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| My first visit to Europe was in 2013 and one of the first places we toured was Istanbul. I think the interior of the Hagia Sophia - seen here - had the most profound influence on my views of anything else I had encountered in my life so far. The image was made with my Sony NEX-6 APS-C camera and a 16-50mm zoom (35mm equivalent 24mm). Wider would have been better. Copyright Andy Richards 2013 - All Rights Reserved |
I THOUGHT for the time being that I was done with this series. But as I edit and review each one before posting, it has ocurred to me that I have overlooked (for the most part) what might perhaps be the most impressive and stunning photographic aspects of these beautiful buildings. And, perhaps unfortunately, the most difficult to do justice with my rather casual photographic travel setup.
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| The Blue Mosque - Istanbul, Turkey Directly next door to the uber-impressive Hagia, Sophia, the Mosque was intended to supercede the Hagia Sophia. It certainly comes close. Perhaps the most massive meeting/worshiping space I have ever been in, and built centuries ago, it put my view of the architectural history of this part of the world in a completely new perspective. Taken with the same Sony NEX-6 APS-C and 16-50mm zoom (24mm at 35mm equivalency), even the massive space here is begging for a wider lens! Copyright Andy Richards 2013 - All Rights Reserved |
PHOTOGRAPHING INTERIORS of any building generally requires some specialized gear and conditions. It also often requires some kind of "special dispensation" to be able to set up and do the images justice. We are on casual travel, with photography being - for me - an important part. But for reasons I have suggested in the past, not the central focus of our visits. My biggest handicaps to photographing church interiors are lighting, the need for wide angle lenses and commensurate perspective, and (as is often the case in any public scene), people.
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| St. Mark's Basilica - Venice, Italy Sony NEX-6; Rokinon 8mm Fisheye Lens Copyright 2013 - All Rights Reserved |
ON MY first trip to Venice, I carried a 8mm "fish-eye" lens on my APS-C Sony NEX-6. Fisheye lenses are known for their pronounced, round distortion and not really intended for architectural work. For that kind of work, at the very least, I would have benefited from a "corrected" (rectilinear) wide-angle lens. But the all manual, Rokinon lens was cheap (an important consideration for me at that time), and I thought I could "work out" the worst of the distortion in Photoshop. That didn't really work out as well as I thought. It is really a lens for creative effects. I have only used it seriously one other time on a cruise ship (and that time, I was shooting purposely for the curved effects of the fisheye). I had somewhat better luck on a couple other images, but even in the second St. Mark's image below, you can readily see the fisheye effect on the curved vertical columns.
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| St. Mark's Basilica - Venice, Italy Sony NEX-6; Rokinon 8mm Fisheye Lens Copyright 2013 - All Rights Reserved |
TRAVELING MOSTLY with either the current "full frame" 35mm-equivalent gear, or for a few years, the "point and shoot" Sony RX100 cameras, or the Olympus M4/3 gear, the very widest angle lenses I have carried have generally been only about the 20mm (35mm equivalent). Usually it has been even narrower, often in the 28 - 35mm range. For the most part, I have been able to make that work. Today, my "workhorse" walk-around lens is a 20-40mm f2.8 zoom. There are some techniques that could be used that might allow the creation of wider end-results, but they involve "stitching" images in post processing and that is virtually impossible to get right without a tripod in those low light situations. Again, for reasons I have touched on in prior posts, I do not carry a tripod on most of my travels. Setting one up in many of the churches I have been in is a sure method to gain the ire of other travelers and perhaps church officials. I just don't do it.
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| The Vatican Art Gallery on our 2017 visit, was literally shoulder-to-shoulder with visitors - probably the most crowded "tourist attraction" I have ever been in! Sony RX100iv Copyright Andy Richards 2013 - All Rights Reserved |
I MENTIONED people as a challenge. Over the years I cannot count the number of times I complained about "people" in my shot. As travel has expanded, and some of the formerly lesser - known photo attractions have become more popular (no doubt fed by the easy availability of some pretty good cameras built into cell phones - and the current "selfie" and "influencer" trends on-line), it has become more and more difficult to photograph many scenes without people in them. When digital processing came along, it became possible (but still not easy) for us to remove people in many instances (using cloning tools and techniques). But it it did require us to think about placing the "to-be-removed-offenders" carefully in the image. And it still took a lot of painstaking work to believably remove the people. Technology has been a godsend for that task, and the different "remove" technologies (beginning with "content-aware" technology and advancing today to "remove distractions" using AI-tech) has taken an awful lot of the brunt from this type of retouching. Still the tech is not perfect and there are instances where it just isn't going to work and you are going to exercise good old fashioned composition with the people intact, but as carefully placed as circumstances allow. I have actually grown to like the challenge of leaving or placing people within my images in many cases. And sometimes, I purposely wait for a person or people to move to the "right spot," or walk into (or even out of) my frame.
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| St. Peter's Basillica - Vatican (Rome) Italy This was the most crowed space in the Vatican that day and there was no way I was going to make a people-free shot. Samsung Galaxy S21 Cell Phone Camera Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
THE SHOTS of St. Peter's Basillica and the Vatican, in Rome illustrate the challenge of working with people in the shot. When we visited the Vatican's Great Hall of Art (The Vatican Art Gallery), it was quite literally jammed with bodies. A bit disappointing, as it made it difficult to photograph at all. But it was what it was. In 2022, I am sure a product of the aftermath of the Covid-19 epidemic, we had the amazing fortune of being in that very same hall - having it virtually to ourselves! The lesson for me here was that sometimes you just have the good fortune of having a clear shot. Much of that is about timing. We were there relatively early in the morning.
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| The Vatican Art Gallery again in 2022, just 5 years later (and with a historic world-wide pandemic just barely behind us), and the Gallery Hall is nearly empty. I was thrilled to have this particular second - chance at this incredible historical venue. Samsung Galaxy S21 Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
ONE THING I have determined, is that these days for the most part, I put the camera in the bag and grab my "smart phone" when I enter the interior of most buildings. Even given the numerous, substantial downsides to a cell phone camera vs. a fully-equipped, large sensor camera, I have had a fair amount of success with mine (currently a Samsung S24+ Android Phone). Over the last approximately 5 years, I have been astounded at the technological advances in these "phones." Indeed, it has been my own observation that very little has changed in terms of the actual (intended use?) telephony tech. Most of the advances and "improvements" to these phones has been in the cameras - software, lenses, and currently "artificial intelligence" capabilities. I have found that by letting my phoned camera "do its thing," I have been able to get decent exposures, great color, and generally good detail on these interior spaces. My biggest challenge has generally been getting my focus points the way I want them, but still, there are enough good exposures to convince me that - for the most part - I have more success indoors with the "smart phone" than with my camera. The second Vatican Art Gallery shot above was made with a Samsung Galaxy S21 "smart phone."
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| La Segrada Familia - Barcelona, Spain For a couple years there, from 2015 - 2020, I carried a small "point and shoot" style Sony RX100 exclusively for travel. With a fairly large aperture ability, this camera performed reasonably well with low light exposures - but did suffer with image quality (particularly "noise"). Sony RX100iv Copyright Andy Richards 2015 - All Rights Reserved |
IT IS not that my more sophisticated camera is incapable. It is really more of my lack of preparation and experience to get it set up correctly for indoor shooting. That and the lack of sufficiently wide lenses. For travel, my widest lens is 20mm. I use it, but probably not as much - or as comfortably (a matter of context - I am usually with fellow travelers who are not focused on photography).
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| Cathedral Lisbon - Lisbon, Portugal Samsung S21 - 26mm (35mm equivalent) Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
OVER THE past 15 years or so, I have mostly carried a second set of camera/gear than my regular shooting gear. For a short while, I carred the Sony APS-C NEX-6 body with its "kit lens." It was a really nice, compact, light camera that still ticked the boxes for me regarding what I wanted to shoot "seriously" with. At the same time, for my photo-dedicated work, I was shooting a Nikon DSLR, and eventually, the Sony A7 series mirrorless cameras. Both of those lines were so-called "full-frame" (35mm equivalent) which is what we "old school," SLR film shooters mostly identified with.
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| Cattedralle di Pisa - Pisa, Italy Sony RX100iv Copyright Andy Richards 2015 - All Rights Reserved |
IN 2015, I acquired the first of two very diminutive Sony Cameras: The RX100v and eventually the RX100vi (primarily for its substantially longer zoom range). Both were "Point and Shoot" style cameras and bodies. When the zoom lens was fully retracted the camera was literally a "pocket" camera. At the same time, it was a fully-featured "pro" camera with the ability to record images as "raw," and the ability to use the camera fully manually (including AP and SP priority modes). It really was a great little camera. Its main handicap was its small sensor. Essentially literally "thumbnail" sized, it is smaller than the postage-stamp APS-C sensor, for some purposes and in some conditions, that sensor limitation showed up.
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| Westminster Abbey - London, England Sony 100RXvi - 40mm (35mm equivalent) - 1/30 sec (ISO 500) - you can see softeness here, though the lighting was pretty decent. I think maybe bumping the ISO to 1000 might have given me a sharper image here, as handholding (even with anti-shake technology) was clearly a challenge. It was one of only a few I attempted with the Sony, eventually switching to the Samsung phone camera Copyright Andy Richards 2021 - All Rights Reserved |
IN 2021, I serendipitously got my hands on an Olympus EM10. I had always admired the quality and design of the Olympus gear. Even back in the days of film, their SLR bodies tended to be smaller than the competition, but every time I picked one up in a camera shop, I was impressed with the build and feel. I had read that the Olympus' m.Zuiko designed lenses were consistently among some of the best glass in the market place. For whatever reason, I migrated first toward Canon (the brand featured by my local camera shop in Burlington, Vermont back in 1977), and then later, Nikon (when I got a great deal on a body and two lenses while in college in Hillsdale, Michigan in 1978). There was not other good reason not to have considered Olympus back then, but as they say: "out of sight, out of mind." I found the EM10 packed away in a box of stuff in a storage facility my son and daughter-in-law rented, and pulled it out. I got her permission to "eep" and use it for a while, and given its very small size, I was immediately hooked. Shortly, I had my own EM10 ver. IV, and a few lenses. I loved that they were so compact and easy to travel with.
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| National Pantheon (formerly Lisbon Cathedral) - Lisbon, Portugal Olympus EM10iv - 14-42 m.Zuiko zoom lens - 14mm; f1.8 (28mm at 35mm equivalent) Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
OLYMPUS WENT all in on a unique sensor size - format from the beginning of their transition to digital. The "M4/3" sensor is larger than that Sony RX100 "thumbnail" sensor, but still smaller than the APS-C sensor. But the smaller sensor meant the ability to design smaller lenses and bodies. Sort of. What I learned fairly quickly was that as the lens design and glass quality moved more toward "pro" quality, the gear quickly got bigger. The newest Olympus gear with fast, pro lenses and the newest bodies are really only the proverbial "smidge" smaller anymore. Once Sony released the A7cR body with its full frame sensor, my real-time, side-by-side comparisons of the two revealed that the size difference was really no longer a deal breaker and it really didn't make sense any more for me to be using 2 different systems, for a very small tradeoff. Earlier this year, I sold all my Olympus gear and have stuck solely to my A7cR and a couple smaller lenses for all my travel. I use the same body for all my shooting now. For travel, I also use my Samsung S24+ cell phone frequently.
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| Westminster Abbey - London, England Samsung S21 Copyright Andy Richards 2021 - All Rights Reserved |
READERS KNOW I am a bit of a gearhead. This post kind of drifted off into a gear discussion, but I think it is relevant to the topic of shooting church interiors (really; any kind of architectural interior) and travel shooting. I don't usually do this, but I have tried to identify the camera used for each of the images in this post. I hope it illustrates the reasoning behind me shifting and more to my phone camera for interior shots. It gets the exposure right in lower light pretty well. The color is good, and it is generally very convenient to use.
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| Cathedral of Evora - Evora, Portugal Samsung S21 - Here you can see that as good as the cell phones are, they still cannot do much to ameliorate the challenges of camera perspective. In most interior spaces we are faced with the challenge of not being able to get back away from the subject or to get up higher (creating the "leaning" columns in this photo). We can try to correct some of this in Photoshop's Perspective Correction tools, but because of the interior's physical space limitations, not as much as we would like. Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
SOMETHING I have tried to do over the years in all of my photography is to try to find minute details in the "bigger picture." Given the challenges of getting an interior shot (need for wide-angle, and challenging camera perspectives). There are really some nice, more "intimate" images in some of these churches. The Lisbon Cathedral close-up of the domes is one. The image below in Westminster Abbey is perhaps one of my favorite such images.This is really more of an image abouit details than about the abbey. Unless one was pretty familiar with this interior, the viewer doesn't really know where it is. But the color, the decorative detail, the old, worn red tiles against the (marble?) flooring, and the variable lighting is what makes this image interesting to me.
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| Westminster Abbey - London, England Samsung S21 Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
IN 2019, shortly before the world "shut down" for nearly 2 years during the Covid-19 Pandemic, my wife and I jumped on a Celebrity Ship by ourselves, bound for "The Italian Riviera." While we enjoy traveling with compatible friends when the oppportunity presents, we are not timid about setting off on our own. We have met some great friends on those cruises and this one was no exception. We have visited, travelled with, or at least kept in touch with a handful of them. This cruise originated in Civitavechia (nearest port to Rome) and after a stop in Naples, headed across the Mediterranean toward Barcelona, bound for the Mediterranean coasts of France and then Italy. We stopped on the way at the Spanish Island of Majorca, at the Port of Palma. We had booked an excursion up into the mountains to the beautiful Abbey and village of Valledemossa. In addition to many small, quiet garden and terrazza spaces, there were some wonderul "nooks" within the old buildings. I view the shot below as similar to the Westminster Abbey photo above.
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| Valledemossa - Majorca, Spain Sony RX100iv - 24mm (35mm equivalent) Copyright Andy Richards 2019 - All Rights Reserved |
WE TOOK yet another cruise around the Mediterranean in 2022, which pretty much hit all the "bucket list" stops. This one began with several days' stay in a vrbo in Rome, getting on our cruise ship in Civatavechhia, sailing a similar path to the cruise above, but essentially in the opposite direction, with stops in La Spezia, Cannes, Toulon, Barcelona, Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples; then returning to Civitavechhia, and flying to Venice for a few days before returning stateside. It was a long and exhausting trip - but what a wonderful itinerary.
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| Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur - Aix-en-Provence Samsung S21 Phone Camera Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
AT TOULON, we took an excursion up into the French National Park (Parq National Regionale del a St. Baume), and the into the beautiful south France city of Aix-en-Provence. Though it was our second visit to Aix, we always see and find things we hadn't seen before. This time, it was the Cathe'drale Saint-Sauveur, a majestic Romanesque and Gothic mix of architecture in the heart of the old part of the city. The interior was quiet, but fascinating with some ancient portions and some "newer" portions (still 100's of years old). It was another church that was challenging to photograph, while at the same time, rewarding. I appreciate the more intimate shot of the 6th century Baptistery, below. Wikipedia suggests that the columns are likely from a Roman Temple formerly standing on the grounds.
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| Baptistery - Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur d'Aix-en-Provence Samsung S21 Cellphone Camera Copyright Andy Richards 2022 - All Rights Reserved |
IN APRIL, 2024, we took a Holland America Cruise on the HAL Westerdam to Japan, circling the large island. Outside of Tokyo, there are only a few other notable cities (though several of them, like Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and Sapporo do have populations north of 1 million). Between them, Tokyo and Yokohama (essentially a suburb) are pushing 15 million inhabitants. But much of the rest of the country is smaller cities and a surprising amount of "countryside." And of course, seacoast. Lots of it.
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| Ikuta Shrine - Kobe, Japan Olympus EM10v - 150mm (300 35mm equivalent) - f8 Copyright Andy Richards 202 |
OUR STOPS were (perhaps obviously) all at seaport cities. In Kobe, In Kobe, the city was holding a ceremony to thank ask the gods for blessings for a good harvest in the. Our guide told us it was fortuitous that we arrive to see some of the ceremony as it is only held twice a year in the spring and then again in the fall to give thanks to the gods. It was the first time we saw any significant "gathering" inside a shrine. Inside, here, which seems common, is really more of a covered outside space. It was interesting, nonetheless. While we did not see them go in, it was our understanding the the women dressed in vermillion and white, were a part of the ceremony. As you can see, there are also challenges here. There was a large crowd of people, both local and tourists, outside the shrine observing. I found it impossible to get my photo framed in any pleasing way without the dark heads in the immediat foreground. The best I could do was to let them go to black and hope they weren't too distracting to the overall photo. In the photo below, I use some blurring in post processing to try to tone down the busy, and conflicting colors in the background.
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| Ikuta Shrine - Kobe, Japan Olympus EM10v - 150mm (300mm 35mm equivalent) f8 Copyright Andy Richards 2024 - All Rights Reserved |
WE HAD so many things on the agenda for our trip to Central Europe in October of 2024 that very few churches were on the agenda. I think we only got briefly inside of one or two of them.
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| St. Michael's Church - Munich, Germany This church, sitting in the heart of Old Town, Munich, just off the famed Marienplatz, seems rather nondescript on its exterior, but step inside and you will see one of them most impressive church interiors in the world. Copyright Andy Richards 2024 - All Rights Reserved |
ONE THING I want to do before my next trip is make some "permanent" settings on my A7cr (and save them in one of the saved settings "banks") to make it interior-"ready." With the newest "carry" lens (20-40 f2.8), I should be able to make better use of the camera. I also just recently watched a few You-Tube videos on using Samsung's (pseudo) "raw" capability in their phones. I have downloaded and tried to use their "Expert Raw" app. For me, the interface has been unduly complex (or perhaps better said, unfamiliar), and each time I try it, I get bogged down in some setting, making it impossible for me to make the exposure I would like. MOre often than I like, I find myself switching back to just the standard camera in the phone. Most of the Samsung S21 images here were made with just the standard Samsung phone camera. Probably the biggest challenge with the phone cameras, though, is the tiny sensors. I find that an online - sort of "normal" size photo can look pretty good. I have never tried to make a print. But when I want to dive deep into the weeds in post processing, that is where I see the very small images breaking down. Another negative is that the native app produces 72dpi images. I render all my camera stuff at 300dpi. I have had decent success using Photoshop's AI-assisted uprezzing. In the end, I have been generally impressed with what I have been able to do with it.
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| Igreja da Graça Church - Evora, Portugal Even with its small-sensor, 72dpi resolution, the Samsung S21 does a pretty good job of recording and preserving details like the worn woodwork of the sanctuary ceiling Copyright Andy Richards 2024 - All Rights Reserved |
THE IMAGES here are just a small sampling of the church interiors I have shot over the past few years. While exterior architecture is imposing and impressive, it is really worthwhile to step inside of many of these churches where both grandiose, and intimate details await your creativity. Churches, Shrines and other places of religious worship are probably the most significant building in the world and from the largest metropolis to the smallest "burg" nearly everywhere in the world, there is at least one (and often multiple) churches. They are also often the most remarkable and impressive examples of architecture. Given that, I will continue to encounter them in my travels. I will continue to be attracted to them, photographically. And I will most surely be shooting many more over the years, adding to my growing collection. Stay tuned.
