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Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 5:42 pm
by eucsgmrc
[Since I posted this, I've spotted that this photo has appeared before, as one of the CH Postcards.]
I found this photo recently, along with 10" LPs of the choir singing Christmas carols under Corks' direction, and David Swale playing a Rheinberger sonata on the organ. I was never in the choir, so I don't know the history of the photo or how my parents came by it.
If you want a full-resolution version (e.g., to zoom in on the faces), try
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jandsw/670 ... otostream/
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 7:50 pm
by sejintenej
This photo seems to have been posed for the photograph.
1 Pupils are standing in the aisle which they never normally did
2 Corks is wearing not only the black gown but also his degree colours (whatever they are properly called)
3 Normally the conducting would have been done by the chorister in the back row, closest to the altar and on the west side of the chapel. Very very rarely would the conducting have been done by an adult
This could have have been taken at a rehearsal / practice.
Edit: just noticed that on the west side the right hand bank of sets is empty which it would not normally be.
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:55 pm
by eucsgmrc
You're absolutely right. This is very obviously a professional photograph, possibly commissioned by the school for some publicity purpose. It's artificially posed, carefully lit, with everything in its proper place, Christmas tree visible in the background, architecture and murals shown in fine detail. Amateur photographers of the period wouldn't expect to produce anything like this. My copy is a large professional grade print which must have been quite expensive by the standards of the day.
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:09 pm
by michael scuffil
An extraordinarily hi-res photo, actually. Yes, I recognize a few faces. Presumably a choir practice, but I wonder who commissioned the photo. And who took it. I suppose it might have been Norman Fryer, who took Grecians and 1st XV and 1st XI photos with quite professional equipment. (I think I can date it to Christmas 1956 on internal evidence. There is someone there who I know only started in 1956, and a form-mate of mine who would have had a broadie by 1957, but doesn't yet.)
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 9:39 pm
by eucsgmrc
michael scuffil wrote:I wonder who commissioned the photo. And who took it.
You were right. Christmas 1956. That clue let me establish that the photo appeared in The Times that year, and it was taken by one of their staff photographers. Probably on a press or technical camera of the period, which would use plates or cut film of at least 5" x 4" size.
I like the way that the photographer has placed a BIG light on the floor, and then positioned a few trebles to hide it. That looks like a press photographer's trick.
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 9:56 am
by michael scuffil
This photo is not only detailed, but also very 'plastic' (in the sense of having depth, 3D). You can test this by using the old trick of viewing it with one eye. (Why this works is interesting. Basically: the photo itself is two-dimensional, so your stereo vision doesn't help. In fact it hinders, because it interprets the picture (rightly) as flat. However, depth is indicated by far more things than the parallax effect of stereo vision: relative size of objects, what covers what, shadows etc. So without the distraction of no parallax, the picture looks 3D. The shadows certainly help, as does the vanishing point. Colour would be a distraction.
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 11:06 am
by J.R.
michael scuffil wrote:This photo is not only detailed, but also very 'plastic' (in the sense of having depth, 3D). You can test this by using the old trick of viewing it with one eye. (Why this works is interesting. Basically: the photo itself is two-dimensional, so your stereo vision doesn't help. In fact it hinders, because it interprets the picture (rightly) as flat. However, depth is indicated by far more things than the parallax effect of stereo vision: relative size of objects, what covers what, shadows etc. So without the distraction of no parallax, the picture looks 3D. The shadows certainly help, as does the vanishing point. Colour would be a distraction.
WOW ! You're right Michael !
I looked at it, shutting my left eye, (
due for a cataract op at the end of the year), and viewed it with my right eye which has just had a cataract removed. The difference is astounding !
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 11:51 am
by Fjgrogan
H'm - if you say so! I still haven't got the hang of the varifocals!!
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2019 1:20 pm
by KMB
I still have this record in my "legacy essentials" LP collection, but I was always a bit miffed that after 7 years of singing in the chapel choir, I was prevented from participating in the recording by being sent to Cambridge to sit Scholarship exams (I am an Oxford graduate - enough said!). There is a noticeable absence of the basses in the chapel choir, for this very reason, though my friend Michael Parsons is there top left - and is that staff member Edward Malins looming up at the far end? Perhaps he and others were brought in to boost the basses for the recording. The recording quality was good, but I thought the carols were sung far too slowly and carefully.
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:27 am
by Straz
Brilliant photo.
It may have been staged, but it's a class act from a pro photographer of the mid-1950s, carefully balancing available light and additional light to create a powerful yet intimate image that's full of detail.
Many thanks to eucsgmrc for posting it.
Re: Chapel choir, c. 1956
Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:13 pm
by rockfreak
KMB wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 1:20 pm
I still have this record in my "legacy essentials" LP collection, but I was always a bit miffed that after 7 years of singing in the chapel choir, I was prevented from participating in the recording by being sent to Cambridge to sit Scholarship exams (I am an Oxford graduate - enough said!). There is a noticeable absence of the basses in the chapel choir, for this very reason, though my friend Michael Parsons is there top left - and is that staff member Edward Malins looming up at the far end? Perhaps he and others were brought in to boost the basses for the recording. The recording quality was good, but I thought the carols were sung far too slowly and carefully.
That's certainly Gad at the far end with, I think Joe Swale next to him, relieved from organ duties for the occasion.