A VICAR who produced a controversial photographic exhibition in Worcester two years ago has today unveiled another provocative display.

The Rev Peter Holzapfel made headlines when he showed photos in Worcester Cathedral that included a figure of Jesus being crucified, framed by two pigs' heads. Another picture featured a hypodermic needle being hammered into an arm.

Former social worker Mr Holzapfel used to be a vicar in Dines Green.

Now, the rector of Kempsey and Severn Stoke with Croome d'Abitot, he has come up with a series entitled According to ...?

The photographs - which can be seen at Worcester Cathedral until Saturday, May 19, are meant to explore "the tension between God's will and humanity's perversion of that will".

It includes images taken at Auschwitz, a screaming face on a Jewish tomb in Poland, and a vandalised angel sculpture outside a derelict chapel in Lancashire, with a beer can wedged on its shoulder.

"My first calling is to be a parish priest, but I believe that I'm called to produce images which make people think about faith and God and help to see God in the everyday," said Mr Holzapfel, whose father Rudolf was a photographer. He began taking pictures in 1993.

Other more upbeat photographs feature poppies at Severn Stoke and the church gate at Kempsey.

The exhibition is billed as having a threefold aim: to make people aware of Scripture through pictures, to show the message of Scripture in a way people can relate to, and to explore the tension between our ways and God's ways.

The scenes snapped by the vicar can be seen in the Dean's Chapel at the Cathedral.