St. Mary Mother of the Church, in Garner

On Vandora Springs Road in Garner, N.C., not far from the Forest Hills Shopping Center (which I discussed and photographed for the previous post here) is St. Mary Mother of the Church Catholic Church.

I've gotten interested in photographing churches in recent years, but it hasn't been often that I made the time to either plan a shoot ... or even stop when I come across one that strikes my interest.

As you saw in my previous post, I came across three of them in the shopping center. So when I approached St. Mary's on the trip home from that shoot, I felt a gentle push (you can call if a sign from God, if you'd like) to pull off the road and make the time to photograph it.

The image leading off the post is one of the first ones I made during my visit. I liked the greenery framing the structure on three sides. A view of the church from the other side appears first below. I learned at the church's website that the church building was dedicated in August 1965.

As usual, to pull up a larger, sharper version of an image, simply click on the picture. This is particularly important if you access the blog from a mobile device. To see a full gallery of images from my visit to St. Mary's, follow the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: I shot all these pictures with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD lens equipped with a polarizing filter. I made three exposures of each composition for later melding into one frame using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software.

Above: The chapel wing was added to the church in 1992.

Above: The Marian shrine on the front lawn was added in 1996, according to the church history at its website. 

A shelter area covers a couple of picnic benches (above) behind the church, and just to the right of that is an area (first below) that used to serve as a playground when the church operated a preschool on the grounds. A church member who saw me taking photographs came from St. Joseph's Hall (second below) hall to greet me and told me about the preschool, but the church history at the website doesn't mention a preschool.

 Above: A detail shots of something I saw in front of the church hall.

Above and below: Also on the grounds is this grove. I couldn't finding anything at the website to explain what it is, although from my knowledge of St. Francis of Assisi and his love of animals, I have a feeling it is related to that.

Above: In another area in front of the church, this commemorative plaque sits near the parking lot, although I'm not sure what exactly there is at that point (if anything) that was added to the grounds in Father Charles Mulholland's honor. Perhaps the plaque is intended to stand on its own, but if so ... it seems a bit inconspicuous. Father Mulholland was St. Mary's first pastor, serving in 1967-68, and he returned to serve another term as pastor from 1989 to 1996, according to the church history.

Above: As I walked back to my car to leave, I happened to look up to catch this tapestry of sky and clouds.