Without even noticing, I seem to have developed a curious obsession with a 1200 year old monastery in the middle of the Norfolk Broads in Norfolk, England. Stood literally in the middle of nowhere is this odd looking structure consisting of a monastery gatehouse with a windmill placed inside.
St.Benet's Abbey was first constructed in the 9th Century by Benedictine monks. There was no natural local stone in the area so acquiring the stone and building materials must have took considerable funds and resources. The abbey is steeped in history too complicated to mention in this post. The only part of the abbey which substantially exists is the Gatehouse.
The curious thing about St.Benet's is that in the 18th Century, a local farmer built a windmill right in the middle of the gatehouse! I can only imagine the farmer meant to use the existing gatehouse structure to support his windmill so as to save on bricks. The windmill still stands but nothing of the original sails or mill workings exist.
Whatever the history of St.Benet's, it makes a great place to shoot in the dark!
I visited St.Benet's over two nights. The first night was solo and this place I don't mind admitting gives me the creeps! It isn't helped by the sound of a VERY loud fox in the bushes not much more than 30 meters away which I'll admit isn't good for the nerves!
The First Night
My first night here was what you would probably call an adventure. On arrival I found that my backpack full of lights and lenses had burst it's zip open depositing the contents all over the boot (trunk?). So undeterred I stuffed as much gear as I could carry in to my jacket and lumbered my way in front of the abbey.
This shot is the best I could get with the gear I could carry. I didn't have enough lights to do the place justice so decided to set up for a star trail image.
I set a sequence going for an hour's worth of 30 second exposures. After about 10 minutes, the fox started making very loud and disturbing cries from the nearby bushes. It wasn't just an animal making a racket, this was murderous screams which I don't mind admitting unnerved me quite a bit. I am laughing at myself now but at the time I didn't much like what I was hearing! I carried on waiting for the star trail sequence to finish but after 15 minutes, I decided enough was enough and settled for this! I moved very rapidly back to the comfort of my car hahaha!
The Test Shot
Before the fox turned up screaming it's cute little head off, I took some test shots. The plan was to work out how long I could expose the shutter for and get some decent looking texture from the few wisps of clouds in the sky. I figured I could get to about 90 seconds which gave me an indication how long I would have to paint the abbey with light.
For the lighting on the abbey I used a Godox AD200 flashgun mounted on a small tripod to the left of the frame pointing upwards. I repositioned the flash a few times.
The 2nd Night
After posting the above images to my Instagram, an old lightpainting buddy got in touch and wanted to know if I'd like to go back and collaborate at the abbey. I'm not one to refuse a night out waving lights in the dark.
I met up with Adrian ("nite-eyze" on Insta) at dusk and we set up the lights.
For this shot I ran around in the dark with a couple of flashlights lighting up different parts until I got something I liked. These kinds of shots need a few attempts until I'm happy with the result.
Inside the mill
I came away from this evening thinking that the 9th and 18th Century architects didn't like working to a plan. The abbey looks like an unsymmetrical mess and the mill built inside seems to cling to the abbey for dear life!
With no straight lines or uniformity to be seen, this was was the best I got. An OCD nightmare!!
Fractalise
In my shiny new camera bag, I'd packed a fractal filter. Despite having a crack in the glass (I dropped yet another one!) I wanted to see what would happen if I used the filter. Trippy results!
Kicking the Fractal Habit
For this shot, I started with the fractal filter on the lens and fired the flashgun. With the camera still exposing, I removed the fractal filter and painted the abbey with light. I quite like the ghostly effect as the sky burns through the fractal abbey.
Fiery Fractal
My collaborator, Adrian decided to spin some burning steel wool. I've not done much of this stuff lately and I usually avoid anything that burns in such an ancient building. I wouldn't want to be seen setting a 1200 year old building on fire!!
For this shot I left the fractal filter on the lens to see what would happen.
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
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Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.
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