NEWS AND UPDATES

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Visit the Buildings section to see works arranged in folders according to the location of the windows. These contain works by many different makers and in many different styles:

 Buildings Section

Important notice regarding copyright.

October 17th

The new items have been added to the various sections to which they belong. A few details have still to be posted but we did not wish to delay adding the items with the Holidays getting closer each day.

A couple of new items to report. Firstly one of our images is to be published in the December edition of 'Good Housekeeping'. This is the US (not UK) magazine which I understand has a circulation of over 5 million. This is far from being the lucrative proposition that most would expect for this kind of usage but hopefully the mention of the website will result in some more visitors and perhaps some of them may stop to buy things. The image which they will be using is a picture of an angel and I believe that it is to accompany an article about true-life experiences involving angels.

The second thing to mention is still evolving and it concerns the free use of some of our images by at least one branch of the US military (USAF) to enhance Christmas Eve services on remote bases where worship has to be conducted in surroundings which have been described to me as being 'spartan'. The particular base which has made this initial request is Manas Air Base, in Kyrgyzstan which I have yet to look for on a map. However, it is my hope that whatever we produce for use there can also be utilised by other bases in other parts of the world to brighten up the Christmas services for soldiers, sailors, marines as well as members of the air force.

October 10th

There is probably more news than I have time to type but I will at least try. Firstly there are a lot of imminent changes in the Glassmasters line-up. The company has recently launched over 20 new products which I will get posted on the site shortly but this is also being accompanied by the retirement of some of the older products, a situation which is tricky to manage.

Basically what happens is that pending retirements are announced but the items are available as long as existing stocks last - this can range from weeks or more in the case of less popular items to as short as a few days with others. Rather than delete items when the retirement is announced we prefer to continue to offer them until stocks are more or less totally exhausted but we do run the risk that we might not be able to fulfill an order as happened on at least one occasion recently. Of course when this happens we always offer either a full refund or a substitution according to the wish of the customer but there is still the potential for disappointment when someone was hoping to get a particular item.

The best advice we can offer is not to delay any purchase which you plan to make. This is all the more true with the Holidays looming ever-larger on the horizon. Glassmasters (and Stonemasters) have warned us that they expect to have a very busy season this year and every year there are some items which sell out by December, by which it is too late to plan additional production. So if you are thinking about buying any items for the holidays please place your orders as soon as possible. Right now most current items are available but this will almost certainly not be the case as we get nearer to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

You will notice a link at the top of the page inviting you to send a free e-card - please follow it and send at least one card. We are participating in a competition which is being run by CrossDaily and the first referring website to send 100,000 visitors to them via the card link will receive $1,000 which we plan to donate to the Save the Children Fund. I plan to circulate links to this page as far and as fast as I can. Technically we have until December to hit the magical 100,000 visitors but I believe that with some energy and creativity we could hit the number within a lot shorter time, perhaps even less than a week, such is the nature of the internet. There is really no cost to it, just a small investment of time, and the recipient of the card(s) you send will be most appreciative.

August 11th

I need to add something otherwise the "New" will be a misnomer! It is not that things have not been happening but I have not been disciplined in recording and publicising what has been going on. The real purpose of this particular update is to highlight the fact that today, for some selected items in the Glassmasters range, we have begun to offer *FREE* shipping on domestic orders.

It was apparent that some of our visitors were coming to check out our Glassmasters offerings but were not buying from us and when I surveyed the market it was clear that some of our competitors are offering free shipping on orders above a certain threshold. Not to be outdone, we have initiated a trial period of free shipping for selected items and we will see how it goes. Whether we continue it or not will depend on the number of orders we get, it only really makes sense if it means extra volume.

Earlier today we did receive a trial order from a company in Japan for quite a range of our cards and I feel confident that it will lead to larger orders in the future.

If you have been tracking the 'Buildings' section you will have noted the folders containing the recent work from the 4 churches in Jersey City.

February 29th

I thought that I should make an entry today as this date only comes around every four years!

This week saw the release of The Passion of Christ after a very skillfully managed publicity campaign. I went to see it on Friday and it is probably the most poweful film I have ever seen. I read an interesting comment earlier today which unfortunately I am unable to attribute because I did not see the whole article. Basically the question was posed that, in light of the huge success of The Passion of Christ, has the cinema become the stained glass of the 21st century? Films about the Bible and the Life of Jesus are not a new phenomenon and they have not all been given the 'Hollywood Gloss' as, say, 'The Ten Commanments' or 'King of Kings'. I seem to recall that 'The Gospel according to St Mark' had a few things in common with The Passion of Christ, at least in terms of it's realism, the treatment and the use of relatively unknown actors. Nevertheless, Gibson's Passion of Christ marks a watershed and it will be interesting to see what develops and evolves from it.

In anticipation of some interest in Passion, Holy Week and Resurrection images today I revamped the cards section. We have decided to make the individual card purchase option a permanent feature and so what we have done is to create a common 'Cards' page from which can be accessed 'Individual Cards' and 'Sets of Cards' and to both we have added some images which are appropriate to The Passion and the run up to Easter. However, if the image(s) which you like are not represented on the card pages please email us and ask because most of the images on the site, and others not yet up[loaded, can be available as cards or even larger prints.

On a slightly less serious note it is interesting to see what happens with keywords in search engines such as Google and Yahoo. I just tried a few searches around 'The Passion of Christ' and this site is nowhere, at least not in the first 23 pages brought back by Google, unless you add the two magic words 'stained' and 'glass' and then we come up #2 in Yahoo and about #4 in Google. It will be interested to see if this page comes higher ranked in the general search. Google updates quite often and the Google spiders visit every day or two.

February 24th update

I am very pleased to be able to report that from today StainedGlassPhotography cards may be purchased from the giftshop in St Bartholomew's (St Bart's) Episcopal Church on Park Avenue in New York (between 50th and 51st). I personally made the first delivery today so that they would be available for people attending the Ash Wednesday services. The cards are also going to be available both physically and online at the Episcopal Book and Resource Center whose shop is on 2nd Avenue and, in addition, the Book and Resource Center is planning to stock some larger-sized prints.

February 18th update

Not very much news to report. Two events are on the horizon which might interest readers who live within reach of northern New Jersey. The first is an exhibition of work which will take place in the Atrium Gallery which is within the Municipal Court buildings in Morristown from sometime around the end of April until July. The other is a slide show and lecture at the New Jersey Historical Society on Saturday May 8th, subject yet to be determined.

I did send out a February update but I have noticed that email has recently become less reliable than it used to be and I am wondering all of the copies reached their addressees. If anyone reading this did not receive a copy and would like one please email me.

Mel Gibson's film 'The Passion' is scheduled to be released in about a week's time and I am anticipating that it will result in an increased interest in everything to do with The Passion and Holy Week which will probably result in more traffic to the site as people search online for images of Gethsemane, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

January 30th update

I am delighted to announce that Stained Glass Photography has been appointed as an online distributor of the entire range of Glassmasters fine stained glass reproductions. For many years now this company in Richmond, Virginia, has been producing fine miniature replicas of works by Tiffany Studios, Frank Lloyd Wright, John La Farge, Marc Chagall and others. It is no coincidence that many great museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation have all chosen Glassmasters to reproduce their stained glass treasures.

This represents a significant enhancement to the website and offers not only the chance to buy these beautiful works but also the chance to see many new images. Whilst these are not photographs of real windows in situ the Glassmasters models are so beautifully made and with such attention to detail that they are themselves worth looking at in order to better appreciate the design qualities in the original works. For me this was particularly true of the Frank Lloyd Wright collection because I have never seen his work first-hand and the opportunity to look closely at the pictures of these 25 to-scale miniatures has given me a much better appreciation of why his work is so sought after. Examples

January 18th update

A folder has just been uploaded which contains images of some of the windows from Christ Episcopal Church, a beautiful stone-built church on the border of Bloomfield and Glenridge. There is a set of 3 lancets by Tiffany Studios - one is an Annunciation, the second is an Adoration of the Magi and the third is Jesus as a boy, preaching to the Elders in the Temple. There is another 3-lancet set opposite it (image #04) which includes a rather fine angel playing a mandolin is signed "Kimberley" and dates from the 1920's. The west window is a depiction of Jesus blessing the children, I do not know the maker. As with the folder uploaded last week these are not labelled and have been subject to minimal editing.

The other significant item of news is that we have located a source for genuine examples of antique stained glass. These are mostly panels from houses and other secular buildings and right now there are some beautiful examples of early Arts and Crafts Movement panels from the 1880's. One set in particular which caught my attention features beautifully hand-painted images of birds. Due to the fact that most of their customers are from the US all their pricing is in $US and is therefore unaffected by the weaker dollar. Eventually I plan to set up a permanent link to this interesting source of original works but for the time being you can access it from here if you like Victorian and Edwardian stained glass and have a house where it would look good then you would do well to at least take a look at what is available. However, you must bear in mind that these are original, one-of-a-kind pieces and the stock is turning over all the time. On the one hand it means that new items are constantly being added but it also means that when you see something you like you may need to move quickly.

January 11th update

Happy New Year! I have just finished a somewhat belated reorganisation of the cards pages. There are two significant changes - firstly the Christmas cards have been given their own page and this means that the cards page will now load faster. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, for a limited time we are offering visitors the chance to buy individual cards with a below-cost S&H charge. This means that if you just want to buy one card for a very special gift or occasion you can do so for about the same as you would pay for a Hallmark card but with one of these you are getting a miniature work of art, a real one-of-a-kind. The following is a quotation from an email which I received from someone who had just purchased 2 sets of the cards, I was going to paraphrase it but I don't think that I could possibly do it justice and so here it is, verbatim:-

"Thanks! The pictures are incredible. My wife couldn’t believe they were photos of stained glass. She said they look like paintings – not photos of paintings, but paintings themselves. She didn’t know how you did it. High praise, I think. A personal letter written in that note card would be a gift to treasure. You may want to pitch that concept around the holidays, or Valentine’s Day. What better gift than a photograph of an incredible work of art accompanying a personal note. You’re bringing two nearly lost (and moving art) forms -- stained glass and letter writing – together in one gift."

I am certainly hoping that we make some sales for Valentine's Day, and for Easter too which is just around the corner. Last but not least I believe that I will soon have completed the upload of pictures of the windows in Christ's Episcopal Church in Riverton. The crowning glory is a fairly early Tiffany rose window which I believe dates to when he was about 35 yrs old and would have been involved personally to a much greater extent than with some of the many later works. It is an unusual design with an inner circle with some angel faces surrounded by what appear to be cornucopias decorated with holly branches. There are other nice windows but I have yet to determine the makers of the other works. I will apologise in advance for any shortcomings in the editing. I should have spent more time adjusting them and even eliminating some duplications which slipped through but I ran out of time and decided to upload something rather than nothing.

December 19th update

Unfortunately the Christmas Concert at the convent of St Elizabeth had to be cancelled due to the severe snow-storm which struck New Jersey on the weekend that it was planned to take place. However, I am delighted to be able to announce that some of the photographs which I took and which were going to be exhibited have now been posted on the website of the Sisters of Charity from whom prints may be ordered.

November 26th update

There are a few upcoming events which may be of interest to visitors who are within reach of northern New Jersey.

Firstly some work is being exhibited at the Gallery Petite in High Bridge, just outside Clinton. It is part of a larger exhibition entitled 'Of the Spirit' comprising works in a range of different media by several artists. The exhibition opened in November and will close at the end of December.

Also running during the month of December is an exhibition at a gallery in Clifton called 'The Artisan's Touch'. The gallery is located on the lower level of the Styertowne Shopping Center which is just off route 3 at the Bloomfield Avenue exit. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 11.00am or noon depending on the day. There will be a "Meet the Photographer" session on Saturday 13th December from around 1.00pm. For further details or directions call the gallery on 973-471-0001.

On December 6th cards and prints will be on sale at the 'Fair in the Square' in Verona.

On December 7th there will be a Christmas Concert entitled "Cathedral Sounds at Christmas" at the Convent of St Elizabeth in Convent Station. Immediately following the concert will be an exhibition and sale of photographs of the exquisite stained glass windows in the chapel of the Motherhouse, where the concert will have been held. Admission is by ticket only and tickets may be obtained by calling Sister Sheila Holleran on 973-290-5454.

For anyone who is planning to order one or more sets of our cards now would be a good time to do it. At time of writing this update I can safely promise a speedy turnaround of orders and pre-Christmas delivery, even to overseas purchasers. If you haven't made your mind up yet whether to buy some then all I can say is 'go ahead and buy', you will not be disappointed. I sold a lot at a local Christmas Fair this past weekend and everyone loved them. Many people said that they were buying them for framing or to use as Christmas decorations or special gifts rather than to be sent as cards. If you are ready to buy then click on the link at the top of this page.

November 1st update

We now have 9 sets of cards specially selected with Christmas in mind. At time of writing all of the cards are on one page and that makes the page very slow to load. To anyone reading this who has a dial-up connection and/or a slow modem I would ask you to be patient. We are planning to split the content into 2 pages and I am hopeful that this will be done within a day or two.

If you are planning to order cards then now would not be too soon. The cards are more or less made-to-order and we do not carry large stocks. There are several events coming up which will place demands on us and if we get a sudden upsurge of business via the website we might get back-ordered. To avoid disappointment or delay I am urging everyone to place their orders early so that we can be sure to be able to fulfill them.

These are really great cards. Yesterday I delivered the Christmas order to Epstein's in Morristown and the buyer commented on how bright and vibrant the colours are. This is partly the photography but also because they are actual photographic prints and rarely can a conventionally printed card reproduce colour the way a photo can.

October was a record-breaking month in terms of traffic through the website. During the course of the month 16,624 unique users made a total of 33,774 visits to the site and viewed 75,333 pages. I will watch with interest to see how November and December pan out but it is clear to me that there is interest in this art and I have no regrets in having embarked on this journey. However, I will need help if the site is to continue and grow.

October 14th update

Kia Ora! Welcome to all our new visitors from New Zealand!

A couple of days ago there was a spike in traffic as measured by my statistics analyser. It wasn't the biggest spike we have ever seen but it was nevertheless noticeable and raised my curiousity. It seems that someone called Max Newman who edits a weekly newsletter for xtra, which is part of the MSN Network had said some kind words about the site and this was prompting people to look us over. Well, I wish all our new guests a warm welcome and thankyou Max!

There is not much other news to report. The Convent of St Elizabeth work is progressing well and there will definitely be an exhibit of work at their Christmas Concert on December 7th. I would urge anyone who can get to Morristown in New Jersey to obtain a ticket and plan to attend. The setting is really beautiful, I am sure that the music will be superb and there will be some fine photographs to be viewed afterwards. Prints will be on sale as will cards, all featuring the exquisite windows in the chapel of the Motherhouse, and a significant portion of the proceeds will be used by the Sisters for charitable purposes. By way of a preview, here is a detail from one of the windows at St Elizabeth's Convent. The angel is from an Annunciation window

Today I added a "Help Us" page and installed links from this page (see above) and from the home page. I thought that it was timely to remind our visitors that what is offered as a 'free' resource actually costs money to provide and we genuinely do need help and support from our visitors if we are to continue to provide the facility.

Last but not least can I urge any of you who are planning to order cards from us to please place your order sooner rather than later. We do not carry large numbers of these in stock and if there is a significant demand for them all at once then I can foresee difficulties in getting them delivered in time. I realise that it is only mid-October but the more orders which can be placed and fulfilled between now and mid-November the happier I shall be.

September 28th 2003 update

In case you had not noticed there have been a few new features added to the site. Firstly we have entered into affiliate programmes with AllPosters and Amazon in order to provide the opportunity for visitors to purchase prints, books and other items while visiting us and at the same time contributing to the upkeep of the site. Any goods purchased via one of these links will cost exactly the same as if purchased by going to these sites direct but if you follow one of our links and purchase something we receive a small commission. Eventually we may put the links onto the home page but for the time being you will find them in the Giftshop. We have tried to keep the items relevant to stained glass and the artists featured here and it is all passive advertising - if you are not interested simply ignore it.

The other thing which we have been working on is a concept which I think we will call 'E-blessings' and which I may even trademark if no-one has beaten me to it. Basically what we are setting up is a means whereby our visitors can send one of our images via email with a message and/or scripture attached. This facility is provided free to us by a company called Supertaf which uses the mechanism for advertising purposes. We are hopeful that the means of sending free electronic greetings will not detract from sales of our real cards, which are really a different thing altogether, and we are very pleased to offer this free service to our visitors. The first card was created and uploaded earlier today but I am hopeful that before too long there will be a range of options available featuring different designs and with different occasions in mind. Here is a link to our first card

September 11th 2003 update

I very much regret to announce the sad loss, on September 10th, of Walter Douglas Leek (best known as Doug), who was for 61 years the loving husband of Mary Elizabeth Leek, father of my wife Eileen, her sister Kathleen and brother Dougie and doting grandfather of my stepson, Michael. He was a pillar of a man - a sergeant in the US Marine Corps in WW2 he led machine-gun crews on Iwo Jima and was decorated, including the Purple Heart. After the war for many years he delivered literally tons of large animal carcasses to butchers' shops around New York and in his spare time built a house, single-handedly and with no modern power-tools. He recovered from a major heart attack and enjoyed a long retirement in Otisville, NY where he hand-built an extension to his home. For the last 17 years he has spent as much time as possible with his grandson, Michael who was born with CP, and has had a profound impact on Michael's development and determination to overcome his physical limitations. At every possible opportunity Doug would come to stay with us and spend time with Michael. Sometimes it would be ostensibly to be there to pick Michael up from school but the reality was that he simply took every possible opportunity to be with his "buddy" Mike. He also had 2 other grandchildren of whom he was very proud - Kyle and Stephen - and both of them, now in their late 20's, had spent many happy summers with "Poppa" when they were young. Fiercely proud of his family's long tradition in the fire service in his former home town, Flushing, New York, he recently donated his great grandfather's silver ceremonial fireman's trumpet to the American Museum of Firefighters in Hudson, New York. In retirement he was an avid collector of many things, including antique sewing machines which he took great pleasure in restoring. He was very active in the Marine Corps League as well as being a volunteer worker in his local First Aid Rescue Squad. He had tremendous compassion, a great sense of humour, a strong sense of duty and a strong work ethic. He will be greatly missed by many and the world was a better place for his presence and has suffered a loss through his absence.

September 1st update

The main item of news is that I have recently been priviledged to have been asked to photograph some windows in the Motherhouse of the convent of St Elizabeth at Convent Station, near Morristown, in New Jersey. These include some of the most exquisite windows I have ever seen. Probably 19thC and of German origins some of them are very fine indeed and they are in a building which, of it's nature, is relatively inaccessible to the public. At this time I am discussing using the images for charitable purposes to raise money for the Sisters of Charity but I hope that at some point I will be able to post some of these pictures on the website because they really are beautiful.

I am beginning to gear up for the holiday season and am hoping to show and sell work at several events. The first is a street fair in Madison on October 4th which replaces the June event cancelled due to bad weather. I am then hoping to do a small exhibit at St John's in Somerville in early November, attend the NY Episcopal Diocese convention later that month and then the Caldwell College fair after Thanksgiving.

If anyone who reads this is thinking of ordering some of our notecards with the Holidays in mind, either as cards or as gifts, then I would urge you to place your order early. We do not carry huge stocks of the cards and if we are inundated with orders in December then there is a chance that we may have problems fulfilling them all in time. Right now would be a great time to place your orders and that way there will be no pressure and you will get your cards in ample time. Also, please remember that the cost of postage and packing is the same whether you buy one set, two sets or even ten sets.

August 8th update

In case you scrolled past it without noticing, at the top of this page is a link to the page where you can purchase a set of our cards. These notecards really are beautiful and they are perfect for framing - you just drop them straight into a 7" by 5" standard photo frame. Whether you buy them to give or as a treat for yourself we guarantee that you will not be disappointed. Also, by buying something from us you will be supporting the site and contributing to the cost of maintaining and adding to it.

August 3rd update

In light of the renewed interest in Mary Magdalene as a result of the publication of the popular 'Da Vinci Code' I decided to add a folder containing a few images of her. All of these images are in other folders on the site but this way they will be easier to find should anyone be keyword searching using the name Magdalene. I also decided to add another folder which should have been uploaded last year but somehow missed the boat. This new folder includes an interesting variety of works. Many are from Church of the Incarnation which is home to some splendid Tiffany works as well as others by leading 19th and early 20thC makers. Also in there are a few pictures from St Paul's in Irton, including one of my personal favourites - the Tibertine Sibyl and some works from two churches in Scotland. All-told this has added 115 new images to the site.

July 30th update

This is not so much an update but more a request for help in tracking down a window which was stolen last weekend. The window in question is a 12-panel rose window featuring a landscape scene and was made by Lamb Studios in 1903. The window had been undergoing repair and maintenance work and was scheduled to be reinstalled on July 28th but unfortunately the van into which it had been loaded was stolen from Secaucus in northern New Jersey. As there were no markings on the van it can reasonably assumed that the van itself was the target of the theft but it is quite possible that the thieves may try to sell the window to a dealer. Should anyone who reads this hear of a window being offered for sale which might be this one I would ask that they contact me via the details on the 'contact us' page or call Don Samick, President of Lamb Studios on 1-877-700-LAMB.

If you are a returning visitor to the site then you will probably have noticed the appearance of some advertisements. I did originally hope to be able to maintain the site without resort to advertising but, alas, economic necessity dictates otherwise. The particular brand of advertising which is marketed by Google promises 'relevant' advertising and it is entirely passive - if you are not interested then simply do not click on it. I promise faithfully that I will not ever sign up for any 'pop-up' or 'pop-under' advertising which I personally find extremely irritating. As for the Google ads the jury is still out and I will be closely monitoring how they impact the aesthetic appeal of the site.

June 21st update

The bad news is that anything involving outdoor sales this summer has proven to be a washout, literally, due to the weather pattern we have been experiencing here in New Jersey. My two attempts at showing and selling prints were to have been the Denville Fair and the Madison Art Fair and both were major flops. The Madison one was even cancelled before starting as the rain was so bad.

The good news is that we have launched a line of notecards and they are proving to be a real winner. The cards are made of heavy, acid-free card-stock and are slightly off-white. An actual, individual photograph is sealed behind a window in the card which can act as a mat if the card is later framed. The cards are blank inside and each one comes with a matching envelope and is individually packaged in a clear, resealable, archival envelope. We are using actual photographs and they look superb. The entire card measures about 7" x 5" so as to fit straight into a standard frame and the actual 'mat opening' for the photograph is about 4 3/4" x 3 1/4". So far the cards are being sold to a number of book and card shops within northern New Jersey and to Epstein's, the highly prestigious 100 year-old department store in Morristown. However, for those who do not have easy access to northern New Jersey I am hoping to soon set up the means of buying the cards via the website as well as greatly increasing geographical coverage in terms of conventional stores.

One of the big attractions with the cards is the wide range of potential uses to which they can be put. Clearly the nativity scenes have potential to make nice Christmas cards and similarly there are other designs which will match other important times such as Easter. However there are also other possibilities such as giving a card with St Luke to a doctor for whom St Luke is the Patron Saint. Similarly an image of St Catherine of Alexandria is appropriate for a teacher. Some of the Tiffany angels representing, say, Peace, Charity or Hope can also be used to convey appropriate sentiments in certain situations. Overall these are bright, colourful and beautiful images and when incorporated into a notecard they become more like a gift than just a card. Several people have commented that these are cards which people will buy for themselves as well as to give to others.

I only hope that we can adequately convey to visitors to the website just how high the quality of these cards really is. Whenever I show the actual cards to people who are able to hold them and appreciate just how heavy the paper stock is and feel the thick texture of the card and the envelope with its ragged edged flap they take no convincing whatsoever. From that standpoint the cards actually sell themselves. However, whether we will be able to convince people online is something which remains to be seen but we will, of course, give our no-quibble, money-back, guarantee if for any reason anyone is dissatisfied.

I am hoping to get the online ordering mechanisms in place before the end of the month but if anyone reading this is impatient then please email me via the 'contact' link.

May 16th update

The website is due to be featured in the New Jersey 'Star Ledger' on May 22nd in the 'Essex Towns' section. I was interviewed earlier in the week by Carmen Juri, a reporter from the paper, and was then photographed by Tony Cho 'on location' at St Luke's Episcopal Church in Montclair.

I am continuing to find and photograph new windows. Last week I took pictures of a very nice Tiffany window in St Peter's Church in Morristown. I will need to obtain permission from the church before posting any of the pictures online but I am hoping that they will be supportive. There are two churches in Ridgewood whose windows I am planning to shoot just as soon as I have the right combination of my availability and favourable weather conditions.

On June 7th I will be exhibiting some work in the Art on Waverly show in Madison, New jersey. This is an outdoor show with booths around Waverly Place and I understand that it is usually very well-attended.

On June 14th the Montclair Historical Society has arranged a guided tour of several of Montclair's historic places of worship. The tour will end at St Luke's Episcopal Church where a small reception will take place and I have agreed to show some of my work to those attending, with particular emphasis on the local churches in which I have photographed.

April 6th update

This is just to mention that if you can get to northern New Jersey and are interested in seeing some actual prints of this work there are a few retail outlets where examples may be found and these are listed here

March 21st update

I have just added a folder of pictures of the windows in Central Presbyterian Church, Summit and to make these new folders easier to access I will leave links to them at the top of this page. Eventually there will be links to these from the home page but that is delayed pending other changes which are planned. These four folders now add just under 200 new images to the site which include some fine and hitherto unpublished works by Tiffany Studios, Henry Holiday and Connick studios as well as many other works both old and modern.

March 7th update

Today's news is the addition of a new folder of work which features the windows of Calvary Episcopal Church in Summit, New Jersey. This church has some fine windows by the London firm, Powell, whose mark is a cloaked monk. There is a very colourful and particularly fine set of windows to the left and right and above the altar by an as-yet-unknown maker, possibly also Powell. For Tiffany-lovers the crowning glory is undoubtedly the rose window which is above the west wall. It is a beautiful work featuring 8 angels radiating from a centre-piece containing a dove and each angel is carrying a scroll bearing one of the Beatitudes. This is an excellent window for demonstrating what a camera and good film can see which the naked eye can not. The window is fairly high up and even in the afternoon sun is still somewhat dark. Though it is certainly possible to appreciate the overall beauty of the window there is much fine detail which is lost to the average human eye but which the camera can capture. There are 84 images of the windows in Calvary Episcopal Church.

March 8th addendum: This morning I received notification that the east window set and one of the windows in the baptistry in Calvary Episcopal Church are the work of Henry Holiday, one of the most accomplished stained glass artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The window in the baptistry dates from around 1902 and the east window set is said to date from 1919-20. I received this confirmation from Peter Cormack of the William Morris museum in London, who is a leading expert in stained glass of that period and who immediately recognised these windows as the work of Holiday and was able to find references to them in published works. For my part I knew that they were exceptional works but I did not connect them with Holiday and could see no markings on them. Also, because they are so colourful and in such excellent condition I found it difficult to judge their age.

Henry Holiday undertook many commissions for clients in the US. Noteworthy examples include the memorial window for Robert E. Lee in St Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, windows in Harvard and Drew Universities and windows in The Church of the Incarnation in New York City. The largest body of his work which I have personally seen in one place is the set of windows in Trinity College Cambridge which includes over 120 full length figure studies featuring prominent religious and historic figures through the ages. A brief biography will provide a little more information about him, including his connections with Morris, Burne-Jones and ties to the English Lake District.

February 23rd update

This week has been overshadowed by the sudden and unexpected passing of Eric's father, Bernard Falk. In case you are unaware Eric is our webmaster without whose painstaking efforts this website would still be a pipedream instead of the reality which it has become.

Bernard Falk was only 71 and his death came as a great shock to Eric, his brother and to other close family and friends. I did not know him personally but, based on the attendance at his funeral and the many great things which were said about him there, he is someone who will be greatly missed by many and for a very long time.

The eulogy which was delivered by Rabbi Herman at the funeral was especially memorable for it's sincerity and it was truly moving. It included a very poignant poem which I think that it would be appropriate to share and it may be found via this link

February 15th update

Despite any appearances to the contrary, things are still moving along.

I had hoped that I would have been able to report changes to the way images are uploaded and stored on the site some time ago but sadly this has not been possible. Even today there are some i's to be dotted and t's crossed before this is completed, but I honestly believe that we are getting close.

For some time there has been a folder of work from St Luke's Episcopal Church in Montclair, NJ on the site. Because this is very much a prototype with the pictures not properly labelled and with no logos we have not included any links to it. However, today I decided that it had simply been too long since we last provided an update and so here is a link I would be interested to receive feedback in terms of how the images look and whether the thumbnails are of good sizes but please ignore the inadequate labelling, this is just an early prototype. Any input regarding the speed of loading of the thumbnail page would also be helpful, especially from visitors who are using dial-up internet connections.

In December I was priviledged to be granted permission to take photographs of the windows in Jesus College Cambridge. I was particularly interested in seeing and photographing these because they include some early uses of some of my favourite Morris, Burne-Jones and Madox Brown designs. The permission was granted for 'personal use only' and on condition that I provide a copy of the pictures to the college and I will therefore require permission before posting any of that work online but in the meantime you can see some of the college's own pictures at their website In addition to the many examples of Morris glass they also have some fine reproductions of the windows at Chartres which were made by Pugin in the 19th century and a wooden ceiling by Morris Company in the medieval style.

More recently I have begun work on 4 churches in New Jersey:

1. Central Presbyterian Church in Summit which has 3 Tiffany windows amongst a range of other works.

2. St John's Episcopal Church in Somerville which has 4 Tiffany works, including one landscape work which has been on loan to a museum in Brooklyn and is now being restored.

3. Calvary Episcopal Church in Summit which has an impressive collection of windows by Powell of Whitechapel as well as a Tiffany rose window.

4. Trinity Episcopal Church in Woodbridge which has, amongst others, two fine 19th century windows by an as-yet-unidentified maker.

I already have some results from two of these. Some of the ones from St John's may be viewed here . I would hope to have them all photographed by the end of this month, weather and other time-commitments permitting.

Lastly, this is a reminder that until we are able to resume uploading to this site we will continue to post work temporarily on photo.net

November 5th update

Things are beginning to move again. We have uploaded some more pictures and there are almost 100 more in the pipeline, including some new Tiffany works. In addition we posted some of the shots of Connick works at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC and some of the studio's more recent works from St Luke's Episcopal Church in Montclair, New Jersey. Both of these last two can be found in folders on the photo.net website and are accessible via a link in the Links section.

In the last month or so I have shot windows in two churches in Montclair, both of which feature some Tiffany windows, and I am in discussions with a third which is said to have some particularly fine examples.

We are looking into ways of streamlining the process of uploading pictures which presently consumes too much of Eric's valuable time and if we are successful in achieving that then visitors should see a big change in the pace at which new pictures are added and we should see a broadening out of the makers represented which is currently slanted towards the works of Morris and his associates.

In addition the enhancements referred to in the last update are still in the works.

October 5th update

I am very happy to report that "Angels in Glass" is getting rave reviews and we have yet to hear a single complaint about it. The most positive comments have probably come from lovers of Tiffany work who are seeing for the very first time some exquisite works though admirers of "English" glass are not being disappointed either.

As a token of appreciation to our audience, and to show off our printing capability, for a limited time only we are going to give away a beautiful 10"x8" full colour print of a Tiffany angel with every CD purchased. Or, if you prefer to think of it the other way around, buy the print and we will give you the CD-ROM totally free of charge. Either way it is a tremendous value and you will not be disappointed. It is also a great gift (or even two great gifts!) for the coming holidays.

We have a few enhancements to the site in the pipeline so do keep checking back. First and foremost we will be uploading more pictures. Adding to the Tiffany section is our number one priority but we will enlarge others also. Secondly we plan to offer visitors the means of sending free electronic greetings, featuring a selection of the images. I am thinking of calling some of these "E-Blessings". Last but not least we are going to enter into some affiliations with reputable companies who sell books and artwork etc. This will not entail a lot of unsightly advertising banners or, God-forbid, pop-up displays but we simply provide links and if a visitor uses one of these links to buy, say, a book on stained glass then we will get a small share of the profits from the bookseller to help towards the upkeep of this site. This is at no cost to our visitors, they pay the same for the goods as anyone else buying from the same place, and does not entail intrusive advertising.

August 23rd update

Well, it is launched at last! "Angels in Glass"is finally available for purchase.

Though I say it myself, this really is a fine product. The images are quite varied but what they have in common is quality - the works which they illustrate are simply exquisite.

I have been running a prototype of this screensaver on my own PC for some weeks now and I have to say that it looks superb. If you like the images on this website then you simply have to see some of them full-screen - the difference is amazing. Also, with 62 images in total, it takes a long time to even get familiar with the screensaver never mind getting bored or tired of it!

Whether you like Morris and Burne-Jones or Tiffany or some of the other makers you are sure to find works on here that you will enjoy.

It is also a really great and quite unusual gift for a friend or loved-one, a gift which combines art, love and spirituality with utility.

And don't forget that all purchases from us are protected by our 30-day no-quibble guarantee and by 'no-quibble' we mean just that. If for any reason you need or wish to return the product we will either replace it or give you a refund, whichever you request.

Finally, on another topic, there are now some pictures taken in Cologne Cathedral on the photo.net site which can be accessed via the Links section. The few shots I was able to take of these beautiful and richly-coloured panels are well worth a visit.

August 7th update

Just to mention that I have uploaded a few shots of the windows at the Second Congregational Church in Searsport Harbor, Maine, to the photo.net website. They are in a folder named after the church and can be found via a link in the links section. At time of writing I have only uploaded 5 shots but I should be getting others back from the lab later today and may add to the folder if the results are good. As I mentioned earlier the maker of these fine windows is unknown but they really are exquisite and are rich in both colour and texture.

August 4th update

My trip to Maine was great. It is a beautiful part of the world and we had fun just exploring and enjoying the natural beauty of the surroundings and being close to the sea.

I was constantly on the lookout for examples of stained glass but in the places we visited there were few examples of the kind of pictorial windows which I like to photograph. Two churches are worth mentioning, however: The Second Congregational Church of Searsport Harbor and St Saviour's church in Bar Harbor.

We were directed to the church in Searsport Harbor by an artist who makes stained glass artwork who told us that it contained some beautiful Tiffany windows. A few days later we visited and met with Bob and Jane Mercier, two of the 5 remaining members of the congregation, who told us all about the windows and about the campaign to raise funds for their restoration. It seems that opinions are divided as to whether the windows can definitely be attributed to Tiffany but there is no disputing the fact that they are exceptionally fine works of art and certainly the quality of materials used and the craftsmanship are consistent with a studio such as Tiffany's. I shot a roll of film in an attempt to capture the glowing, jewel-like, colours and will add them to the growing list of work to be uploaded onto the site.

Unfortunately we did not find St Saviour's episcopal church in Bar Harbor until one evening towards the end of our trip. We were driving around Bar Harbor and were passing the church when I noticed what appeared to be some interesting and fine windows. I parked the car and was looking around the outside when I met with the Senior Warden of the church who had just locked up for the night. Although I was not able to go inside I was given a leaflet and have determined that this church could, of itself, be justification for a return visit to Maine. The church has no less than 42 important windows. At least 10 are by Tiffany studios and many others are by great makers including Maitland Armstrong (senior) and Heaton & Butler. The windows span over a century, from the late 1800's to the last 20 years or so. It is thought that this church has more Tiffany windows in one building than anywhere else in the state of Maine.

July 21st update

I was in Europe on business this past week. It was a painfully short trip which had me arriving in and transitting the UK on Wednesday morning, flying to Brussels and then driving to Cologne where I had several meetings. However, I did manage to stop along the way and took some pictures in two churches before the trip back on Friday.

The first church was in a place called Warenne in Belgium. I had stopped to break the journey from Brussels to Cologne and there was an old Catholic church which was open to exploration. It is a tall structure and I was travelling light with only my 28-200mm zoom but I did take a few shots of two sets of windows high above the north and south transepts.

The second church I visited was Cologne Cathedral or the Dom, as it is more often known. I had some free time in between meetings and the hotel I was staying at was only about half a mile from the Dom and so I went to take a look around. I have been to Cologne countless times in the last 15 years but I cannot recall having spent much time in the Dom and I have certainly never paid any serious attention to the glass there.

The first thing which struck me was the range and quality of the stained glass. The building had been very severely damaged by bombing in WWII and I suppose that I had assumed that most of the glass would have been destroyed but this clearly was not the case. I can only speculate but perhaps the glass was removed for safe-keeping, as I know was the case with some important windows in Cambridge, or perhaps by some miracle the glass survived the devastation but in any event there appear to be surviving examples of the original 13thC glass as well as glass which appeared to be from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

I took pictures of 3 sets of windows, all dating from the 1850's or slightly later and all in rich, beautiful colours. As with the windows in Warenne these were high up and challenged my less than adequate equipment but, again, it was angels which caught my eye and which I tried to capture for the CD. When I got to the 3rd window I thought that I had struck lucky. There was a raised platform which had been erected underneath them for an orchestra or choir and I was able to get relatively close and almost level to the window. Unfortunately this also made me more conspicuous and after only taking 3 or 4 frames one of the wardens in a bright red robe rushed up to me speaking harshly in German. Eventually he made it clear that he wanted to see my permit and when I admitted to not having one he ushered me off the platform. Photography is certainly allowed in the building - there were flashes constantly firing as tourists walked around, individually and in guided parties. However, it seems that either the use of tripods is frowned on or my particular use of a platform was an issue - in any event I did not venture to take further pictures in the Dom.

I had time to look briefly in 2 other churches before resuming my meetings but in both cases the glass must have been destroyed during the war. As is commonplace there were pictures on display of the churches which had been taken immediately after the war, alongside earlier pictures from, say, 1900 and the war-damage was truly catastrophic. Both had modern glass in many of the windows but time was short and it was not to my taste so I made no attempt to record it.

June 23rd update

So why have we changed the home page? Well, this week we tried out a new software package to analyse the statistics concerning the traffic on the website. The hosting service provides some analysis of the data which is accumulated but we wanted to try to get a better understanding of what people seemed to like to spend time on and how the various parts of the site compare in terms of traffic.

The new software which we found is really quite powerful and produces reports which are far more informative than those we had been getting. Among many other things we can now get data on actual and average times spent on the site and the routes that visitors follow from page to page.

It was this last item which led us to discover an item of concern. Based on the statistics for June month-to-date it appears that about half of the visitors to the site only got as far as the home page. This is very hard to understand since by far the majority of visitors seem to come directly to the site, mostly by typing in the url, and we just cannot figure out why they would simply look at the home page with St Luke and go away without at least exploring something.

Certainly some of these will have decided that the site was not what they thought or what they were looking for but we just cannot believe that this would apply to all of these people - and we are talking thousands, not hundreds. One theory is that some of these people may not realise that the words they see are actually buttons which open up new pages. Unless they actually scroll their mouse over the words they will not see the underline come up and for someone who is perhaps not very 'Net-experienced' this could be confusing. Another possibility is that some of these visitors could have been hoping to see mention of Tiffany or Morris and as the maker buttons are below the bottom of most peoples' browser pages they just might move on without realising that they could scroll down on the home page.

The situation has definitely improved during the course of the month and on a daily basis the number of visitors who do not venture beyond the home page is now between a quarter and a third but we would like it to be even lower and so, as an experiment, we added the new button which will lead people to the makers' buttons. We also tried to make it look a little more like a button.

We will now see whether this translates into more people entering the site and looking around and less people just taking one look at the home page and going away. We do apologise to anyone who preferred the aesthetic appeal of the home page before this change but sometimes aesthetics have to give way to functionality.

This week the site was made 'Website of the Week' by Amateur Photographer magazine, a publication which I have admired for more years than I care to admit to! As someone who took photographs for over 30 years while living in the UK I had always wanted to have something published in AP or one of the other popular photographic magazines but I could never have predicted that it would come about at this time and in this way.

June 9th update

The site has been running on the new server for a week now and to the best of our knowledge it has not gone down and it is undoubtedly much faster loading than previously - moving was clearly a good decision, albeit at a financial cost.

The Washington DC shoot went quite well last weekend and we have some quite good pictures of 3 fine Tiffany windows as well as others in St Margaret's and in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Unfortunately time constraints and a queue of work will mean that they will not be uploaded for a while.

Situation as at June 2nd 2002:

This section has been created so that our visitors can check back and quickly discover if anything new has been added or updated since their last visit as well as reading about works-in-progress which may be of future interest.

The site has been operational since April 9th 2002 and although we have made good progress there is still much work to be done and we have many images in various stages of inclusion.

The following is a list detailing all the work to date with an indication of current status: -

1. Church of the Incarnation NYC - work needs to be organised, labelled, sized and uploaded.
2. St Martin's Church, Brampton - most need to be organised, labelled, sized and uploaded.
3. Jesus Church, Troutbeck - Fully uploaded.
4. Ponsonby Church - Fully uploaded.
5. Lanercost Priory - a few pictures to be uploaded shortly.
6. Ruthwell Parish church - Pictures to be uploaded shortly.
7. Dundonald Church, Ayrshire - Pictures to be uploaded shortly.
8. Trinity College Chapel Cambridge - Pictures to be uploaded shortly.
9. St James's Church, Staveley - Fully uploaded.
10. St Paul's Church, Irton - Pictures to be uploaded shortly.
11. Trinity Church, Saugerties - Fully uploaded.
12. St Paul's Richmond - Most need to be organised, labelled, sized and uploaded.
13. St Paul's Paterson - Most need to be organised, labelled, sized and uploaded.
14. Flemington Presbyterian Church - Most need to be organised, labelled, sized and uploaded.
15. United Methodist Church, Hudson Falls - Fully uploaded.
16. Holy Trinity Ayr - All need to be organised, labelled, sized and uploaded.

In addition to the above, during the course of the last week we have taken pictures of the windows in St Margaret's Church in Washington DC as well as pictures of some of the Connick windows in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, also in Washington DC.

Now I would like to describe the events of Saturday May 25th and the following week.

Firstly, while in Washington that weekend, by chance I noticed a sharp increase in our hits statistics. This is an indication of the traffic going through the site and we had been 'clocking' an increasing number but were still only in the range of around 2,000-4,000 per day (perhaps 100 people) whereas on Saturday 25th this number grew to over 38,000 in one day.

It was only after doing some investigation that I discovered that the reason was that we had been declared Yahoo's "Pick of the Day", something we were extremely pleased about.

The hits dropped slightly on Sunday and Monday but then rebounded with a vengeance to about 42,000 on Tuesday and the month-to-date figures for May were showing over 4,000 visitors and close to a quarter of a million page views.

On Wednesday disaster struck and our web-hosting service closed down the site because the volume of traffic was "taking up excessive bandwidth". However, they did not apparently perceive a need to communicate this to me and neither did they respond to my many communications for a full 48 hours. During this time all that anyone trying to visit us could see was a big sign saying "Forbidden" and implying that they had no rights to be here. This was all VERY upsetting.

By Thursday night we had selected and signed on a new hosting service - one which we believe will be much better able to handle the volume of traffic, have much less downtime and be much faster-loading. All of this is at a price but we feel that based on the accolade from Yahoo and the level of interest that people have shown we will eventually recover the extra cost by some kind of 'Gift Shop' sales.

Transferring to the new host server was not an instantaneous event but we were able to make the transition by very early morning on June 2nd.

Our goal is to become the definitive site for anyone interested in stained glass windows with particular emphasis on windows and designs by important glassmakers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The scope is huge and however hard we try we will only scratch the surface but we are determined to do more.