Church at Night

Back out at night I went. This time, I wasn't going for light effects, or cool colors; I went out because it was warmer and less windy than it was during the day. I did some grocery shopping earlier and drove past the nearby church and after seeing how it was lit, I decided to shoot it.

Before we start with the church: The Christmas spirit is alive and well in Richmond Hill, even if it isn't yet December.

Obviously I wasn't going to have much success shooting the whole church. Not only is it steps from an intersection with many interfering lights, I would have to stand a far distance away to get it in the frame and that's not practical with a 35 (effective 50) mm lens.

Instead I tried to focus on detail. I ran into a couple of problems. The boring nature of the church (at least on the outside... will have to go in one day) means the detail is... boring.

So I tried to fall back on lighting to make more of it. There were a couple of street lamps and a globe over a door that, had the church bothered to replace the burnt-out bulb, would be spectacular.

In some spots the available light cut dramatic swaths across the frame.

In other areas it created larger blooms of light.

I tried to say 'here is a 190 year old church on what is otherwise, a boring residential street'.

© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.