Ely Cathedral by night

Did a 'Going Digital' Photo Workshop this evening on low light photography. There were only 4 students and the tutor and we had Ely Cathedral to ourselves from 6.30 - 8. It is spectacular by daylight but completely different  at night - the lighting is subdued and brings out the beauty of the architecture, but I was particularly interested to see the effect on the Octagon lantern. Normally the brightness of daylight coming through the windows at the top  makes it difficult to expose for both the ceiling and the pattern on the windows. At night the octagon is lit by floodlight outside but I didn't know whether this was strong enough to light the windows. This picture shows that it is! It was demonstrated to us very dramatically (and unintentionally) when the organist left the building without realising we were there - and turned the main lighting switch off as he did every night, plunging us into total darkness apart from the light coming from the floodlights outside. The verger was with us so knew his way to the switch panel - I took advantage of the couple of minutes of darkness to take some truly unique shots  - the extra pics showing the darkness with just the light through the windows, then the gradual increase of detail as the lights came back on. (for some reason these have loaded out of order - the brightest one should be the last one)