For another, you describe those properties as abandoned. The property you and I are discussing? Wasn’t.

Seems like a huge and obvious difference to me.

Would you and the public mete out the same condemnation to all of those photographers that go urban? Urbex? http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums

Why is ‘urbex’ accepted by the public and celebrated and published when all of the buildings used then are supposedly owned by someone else? What is the difference between shooting in an abandoned hospital, mental asylum, school or railway building, often when the photographer has to ‘break-in’ to what I do?

Why is urbex photography seen as socially acceptable where what I do is not?

You came along and abused that trust. In my eyes, that makes you, yes, a bit of a prat, however high-minded and artistic your motives.

I don’t want to make a big fight about this; that’s why I said “a bit of a”. I wasn’t trying to levy heavy-handed moral condemnation here; just doing my version of a bit of a tsk-tsk.

I’m not even very clear why that bothers you. You seem to welcome controversy; well here I am, the conservative soil controversy needs in order to gain some traction. Without a few people like me, controversy would be impossible, right?

I believe in being nice to people, in not abusing trust when it’s offered, and in not taking advantage of some poor old parish priest who is responsible for a beautiful old church but who doesn’t have the staff or the energy to keep an eye on it for all the hours when the doors are unlocked. I don’t particularly believe in God, so I don’t give two hoots about what actually happened in the church. I just don’t think you get to “free yourself from the dictates of civility” and then dodge the extremely light opprobrium that gets dished out by your fellow man for doing so. And that’s what, in my mind, I was doing with my “bit of a prat” choice of phrasing … dishing out just a smidge of mild, modest, minor social disapproval.

If you don’t like it, don’t go abusing the trust of country priests. Or setting yourself above “the dictates of civility”. But if you must do those things, For Art, then by all means do them, and… maybe have a slightly thicker skin when people criticize you for your choice?

Because it hardly seems fair that you seem to want to have it both ways… you want to enjoy the transgression and to enjoy an immunity to even the mildest criticism for it. And that baffles me.

I believe in civility and respect as much as the next man but, to ask? to shoot in a church? What would the answer have been?

To do what I had to do as an artist I chose not to ask beforehand; Andy the Eggsmasher I like far more than Andy the Prat. Art does make artists flaunt convention and as artists sometimes we have to free ourselves from the dictates of civility. Many artist produce controversial work and I for one am not the first… Take Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ or Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary and they are just as offensive to Christians if not more so and in my mind quite incomprehensible. I don’t care what essay you write to justify your art in some meaningful ‘this is a visual representation of the abuse I suffered as a growing teen’ angst, at the end of the day you’re still offending people.

At least I was honest after the fact in so many ways. There was no justification to what I did other than I wanted to do it. I didn’t set out to offend anyone and kept what I was doing quiet for quite a few years before I got caught out. As a man that believes in God I wasn’t offended or sickened by what I did. Though many religious people were. I truly believe that God and worship are more than a house of bricks; a church by bible definition is a gathering of people not a building. Who makes that building holy? Not God; men do.

God is the main factor here and God is everywhere. God is in a field of poppies or a secluded forest glade as much as He inhabits a place of worship made by man. Are Christians as morally offended by the people that shoot nudes on a beach? They should be… The bible states that all sin is equal.

Hey Andy, thanks for stopping by.

Most in our spanking community believe in basic civility, just like regular citizens, just like we were taught in kindergarten: ask before taking a cookie, thank you when we do. Is it the case that some regular citizens don’t pay us the same respect because we’re perverts? Sure. Does it matter? Not really.

If you want to claim that The Mandate Of Your Art Drives You To Flaut Convention And Frees You From the Dictates Of Civility, well, OK. Society needs artists and they do tend to be a rebellious and unconventional lot. But if you’ve got to break some eggs in order to make breakfast, what then is the point in objecting when somebody calls you Andy The Eggsmasher?

Seems to me, you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too.