in a different language make these interesting to me. I also had some lovely Mediterranean light to draw upon too.
The dog in the third picture looked friendly enough but, having been nipped on more than one occasion by friendly-looking dogs, I decided keeping some distance was prudent.
Olympus Trip 35 & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
The hotel we stayed in was close to a large casino. It’s angular construction (and the way the roof was covered with artificial turf) made for some interesting subject matter.
I didn’t actually venture inside though.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Pro Image (first two pictures) / Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
It’s one of those cliched pictures of an aircraft wing taken through the cabin window (well, either that, or I somehow managed to climb atop the fuselage mid-flight…).
What this indicates is that I’ll soon be posting pictures from the holiday in Spain I took with my wife at the start of June. Everybody loves to see other people’s holiday snaps, right? 😉
Olympus Trip 35 & Fuji Superai 100 (expired 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I took a few pictures in Sheffield city centre to finish off this roll of Fomapan 100 after coming back from holiday. There is quite a lot of development work taking place, with the Heart of the City complex delivering new, and re-purposed buildings. Some of these are built and occupied, some are not quite complete or are awaiting tenants, and some areas are cleared an awaiting work to begin.
The two photos below show scenes on opposite sides of Pinstone Street. I’m not sure what is planned for the cleared area in the second picture. It’ll probably be more retail / dining / residential, but I think it would be quite nice to leave the space open as small park or square.
On the penultimate full day of our holiday in Dubrovnik, we decided to take an excursion to Kotor in the neighbouring country of Montenegro. Kotor is a World Heritage Site set deep in a vast fjord-like tidal bay surrounded by mountains. We had two potential days when we could have made the trip, but chose the second as the weather seemed ok at the time of booking.
The weather was not ok…
There were two stops on the trip (well, four if you also count the toilet break at a service station, and the quite long stop while passing through the border), the first being Perast – a small village beside the bay – where we had a short boat trip to the Church of Our Lady of Škrpjela, which sits on a small man-made island. Unfortunately, as soon as we got off the coach the heavens opened with a torrential downpour that continued throughout the stop. While we had a waterproofs with us, they were jackets and provided no cover whatsoever for our legs and feet and before we even got inside the church our shoes were soaked.
I posted this picture already during the holiday, but here it is again for some context – the church we visited is on the island at mid-right, the one with the blue dome.
We got wet again after leaving the church, although thankfully the small boat we used for the crossing had a roof. The boat’s roof did not protect us on the walk back from the jetty to the coach however.
Thankfully, by the time we arrived at Kotor itself the rain had stopped, and it stayed dry for the rest of our visit, but the wet feet and damp clothing persisted and took some of the shine off the trip.
We had an affable tour guide inside the walled city, and our group of soggy day-trippers followed him dutifully around the crowded and narrow streets of the town while he pointed out various sights, explained the history, and suggested which restaurants might be good places for lunch.
Kotor is apparently quite famous for the number of cats that live there, and as well as seeing them everywhere you looked, there was a wide range of cat-related merchandise available from almost every shop.
Three live cats, and one sculpted kitty are lurking in this scene…
I shot both colour and black and white film during the visit, sometimes of the same subjects.
The rough cobbles of this steep street were treacherously slippy under the soles of my (wet) trainers!
The entrance to the walled city.
Kotor is a destination for cruise ships and there were three of them moored when we visited, which probably explained why the place was so busy!
High above the city is a line of walled fortresses. We didn’t even think of climbing this trail with our wet feet, but it looks like quite the climb!
Remnants of the wet weather obscure the mountain tops.
On the whole, while Kotor is certainly an interesting destination, visiting it while soaked through (literally) dampens the enthusiasm somewhat.
Steel City Snapper photography 