Abbotshall Church, Kirkcaldy – A selection of Black & White Photographs

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This is a selection of black & white images I took last year of Abbotshall Church in Kirkcaldy, Fife. The images have been edited using two open source pieces of photo editing software, Gimp and Raw Therapee, both of which I recommend to anyone who either can’t afford, or would rather not, pay out the subscription costs of programs such as Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom.

 

Abbotshall Church, Kirkcaldy, Fife

Abbotshall Church, Kirkcaldy, Fife

 

Abbotshall Church, Kirkcaldy, Fife in Scotland

Abbotshall Church, Kirkcaldy, Fife in Scotland

 

Abbotshall Church Railing, Kirkcaldy, Fife

Abbotshall Church Railing, Kirkcaldy, Fife

 

Links to the open source (free & safe) photo editing software

https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

http://rawtherapee.com/downloads

 

81 thoughts on “Abbotshall Church, Kirkcaldy – A selection of Black & White Photographs”

    • Glad you like the photos Vonita, it may be the church where your grandparents were married! 🙂
      Kirkcaldy is an odd place, there are some beautiful places, but also some not so pretty places – this church is right next to a small industrial estate on one side, and a beautiful park on the other side! Lol!

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      • Yes, it was in a church, and we stayed at the hotel where they had the reception. But I have no idea what the name of the hotel would be! We went in 2002 with my mother’s cousin.

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      • There aren’t that many hotels in Kirkcaldy, it would be an amazing coincidence if the hotel was the same one as we had our reception in – The Victoria Hotel – it’s fairly close to the railway station and the town itself.

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      • I’ll find out if possible and let you know! Oh the visit in 2002 was not so sad, my mom passed in 1996 and we went back then, but the visit in 2002 was a holiday, my mom’s cousins invited my husband and I to have a holiday with him. It was nice, except he worked on a small military island Diego Garcio running the telecomms and he got run over by the lone bus on the island and passed away soon after that – not joking it happened!

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      • That is really unfortunate for your cousin, it’s the kind of story that gets told by people in pubs, and no one believes them. Your cousin was a very unlucky person 😦
        But I’m glad your trip to sunny Scotland and Kirkcaldy was a happier occasion. Did you know there are at least three other wordpress bloggers who have connections with Kirkcaldy, – Laura from https://pictinpa.wordpress.com/ (who now lives in the USA, but grew up in Glenrothes), Diana from https://dianamj.wordpress.com/ (she now lives in the village next to Kirkcaldy) and Su from https://zimmerbitch.wordpress.com/ (who like you has relatives from Kirkcaldy, she now lives in New Zealand). Again, it shows what a small world we live in Vonita 🙂

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  6. What lovely photos… black and white really suites the ambiance of the subjects here, Andy. I use Photoshop Elements, but I admit, I rarely use it other than to inscribe a watermark to photos. I wish I had the time to dabble in photo editing!

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    • Thanks Lori 🙂
      I must admit, I spent years thinking that using photo editing software was like ‘cheating’, but I guess if you can make an image look even better, and thus make viewing it a more pleasurable experience, then that’s got to be a good thing. The other factor I hadn’t taken into account, is that when you hand print from film negatives, you use all sorts of techniques to improve the final product 🙂

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  9. Apart from the excellence of the pictures which I must acknowledge from my entirely unknowledgeable perch – so atmospheric, so evocative, such an invitation to tell a story …. I am so glad you have mentioned Gimp. I am in negotiation with my third daughter trying to get her to at least try it before crippling her tiny bank balance (student and working to support herself) with Photoshop at this point. I have sent her a link to your post 🙂

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    • I’m glad you like the photos Sylvia 🙂 A few people have commented how they think of a mystery story whilst looking at them – you can tell I’m not a ‘writer’ – I hadn’t considered that until you’ve all pointed it out! 🙂

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      • Have you visited any of the massive cemeteries in London? They are like cities of the dead they are so vast. Kensal Green is my favourite but I’ve also spent some time in the Islington one as my Great-Grandad is buried there. Fascinating places.

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      • I’ve not been to any of the London cemeteries Laura, but you are right about them being fascinating places. Sounds like you know north London reasonably well, I went to college in South London for two years, and lived in Guildford for 12 years, but regrettably I never actually visited any of the big graveyards.

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      • I’m not hugely familiar with north London. I just visited the cemeteries when we lived in Essex. I actually visited the Islington one once we lived in Argyll as it took me a while to locate the grave I was after. My husband spent a few years of his childhood in Guildford. It’s a nice town.

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      • Parts of Essex are very nice, I have a cousin who lives in Romford, and my brother lived in Basildon for a few years in the eighties. I imagine it could take a very long time to locate a grave in some of these huge London cemeteries! And you’re right Laura, Guildford is quite a pretty town.

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      • The cemetery people were massively helpful and provided a map and a grave reference. The challenge was that nobody has tended the grave since probably the 1950s and it was overgrown and in the middle of a thorny thicket. I had to clear thorns with my bare hands to get near it. I should explain that many of the large cemeteries allow areas to go back to nature as wildlife reserves and no doubt it also saves money.

        I lived between Chelmsford, Basildon and Southend, right in that triangle. I ended up working in Colchester.

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      • I was thinking how a map would have been helpful, so it’s brilliant that the cemetery people provide one and are very helpful. It’s true what you say about the graveyards acting as nature reserves, in many areas they contain quite a few rarer species of invertebrate and flowers etc. I suspect if you had to clear brambles etc, then that was more for the saving money aspect of it! I hope you managed see what you wanted to in the end though.
        I have fond memories of visiting various bits of estuary/marshland on the River Crouch, and Chelmsford has some wonderful Roman archaeology from what I can remember 🙂

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  15. fabulous, loving the depth! And of course seeing Scotland, ..thank You! good tip on GIMP, as I have older PS 11 and LR, but not the “NEW” subscription, which I will not do. Great to hear of alternatives.

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  17. First let me say thanks for the follow. Your pictures are great and will me a chance to see your part of the world. I like your photos of old buildings in black & white and has given me an idea for a future post

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    • Thanks Meredith 🙂 There certainly is something special about old churches, my other favourite is old derelict buildings. Another bit of open source software worth checking out is Raw Therapee, which can be used for editing both ‘raw’ images and jpegs. Unfortunately both take a wee while to get used to, but it’s worth the time in the end. BTW Raw Therapee is very similar to ‘photoshop’ in many aspects, so I have found watching PS videos is quite helpful in learning how to use RT 🙂

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    • Thanks Karen 🙂 Old churches are one of my favourite subjects to photograph, I wish I’d been more into photography when I was living in Cornwall, it’s full of them 🙂 I find Fife a wee bit sparse on decent churches, but there are at least a few decent ones when you look closely.

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