This week’s theme is churches. At first I thought I had this one in the bag. There is a historical church a few hundred yards down the road from me. I have tried to capture it before and assumed this would be the year since I am so good with the camera now. lol I should have known better.

But the story doesn’t begin there…

This first church is in the town of Russia just north of where I live. A friend from work suggested I drive up to capture this church and from his description, how could I refuse. Tuesday after work I set out on my adventure. The church was not difficult to find. Parking was another issue and then there was the outside lights. I was hoping for the illumination spot lights to be on but by 5pm they had not kicked in and I didn’t want to wait to see when it would happen. It also looks like I caught this church in the middle of some renovations. I angled my view to minimize the construction work.

Russia Union Church
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, {2.5, 6, 15s bracket}, 17mm, f/16, ISO 100

Thursday night was my last chance to capture some additional images and there was no better place than downtown Rome, NY. There are quite a few churches within walking distance of each other so it was one stop shopping for me. This is St. Peter’s Church. Being in a busy section of town I decided not to fight the cars and include the light trails in the image. It is the environment the church lives in…

St. Peter’s Church
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, {3, 13, 30s bracket}, 19mm, f/16, ISO 200

The third church is the Zion Episcopal Church. It is a few blocks from St. Peter’s. This church is a favorite of mine because of the bell tower. I love that the bells are visible from the street. Again, due to the traffic I was going to be content with some light trails for this image as well. Luckily I caught a break in the flow and captured this 13 second long exposure without interruption.

Zion Episcopal Church
Nikon D5100, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4, 13s, 17mm, f/8, ISO 200

I had hoped to try out some different looks for these church images. I thought using the fish eye lens on the doors would be unique or possibly try unusually angled views but my time was limited last night. There was a storm pushing into the area and I was already fighting the rain. It did give me an idea for a new project though, so maybe you will see some church doors in the future…