Transfiguration

"A stained glass Bible", which I published last year, has just entered a new edition, with some extra pages. The latest image is this rather tender Victorian "Transfiguration" panel: friends have it in their house, rescued from a London church riddled with dry rot and demolished in the 'Seventies.

I'm rather pleased to have been able to include some glass which, whilst it fits my biblical theme, is not stuck away in a little-visited church, but instead much cherished by private owners: it hangs in their front porch, but was taken down specially for my (by appointment) visit.

Well worth my rather dicey bicycle ride through Cheltenham's unsalted streets, in order to take the photograph this morning!

"A stained glass Bible"

This is the title of a book I've published via Blurb online publishing. Not of course all the Bible as seen in stained glass, but some of the familiar stories. Alongside a text derived from the New Jerusalem Bible is one of my photographs of a stained (or painted) glass panel, taken from the collection I've built up over the years - 30 or so in total.

It's print-on-demand book, so if anyone wants to order a copy, then they do so by accessing the book on the Blurb site, and filling in their requirements, just like on Amazon. You can preview some of the pages of the book online (to help you make up your mind about buying!).

How did this all come about? Well, Mini, my new daughter-in-law from Japan, is an admirer of stained glass, and this prompted Leo to commission me to put together a book of photographs for her. So, rejecting all the many non-biblical subjects I seemed to have gathered in, I restricted myself to a theme of Old and New Testament subjects.

The age of the windows I photographed is from the early 14th to the late 20th centuries. I was worried about including a couple of images taken in a private chapel I'd visited, but the owners were happy to consent to my publishing them - provided I didn't identify the location. I hope none of the other glass's "custodians" object to their windows being included, with attribution and a general acknowledgement.