287 - The Watcher

Mainz was the last of the three cities we visited. Quoting directly from Wikipedia: “Until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Archbishops of Mainz were archchancellors of the Empire and the most important of the seven Electors of the German emperor. Besides Rome, the diocese of Mainz today is the only diocese in the world with an episcopal see that is called a Holy See (sancta sedes). The Archbishops of Mainz traditionally were primas germaniae, the substitutes of the Pope north of the Alps."

Friday, after the festival night, we woke up late and got out of Worms later. On our way to Mainz we had a look at the impressive gothic church St. Catherine’s in Oppenheim, and then in Mainz we first visited St. Stephan Church, famous for its Chagall windows. I made some pretty nice images there, but of course I can’t show them to you. Marc Chagall is long dead and I guess he would have liked the idea, but of course there are people having the enormous merit of being his heirs, and it would severely hurt their feelings or empty their pockets if I did so. I hope you understand. It’s for the best of Art, is it?

I had shot HDR from the tripod in two churches that day, and this time I had left the tripod in the car. I wanted to rely on my Nikon 18-200’s VR and the D200’s Auto ISO, effectively trading flexibility for noise, and that was a wise decision, because to use a tripod in the cathedral, I would have needed a permit anyway. Hmm … another one of those idiotic, bureaucratic restrictions. Not that I would not apply for a permit, even if it cost me a moderate amount of money, but normally when I find out that I need one, it’s too late to get it. Oh well!

Enough of the laments. As it turned out, I enjoyed the cathedral wildly. I had a good talk with one of the personnel. He is a Nikon user too, and he showed me some of the more hidden treasures there. This image is one of the many taken in the cloister of the cathedral.

The Song of the Day is, no, not “All Along the Watchtower”, we already had that in “194 - At the Base of the Tower, it’s Elvis Costello’s “Watching The Detectives” from his 1977 debut album “My Aim Is True”.