Up just after eight and making breakfast before a morning of housework distributing this week's liturgical readings and attending to emails. Andrew came at midday to go over a list of Holy Week services for use in. There's a lot to cover between Rhys and himself. It's another six weeks before Sion joins the team. It's not Andrew's first multi church ministry area but he was in a rural setting previously. The demands and challenges are somewhat different in a collection of diverse urban villages, especially when he's still getting to know them. I'm sure he will enjoy the good-will of all congregation members, but as there are a few necessary changes from previous years, it's essential that correct information goes out from the start.
Our friend Manel in Geneva sent me the email address of Dagmar, daughter of my recently departed friend Alec, to enable me to send a message of condolence. A reply arrived just before Andrew did. I was delighted to learn she's now a Professor in the Geneva University Institute of Family Medicine. I was also surprised a while back to learn that one of the teenagers I prepared for Confirmation in those days is now a court judge in the Canton. I'd love to know what some of the other youngsters I worked with in those days are doing now, twenty five years on.
Coincidentally, I had an email from the current organist at Holy Trinity Geneva, who is bringing the choir over in the first week of August to sing Choral Evensong several days at Llandaff Cathedral. His predecessor from out time, Keith Dale is coming as well it seems. As it's summer we'll be here. Two years ago the choir of St Paul's Clifton came for the same purpose to sing at the Cathedral. It was the choir Clare and I sang in when we were students.
Clare cooked a curry for lunch. I was going to Martin's for lunch, but couldn't resist a half portion before driving to Newport, where I later had a large bowl of chicken soup with him. The purpose of my visit was to take a batch of trial photos of a small selection of his best Japanese decorated pottery out of a collection of 350 pieces, including a 70 piece tea set, ornamental pots nearly a metre tall, and small bowls that fit in the palm of the hand.
He picked up at auction a folding silk screen with a Japanese rural landscape painted on it, and wanted to see if this was suitable to use as a backdrop, standing on a table. Together with a silk cloth to hide a flat cardboard box to serve as a display base, this turned out to be a simple effective measure. Lighting the pots displayed was much more of a challenge, due to their glazed surfaces. By trial and error, moving the display in relation to various light sources, it was possible to minimise reflections, but not eliminate them. I took twenty one pictures using seven pots with my Olympus OMD E-M10 and was satisified with the limited result possible in domestic conditions.
To take high quality photos good enough to be used in a brochure or photo-book the table would need to be set up in a white room or tent with the camera on a tripod. Martin wanted the photos as proof of concept to show a friend we met at a big party last summer, who teaches photography at Newport Uni. He has all the best equipment. We have yet to get started on cataloguing any of his collection.. A massive job.
I drove home just before sunset, and went straight out to Llandaff Fields and walked until supper at seven. Afterwards, I went out and walked again for an hour, to complete my daily target in the dark. Invigorating and relaxing after an intense day of active concentration. I shall sleep well tonight.
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