Focused on King’s College Chapel

Photographer Sara Rawlinson found herself involuntarily clutching the armrests of her office chair when editing the photos for her King’s College, Cambridge project – you see, she’d been hoisted 60 feet up in the air in a cherry picker when taking some of them. The spectacular results, with the vaulting, organ and Flemish stained glass of the Chapel resembling the interior of an exquisite jewellery box, got her on the shortlist for Historic Photographer of the Year.

I found Sara’s work when reviewing Fugue State Films recent release of a boxed set on the 2016 restoration of the King’s College organ : her photography has been used throughout. Her online virtual exhibition of this photography project broadens out from images of the organ and architectural details of the Chapel, to a personal meditation in words and images on the interaction between people and this sacred space.

The elegance of the photos belies the technical and practical challenges behind some of them. ‘When I first walked into the Chapel, I was overwhelmed by the space and its vastness – a common reaction for many who gaze up at the world’s largest fan vaulted ceiling,’ she says.

‘For hours and hours I photographed and waited – for the sun to shine – for candles to light – for fog to move.’ She dons her hiking boots to take her camera up to the attic, listening to organ practice seeping through the fan vaulting from below as she lies on the floor to allow long exposures to take place.

Creating a photographic and poetic stroll through King’s College Chapel, Sara has put together 94 images in a book: Stephen Cherry, Dean of King’s Chapel, says in the introduction, ‘The images capture the reality of a place of transcendent beauty and where real things happen.’ It includes unique aspects of the organ and its seventeenth-century case, and would make a perfect present for the organist in your life, and indeed, anyone interested in the context of the world-famous Ceremony of Nine Lessons and Carols. Details below.