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Standing in darkness in the bell tower of St. Nikolia church in Hamburg. We are looking out through the thick dark frames of a window. Outside, a cloudless spring day. 75 metres below us, we see the whole city. Its spires and historic buildings and modern <br />buildings and flags and rooftops look bright and fresh and lovely. But. Right outside the open window, looming out from the brickwork: a black gargoyle is stretching out. Its upper body and long neck strain forward. Its long sharp curved beak gapes open. <br />Its head and gaze look down. It looks as if it is about to strike out and attack the innocent city below, while we lurk in here back in the shadows, cowardly still, not daring to move in case it turns its head and sees us instead.

2024-04-12 16:12:32

Ciara

CiaraNi@mastodon.green

Look out ...

#Hamburg #FensterFreitag #WindowFriday

2024-04-12 16:39:14

Ciara

CiaraNi@mastodon.green

Looking out through the frame of another window in the 75-metre tower of the gothic St. Nikolai church in Hamburg, that’s also pictured in the connected toot. Close up, outside, we see the big black and grey and beige bricks of a corner of the spire. At <br />the very edge, a gargoyle, indistinct in strong backlight from the sun, is jutting out and roaring at the unseen city below. Close to us, barely visible, carved in the stone between the top brick of the spire wall and the bottom edge of the roof, a little <br />black stone carving – the head of a man jutting out, as if he’s been crushed by the masonry. One tiny hand clings to the wall, as if holding on for dear life, the other hand stretches up to his head, as if reacting to the whole building falling on <br />him. The figure startled me when I saw it a few years ago. I really do think of him often, and of the architect and bricklayer who imagined him and created him centuries ago.

Just as I was about to start climbing down from the church tower, I noticed this little man outside the window. I have worried about him every day since.

2024-04-12 16:51:35

Ciara

CiaraNi@mastodon.green

Close up of the stone carving of a tiny man’s head and hands jutting out between the roof and the brick at the top of the church spire, as if being crushed between them. He is indistinct, partly because of the similar brown and black tones in the brick <br />and stone. Mostly because of my poor photo and my old basic mobile phone with old basic zoom.

Once again, #AltText makes me realise how little I know.

Writing the image description for the preceding toot made me wonder what the architectural term is for this kind of 'figure of a man crushed by the building, carved into masonry, alongside the gargoyles'. I didn't know. And still don't, because a quick search failed me.

2024-04-12 20:10:19

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Ciara I usually don't even take an image when I don't know how to describe it properly.

Still, it tends to happen that I get stuck on the description of some detail for way too long. I mean, I want to use the right terms and words and then explain them afterwards.

And your problem is the very reason why I avoid having buildings in my images. Having to describe four pictures of galaxies for a series of three images was tough enough for me to skip them and postpone them until most of the rest was described. And identifying all four galaxies wasn't even the hardest part, but it took me a while.

The last time I posted an image, I took an urban setting into consideration. But then I realised that I'd spend an eternity describing all the buildings in the image, including researching architectural features and their names. And so I went somewhere that was easier to describe. Granted, I discovered I still had to describe a motel building, but that building was fairly simple.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta