St. Anne's Church

St Anne in Narragansett Bay

We did it! We pushed our 50' tripod into the sky to capture an unforgettable image of the facade of St. Anne's church in Fall River, MA. We screwed our robotic mount and camera into the top pole and sent it into the sky to see the world from a bird's eye view. It wasn't the eye of an eagle, more that of a songbird in the tree tops but no matter .... we were high enough to live up to the aerial part of our name: "Aerial Vr" and it felt fine.

We set up in Kennedy Park behind a row of trees which border the park and lifted our camera high enough to see over them and capture the entire facade of St. Anne's Church down to the steps. We had to work quickly to use the warm rosy light from the setting sun that illuminates the stone of St. Anne's facade to such good effect at this time of day. The tripod went up easily enough with the legs adjusted to plumb the center pole. We screwed the camera and its robotic mount into the center poles and began to slide them upwards, clamping as we went. Everything went quite smoothly up to this point.

We'd attached nylon rope to a collar at the top in the hope of guying the top of our contraption to the legs of the tripod. As the camera went upwards it became obvious that our pole wasn't stiff enough near the top and that our arrangement of guy ropes had to be altered. The camera began to sway back and forth in the light breeze and though breakage or toppling seemed very unlikely it was nerve racking to see our expensive equipment sway through space 40' or more above the ground. We scurried around with our ropes and were relieved to find that if we backed into the breeze until the rope formed an angle of 30-45 degrees with the pole that the arrangement began to stabilize.

We "pulled the trigger" on our pc and soon had the 8 images that we could stitch into a virtual reality photograph. You see the result of our efforts above. I feel safe in saying that the beauty of St Anne's, an amazing song in stone and one of Fall River's iconic buildings has never been celebrated from that particular vantage point. Spin the image around and look downwards and you can see the baseball game going on in the corner of Kennedy Park. The sweep of the park down to the head of Mount Hope Bay with the Braga Bridge behind is somewhat obscured by light. The vastly differing amounts of light encountered as one turns towards and then away from the setting sun taxed even our electronically enhanced ability to compensate for huge contrasts within a single image. Still, the park and the church and the lovely experience it provides the residents of Fall River on a warm summer evening is there in our virtual reality image. I think the park's designer, Frederick Law Olmstead would be pleased.

Our equipment made a few people curious. A 6 year old boy stood looking upwards, full of questions. The baseball coach from the game came over to retrieve him and ask what we were doing. Fall River born and raised, he made it clear he liked to see his city's most beautiful locations celebrated this way. He'd done his share of surfing the web as well and had already seen the "Street View" panoramas that can be found in Google Earth." I explained that our work was similar but of a much higher quality and resolution. Most of the panoramas we do can also be found using Google Earth. Simply turn on the 360 Cities layer that appears in the tree on the left of the page under the heading of "Gallery." Navigate on the map to Fall River and the panoramas we've done will appear as red circles with "360" inside of them. A click on the circle icons brings up the panorama. Be sure to try "full screen" for the full affect!

Fair Journey,

Brian Shriver

Aerial Vr - "Your location in high definition virtual reality." email us with your comments and ideas at btshriver@aerialvr.com & cblake@aerialvr.com For more about our services see our website at www.aerialvr.com

Santo Christo

Santo Cristo Church in Narragansett Bay

I pass this Catholic church every day on my way to delivering my son to school. In search of a memorable image of Fall River, we poked our head in the front door just a few weeks ago and were glad that we did. Santo Christo sits at the corner of Columbia and Canal Streets in the heart of Fall River's Portuguese Cultural district and serves the Portuguese community in Fall River with services in both english and portuguese. Rev. Gastao Oliveira and Rev. Thomas M. Kocik preside over services. They don't appear to have a website but a phone number, address and a list of services can be had at this link: www.fallriverdiocese.org/parishes.asp?display=All

Journeys can take many forms and spiritual is one of them. I'm often affected, calmed perhaps by the sight of the inside of a Catholic Church. My eye follows the lines in the fluted columns upwards to the sight of the vaulted ceiling. I find myself thinking that if God came to earth he'd probably want to stay the night in this architectural grandeur. I hum a bar of "nearer my God to Thee" and out the door I go into the sunshine.

I confess that that's not the only sort of thought that a church invokes in me. Do you watch Bart Simpson? I love that little scamp. I was once amazed watching an episode in which he escaped the confines of a church by running along the backs of the pews, hopping into the aisle and climbing the chains that serve to open those peculiar little tilting windows one finds in the middle of the stained glass panels. He squeezed out and I remembered how many times I'd done exactly the same thing in my imagination as a young boy. Whatever form your religious devotion takes we hope you can enjoy the site of this lovely church interior that has served the Portuguese community in Fall River for so long.

Aerial Vr - "Your location in high definition virtual reality." email us with your comments and ideas at btshriver@aerialvr.com & cblake@aerialvr.com For more about our services see our website at www.aerialvr.com

St. Mary's Cathedral

Saint Marys of the Assumption in Narragansett Bay

St. Mary's Cathedral surprises visitors to Fall River, or so claims Father Paul Bernier. He says he can watch people waiting at the traffic light at Second and Rodman and see their reaction as they turn to look out the passenger window. They see the beautiful and beautifully maintained Gothic structure and have trouble reconciling it with its location in a down at the heel mill town. Their surprise registers on their face and Father Paul has them pegged for visitors.

Their surprise is natural. They need to find out what most residents of Fall River already know. Even the good people of Fall River need to be reminded of it sometimes. Fall River was not always what it has become in the last 5 decades with the twin ills of the automobile-enabled flight to the suburbs and the loss of the mills and the wealth that they generated. There's perhaps no better place to appreciate what Fall River was like 150 years ago then sitting in the pews at St. Mary's Cathedral at Second and Rodman.

The short version of the history of St. Mary's follows: The first church built on the site was St. John the Baptist. It was dedicated in 1840 when roughly a third of Fall River's 6000+ residents were Catholics. By 1849 it became obvious that a larger church was needed. The architectural firm CP Keeley of Brooklyn was hired to design the new church in the 11th century Gothic Style. St. Mary's was dedicated 6 years later on December 16th of 1855. The steeple eventually rose to its full height of 190' in 1858 but the interior was described as drab or plain for years afterwards. It took many years and 5 restorations for the interior to take its present shape.

And frankly .... what a shape it is. Wow just doesn't do it justice. The combination of carefully lit interior detail and stained glass are jaw droppingly beautiful. I guess its the combination of visual order and soaring grandeur that makes my spine tingle and my eyes slightly moist. Maybe God really is in residence. God is everywhere? I suppose so ... in the tiniest blade of grass and so on. I don't have a lot of patience for theological arguments. They spin and chase their tails like manic dogs. A fallen away catholic myself with plenty of harsh words for the choices that church hierarchy made for decades concerning clergy members with certain shall we say "predilections" ... still, for a few minutes anyway ... while the beauty of St. Mary's washes over me, I am again a Catholic.

For those looking for a miracle there's a hint of one here. It's not a statue of the Virgin Mary that weeps real tears but it does involve the Virgin Mary. Father Paul pointed to one panel of one particular stained glass window behind the altar. It has become mysteriously lighter while the portion below it has become darkened. The panel looks as if it has been highlighted for viewing by some celestial force. The subject of the panel: St. Mary's assumption into heaven. Father Paul points it out with a smile and shrug and says it makes good material during tours. He hasn't yet sent a window washer up for a closer look. Why debunk?

Another interesting fact that might be considered slightly miraculous by some familiar with the male dominated nature of the Catholic Church: the number of women and men depicted in the stained glass windows is exactly equal by design. Father Paul says that always makes a hit with the women in his audience.

Fair Journey,

Brian Shriver

Aerial Vr - "Your location in high definition virtual reality." email us with your comments and ideas at btshriver@aerialvr.com & cblake@aerialvr.com For more about our services see our website at www.aerialvr.com