BISHOP TAKES THRONE

March 21st saw the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral. It's not every day you get a new Archbishop, so it was "properly covered" with three photographers shooting and the chief 'tog acting as picture editor.

I ended up being the one perched up on an eyrie deep in the cathedral to see the actual enthronement, alongside Reuters, Getty and PA, a rare privilege for a local paper, but then again, it's all archive material and why shouldn't the main local newspaper have at least one photographer in that line-up?  Mind you, no pressure, eh...?

One of the reasons I ended up inside was because I have the kit to deal with the dark. My pair of D3S bodies were joined by a loaner D4, and all of them were at 6400ISO to give typical 1/500th - 1/640th at f2.8. Lenses were 24-70 AFS, 70-200 AFS, 300vr and then 300 + 1.4x converter. The latter meant upping the ISO to 8000, to give 1/320th-1/400th at f4. I had a monopod for the 300, but gave up using it as it was very tight with three other photographers, so the ability to keep a high shutter speed to handhold - VR on - was great.

It must have looked like contemporary dance on our platform as we all moved around, looking for angles, swapping bodies and trying to avoid getting in each others way...

Chief 'tog Barry Goodwin had been at the rehearsal the day before, so we had an idea what to expect and what the light was like, so it was just a question of settling down to record a bit of history.

New Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, from the photographers' eyrie -
I think this is D3s plus 70-200mm. If anything, it demonstrates just how good the
4 year-old D3s still is at stratospheric ISOs.

More after the break.

The enthronement ceremony, on D3s and wider end of 70-200

It seemed a genuinely happy and joyful occasion, not quite the stuffy and slightly
self-important event I thought it had the potential to be.

I keep looking for different views and shapes, upright and view...

I loved the lighting and grandeur of Canterbury Cathedral, filled with robes and gowns,
so I did the wide shot too, this is D3s and 24-70 at near 24mm.

Capturing gesture during the enthronement. This is D4 and 420mm. Dammit, it's a little "hot" exposure-wise but I got away with it! Call it unfamiliarity with the camera...

The enthronement of an Archbishop brings out the great and the good - Prince Charles was there as Queen's representative (the monarch is actually the official head of the Church of England, so traditionally does not attend these) and the main political parties send their leaders. Here from left are Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, Prime Minister David Cameron and leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband. It was a bit gloomy in their
corner and both of the leaders were doing a good impression of the Prince of Darkness...

And here's a good reason to be thankful I could use 1/500th-1/640th; African dancers were part of the
ceremony for a few minutes and were very mobile! 

With the chief photographer editing, it was a bit nerve-wracking not being able to see what was popping up on his laptop (you don't normally like other people seeing ALL the stuff you've shot!) but all was well and he was actually very complimentary about the general quality and how few (3/4?) images he'd actually had to do anything to at all before sending them. Phew.

More to come on the blog soon.