Believe it or not. By Paul ZUBER & Louis MARCHAND

Steps to heaven

Heavens above!

We took the top photo on Wednesday 16th of September 2015 after school. We took it at this angle because we liked the way the two houses on both sides converge to one point: Clermont Cathedral. We made the choice of putting it in black and white to show that it is something very old and religious.

When we took this photograph we didn’t smell anything in particular apart from the odour of the street heat because it was really good weather with a lot of sun so it put us in a good mood.

When you look at the photograph you can see on both sides some houses and, in the centre, Clermont-Ferrand cathedral. We chose to title this photograph “Steps to Heaven” because you have to climb up to the cathedral (symbolically too). The two towers look as if they are pointing the way to heaven.

The street that leads to the cathedral is called "Rue des Gras". The cathedral was built by Hugues de la Tour in the 13th century. The architect was Jean Deschamps. We want to show in this photograph the importance of religion for people living in a city.

The second photograph was taken on Tuesday 28th of July somewhere in France above the clouds in a plane. We decided to leave the photograph with no effects so as to show “reality”.

I (Paul) took this photo going to Ireland to see my family, so I was feeling happy. The photograph is basic. There is like an ocean of clouds with a blue sky and the sun on the top left corner. When I was looking out of the window I just thought it was beautiful and I liked the idea of being above the clouds because we cannot guess which part of the country we are flying over. The title of this photograph is “Heaven's above!” because, as we can see, there is just the sky with the clouds and - surprise! - no heaven, not as it's described in the Bible anyway...

“Believe it or not” is the common title of our pictures. Some people think that there is an afterlife and that there is a new kingdom up in the sky. No one can prove it though... The cathedral shows the strength of this belief.

These photos, for us, conjure up positive feelings regarding our city, because they show that, whatever your beliefs, everyone can practice their religion. Some say the cathedral isn’t nice, that the dark stone is depressing, but we love its majesty!