CANNOT FIND SERVER
Thankfully the paralysing fear of isolation from the world was short-lived however and the server swung into action to much relief once again.
Not that that can be said regarding my residency in Ul Broniewskiego. Short-lived it’s been sure enough, but it’s sometimes felt like a life sentence, and the thought of staying here a moment longer simply and finally got the better of me. So, it’s dobranoc to the guy downstairs (who can now crank up his death-strains as much as he likes - to play to the devil himself for all I care), and goodbye for good to the alleyway drunks, their obnoxious stares, and eyeing up the joint from the stairwell as I leave of a morning; for we’re off to pastures green in the centre of town – namely – Daniel’s now empty flat in the more salubrious surroundings of Centrum!
Not that it’s been all bad here! On the whole the people are great, or what we would call Salt of the Earth – if they weren’t, you know, the sort of dogmatic bigots who appear to be harmless until they set fire to your front door… Aye, it’s been canny enough, but I won’t be sad to be loading up the auld removals van once again! To be honest, if I didn’t fear for my life sometimes (and I know this is probably the paranoia given me by the subliminal messages held within the music from downstairs) then I’d be loathed to leave - The place is supremely interesting, and as an area, a complete Photo-Fest.
Took this one of the local church yesterday, a building, which although rather humble compared to the numerous grand ‘cathedrals’ dotted around Białystok, is still relatively imposing in a peculiar kind of way, and with it’s two early morning masses continues to be filled to overflowing twice each morning (the congregation literally does spill onto the pavement and road). Whether I pass by on my run at six or eight am, it’s an odd feeling and sight for me as a ‘devout C of E’ and resulting atheist because of it as I hustle my way through the crowds in my preferred jogging outfits of ragamuffin T-Shirts, long swimming trunks and day-glow trainers on the way to fall around the local park (a semi-reclaimed industrial site which looks magnificent in the summer and like a bombsite the rest of the year round) and back again sweating, retching phlegm and spitting, while in their Sunday bests they sing out loud their Hail Mary’s, or whatever the Latin is for Morning Has Broken..?
Until the move, for now, bon-voyage
posted by The Slide at 1:05 pm
2 Comments:
This photo is really impressive, it must have to do with the light but also with the camera angle. It may sound unorthodox by Polish PC standards but at first I took it for some market or retail outlet or what not, but not a church. Only when I read the comment did I think about it as a church, and to be honest I'm still quite lost. As if the cross was just an add-on thing, some digital trick. But once it's there, it makes the whole thing quite different. Very unPolish way of showing a church. And where are the poor souls? Trapped inside?
7:59 pm
Thanks for your comment ‘anonymous’ – To be happy with this shot I must have waited for around a fortnight for the light to be just right – In contrast, the camera angle was easy to achieve however - simply by lying down in the road and ‘praying’ that the estimated gap in the traffic was long enough not to be flattened ;-) Seriously though, I am fairly pleased with the result here myself and believe it points the way forward for the forthcoming work which should culminate in a body of photographs outlining ‘life and place’ here in Bialystok – hopefully to be published on my website in the not too distant future and to be shown within the next six months or so in Warsaw. As for the ‘poor souls’..? Due to the amount of people who attend church for each of the early morning masses here, the building itself is full to overflowing and far too small to accommodate the populous, let alone imprison them :-)
10:47 am
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