Black Santa

Black Santa, Christmas 2022

Black Santa made his first appearance at Christmas 1976 when Dean Sammy Crooks sat out in front of Belfast Cathedral collecting money for local charities. He was dubbed Black Santa by the local media as he wore an Anglican clerical cloak to protect him from the cold and rain.

The tradition has been continued down the years and the current Dean, Very Rev. Stephen Forde stands outside the Cathedral in the lead up to Christmas in 2022.

Music provided by Laganvale Band.

Laganvale Band

Getting to 2018

 

Past work has featured in the last few posts and although I’m still working at cleaning up my Lightroom catalogue and organising imagesĀ I thought I should move into 2018.

January, this year, has been unusually dull and wet and his image of St. Anne’s was taken during a rare sunny few hours.

 

Belfast Cathedral, St. Anne's
Belfast Cathedral, St. Anne’s

Belfast Cathedral

In a previous post I said that most photographs of Writers’ Square are taken with St. Anne’s Cathedral in the background. This is a photograph of the Cathedral without Writers’ Square in the foreground.

Photographing the Cathedral from the Square gives a straight on front view. There is no parking permitted in front of the church but parking is allowed on the opposite side of the street. This, along with one or two streetlamps on that side, makes for a messy image.

St. Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, Belfast Cathedral
St. Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, Belfast Cathedral

 

This photograph was taken from the side of the Cathedral with a 24mm equivalent lens. I was able to stand on the road and although there is some distortion it gives an uninterrupted view. The bright winter sunshine warmed the stone, revealing the texture. I returned a couple of hours later but the sun was lower in the sky and the buildings at the rear of Writers’ Square are casting a shadow on the Cathedral.

I had intended to convert this image to black and white (I still do) but I haven’t been able to get it just right so far. When I get it right I’ll post it.