The ‘Whispering Gallery’ set in the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral is one of it’s principle tourist attractions. The accoustics are remarkable. Setting up in the gallery, early in the morning, and before the public arrived it felt like a vast space, with the onion-shape of the dome above giving glimpses of another balcony far over-head, and the jaw-dropping view to the cathedral floor way below.
Photography there is challenging; narrow walkways, high balconies for Health and Safety reasons, and huge variations in lighting as shafts of sunlight pierce the windows. A technical challenge to excite any photographer!
In the cathedral’s archives is an old black and white photograph of smartly dressed Londoners sitting in the Gallery, with their ears to the wall. It seemed like a lovely idea to re-create the image for modern times, with the assistance of some of the first tourists of the day.
Here it is in full colour and then, down below, in black and white, like the original.
and now in black and white, as in the original. I prefer the b/w rendering: There is more sense of mystery and atmosphere to it.
