Scotland 2008 Part XXXVIII: Driving the Cathedral Route

Digital original, 2 frame exposure blend

My first stop on my "day of abbeys" was at Melrose Abbey. Founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks, the abbey was the final resting place for the heart of Robert the Bruce. It was found in 1921 within a lead container buried under the remains of the chapter house.

Digital original, 10 frame exposure blend, 2 frame stitch

I was enthralled by the warm green foliage that stained the walls of Melrose abbey; I usually don't respond to colour, but in this case, the whole motivation of the image was to convey some sense of how lovely the colour was here.

Digital original

Dryburgh Abbey has a chapter house that is partially underground; once through the doors above, it was several steps down to the floor of the ancient room. New clear class fills the windows, as part of the effort to preserve medieval paintings on the walls below them.

Digital infrared original

I never really used infrared film for architecture; it was too expensive (at $15/36 exposures, which really represented about 12 images, if I was lucky) to spend on experimentation. With digital infrared however, all the cost of infrared is up front, with the camera conversion; so experimenting with other subjects, such as this ruin in Dryburgh Abbey, and it’s surrounding trees, was more than easy to do!

Digital original

Built as a memorial in 1933, these cloisters were beside Kelso abbey, and give some hint to how lovely all these ruined abbey would have looked in their original condition. I have such a passion for repetition and symmetry in architecture, I could spend all day working in spaces like these.

Digital original, 5 frame sttich

The last site of the day was Jedburgh Abbey, where I arrived only 30 minutes before close; I did what I could in the time I had, but the space was so rich I vowed to return the next morning (the attendant was a Nikon fan, and said he'd be happy to let me in in the morning with the same entry fee I paid at the end of this day.