today

today i met Canon Jim Pannett who as well as being a canon is also a "Knight of the Holy Sepulchre" in Jerusalem. this was quite a happy coincidence as when i had initially asked to photograph him i was under the impression that he was a "Knight of St.John" which i think is a bit more like a church based rotary club... but fitted with my theme of kings and knights and army portraits. anyway, as a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, canon Jim has visited Israel and Palestine hundreds of times and has organised the funding and building of a church on the west bank and is involved in fundraising to build and support schools there too. it interesting to hear of his stories of conversations with bemused israeli immigration officials who still profess not to know what a pilgrimage is or why he wouldn't prefer a fortnight in eilat. he also mentioned a few contacts i could follow up on in the future. it was so good as i really hadn't expected to have come away with more than the pictures i was taking.

yet again nerves and talking too much got the better of me. there is a fine line between someone being animated and being plain scary looking, which he certainly isn't and yet i kept freezing his expression as so. i was quite pleased that i got the background to go so black when we were in a really bright church, it was a happy accident at first, but then i kept with it for a bit as i liked it. as for the others i took... i just couldn't seem to find a composition that worked for me. i wanted to try and get some of the church in the background, statues and the cross... but it didn't really work.