Camus old church and graveyard

Just outside Coleraine and only a little way along from the Iron Age settlement of Mountsandel lies Camus old church and graveyard.  Locally pronounced Cams, by the way. Around about 580AD it was the location of a monastic settlement and overlooks the River Bann.  Close by was a significant crossing point before the first wooden bridge was constructed in the town itself. There's nothing left of the old monastery but there are quite a few old gravestones, dating back to the early 19th Century.  My fellow film shooter David and I had a very interesting walkabout there a couple of weeks ago.  The light wasn't great - hazy summer sun but from time to time the cloud lifted and that provided an opportunity for a couple of shots.  This was the best of the bunch and shows the remains of a High Cross dedicated to the memory of Saint Comgall, who founded the original monastery.

Remains of the High Cross at Camus, Coleraine.  Hasselblad/50mm/FP4+ in RO9.  Printed on Foma 313 paper.

It’s a striking thing and sits just inside the entrance to the graveyard. The original cross was broken at some stage and what was left was used as a gate post until around 1905 when its value was realised and it was relocated to its present position.  It’s carved from red sandstone and apparently has scenes of the baptism of Jesus, the Ark and the murder of Abel.  I wonder where the sandstone came from and I also wonder who carved it, all those years ago. 

The other thing of interest in the graveyard is a bullaun stone.  A what, I hear you ask?  Bullaun stones are stones with a natural indentation in them which, apparently, never dries out.  It is said to have magical properties and in older times they were used as fonts for baptism.  This particular stone was, I’m told, highly regarded and used as a place of pilgrimage until the late Victorian period.  All this I learned after our visit but I did happen upon the stone when I was there and it certainly made me stop and look.  It's not a big thing but what caught my eye was the fact that the indentation was indeed very damp - and this has been an exceedingly warm, dry period here in the Liberties. I thought it strange at the time.  Make of that what you will.

I was happy with this shot and the subsequent print.  I spent a bit of time walking around the cross trying to get the best angle.  I wanted to get some of the old gravestones behind whilst trying to get some of the carving detail on the cross itself.  I used a light green filter, so the grass appears a little lighter that usual.  In the darkroom I burned in the left and right corners at the bottom of the print where the clover is, to balance out the darkness of the yew trees at the top of the print.  As I look at it now, I think I could burn in the right edge a little as well - both to hold the eye in the centre and again to balance out the left side.