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Covent Garden in London is known for the Royal Opera House, for its cafes, restaurants, craft shops, and for the street entertainers who perform in the Square.

Opposite the shops, on the other side of the Square is a neo-classical building with four stone pillars supporting an overhanging pediment, and a large door. Despite being imposing, it is usually overlooked, as one can see because everyone’s attention is on those performers and shops and cafes.

And there are other attractive buildings with which this building has to compete.

But if you take the time and walk down a narrow pedestrian alley at the rear, you will find a path leading to the entrance to the building. Or you could just walk directly in from the Square if the gate that is to one side is open, which it often is not. So one way or another, find the entrance to this church.

It is St. Paul’s Church at Covent Garden, built in 1633, and it is known as the Actor’s Church because it is near to the theatres in Drury Lane and is where the memorial services for many famous stars of stage and screen have been held

Inside there are memorial plaques to Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward, Gracie Fields, Vivien Leigh, Sybil Thorndike, and others.

On the plaque in memory of the director Lewis Casson is a quotation from The Bacchae, a Greek tragedy by Euripides in which one of the characters says

‘What else is wisdom, to be from fear set free, to stand and wait.’

Originally published March 10, 2009

Chiaroscuro lighting is sometimes called Rembrandt lighting. It is very moody and works by putting light onto the focal point of the scene and gently leaving the area surrounding the focal point darker.

The Italian word chiaroscuro means light and dark and beyond highlighting the focal point, the contrast between light and dark areas accentuates the three-dimensional appearance of the subject.

The alternative name of Rembrandt lighting comes from the fact that Rembrandt used that lighting effect in a lot of his paintings. He may be the finest artist to have used the technique.

In photography chiaroscuro lighting effect is easily achieved with window light because window light is directional.

In the northern hemisphere the ideal window is one that faces north, away from the direction of the sun, because the light is less contrasty.

But if the subject is placed very near the window, the light fall-off will be rapid because light always falls off most rapidly nearest the light source and there is a dramatic decrease in the intensity of the light with each step back into the shadows.

If the subject is situated further from the window, say twenty feet, and is then moved another a step further away from the window, the fall off of light will not be great because the light has already spent its power penetrating that first twenty feet.

While placing a subject close to a light source can be very atmospheric, it may be too much for the film or camera sensor to deal with. And yet there may be too little contrast and too little light if the subject is placed deeper into the room.

A common way to overcome this problem is to place the subject near the window and use a reflector to bounce some light back into its darker side and so reduce the contrast across it.

But that’s not all that Rembrandt lighting is, because he used it to colour the scene to create mood. By warming the light he created a specific mood. And if he cooled the light, the effect would be different.

Originally published February 22, 2009

The nearer one gets to the North and South Poles, the quicker it gets lighter, day by day, as winter turns to spring. And spring arrives there so quickly that the buds on the trees can burst and open fully in a day.

This accelerated growth is needed because the plants and trees have to cram everything into a short season, before the sun travels towards the other Pole.

Thinking of the northern hemisphere as spring approaches, the rapid increase in the length of the day as the sun moves further away from the equator, and heads north towards the tropic of Cancer sees its light galloping north around the curve of the Earth at an ever-increasing rate.

It is as though the light has climbed up the steep slope leading from the equator, and now it is speeding across the gentle slope towards the top of the world.

There is something of that in every curve. In one direction it is an easy downhill ski slope, becoming steeper as it progresses. Looked at the other way, it is like a tough climb that tops out in an easy clamber over a grassy slope.

Now that the days are already becoming lighter, things look brighter. In the depths of winter. In Roundly Park in Leeds at 52° north, it seemed just a couple of short weeks ago that the dreary darkness would last forever. Now the bare tree branches have a tinge of green. Soon the buds will open.