Italianette Church & War Memorial

St Mary & St Nicholas Church, Wilton (Italianette)

Well worth 'milking' this subject, I think!

The wreaths were laid just over a week ago and so I am glad that they still looked fairly OK now.

Dull, dank morning with (more) rain forecast throughout the day. Buses to Wilton start at 6.10 a.m. so easy to quickly grab this before sunrise (not that we'll see the sun today), so I have the blue hour, with a bit of scudded cloud during the 30 seconds exposure.

Widest setting on the ultawide 10-24mm Nikkor zoom, with lots of falling-over-backwards distortion, which I have partially corrected. Was short on space - behind was a big wrought-iron fence and from the other side of the fence, which is high, too far away to get a shot of impact.

Light on the Memorial is from a nicely neutral street-light behind me, so no fill-in flash or extra editing required. Read it in LARGE

This is quite a bit lighter than I probably would normally have made it - I've submitted it to the local "Valley News" monthly freebie newspaper. Anyone who's regularly submitted to newspapers know that dark images do not translate well into newsprint and editors (generally) find them too depressing.

This rag has no staff photographers and don't pay anyone either. It all seems to be contributor based and certainly compared to Salisbury Journal, which is £1 a week and TONS of boring commercial adverts, Valley News is bumper-packed with little nuggets of local information and news for the Chalke Valley and villages of north Dorset. So, you'll find blogs done by the local fireman and recipes from old Mrs Beaton types, rather than reams and reams of slick adverts for Botox and Barratt Homes. Valley News can be picked up at Salisbury Railway Station (amongst many other places) - just help yourself!

But it does seem odd that a freebie financed solely by advertising has less and less obtrusive advertising than a newspaper paid for by cover price. As you can imagine, I am happy to have my name-credited photos gracing the pages of Valley News - that's if they want it, of course!

Huge thanks for ALL the wonderful comments and LOVE for the snoozing Milo, yesterday! He would wag his tail at every one of you (if he knew!)

I need to catch up on housework today, so catch you all later!