The castle/sun/leaves one is from Milton Abbas, all the rest are from my time in Penhurst, Sussex at the end of July.

I was rooting around this afternoon looking at some of the photos I took at the Fullness retreat, these give more an idea of the location rather than what we actually did, I guess, but I thought I’d post them as I really like them.

This was outside at the back of the Custard Factory. The weather was lovely and the coloured graffiti really stood out. I wished I’d thought about popping out and snapping beforehand, as we were rushing to packdown, so I only had time to snaffle a few illicit shots… lots of bright spray paints, peeling paint and rust – my favourite sort of a place to take photos.

Again, there was much in this corner which could have kept me snapping for hours. I loved the starkness of the tower, which is out of shot to the top left, I loved the broken brickwork, the sharp angles contrasting with the curling graffiti, the plant growing out of the drainpipe and the small snatch of blue sky. I was inspired by the scrap of blue knitted fabric stuck in the barbed wire, too. I may have a bit of a photoshop twiddle with this, because think it’d look better in black and white perhaps, with some bleaker contrasts… we’ll see.

On to inside artwork now, a beautiful contribution from the beautiful Kate. I loved the ‘flowingness’ of this. A dangerous prayer to pray methinks, but she really captured the heart of the event with this.

I loved the picture of the girl with her hands in the fire. I’ve thought about it a lot since then. Was she warming her hands? Was it a cleansing thing, like the heat of the fire symbolising holiness? And then the fire seems to be radiating, shining from her face and hair. I like the thought that being that close to God radiates like that.