Giving church structures their proper due

It occurred to me some time ago that I had taken a good number of church pictures since I began pursuing photography in earnest around the new millennium. I attribute that to my ongoing interest in architecture.

But for the longest time, it had not occurred to me to assemble all of my church photos into one place at my photography site at SmugMug.com. Three years ago, I did just that. After I did, I started to compose a blog post to formally introduce the gallery. 

Well, I never finished the post back then. For me, that isn't unusual; I have at least a couple dozen (possibly more) draft posts, things that never saw the light of day here. I come up with these seemingly great post ideas, and at some point in the composition of them, I step away ... and maybe forget about it, or simply lose interest. Or hit a writer's block in the text. Or I grow frustrated, perhaps because I'm missing some key information, or I'm mad at myself for not taking a photo of something I now realize I should have to really make this post work the way I had envisioned. 

This post represents the completion of that post first started three years ago. 

Until that point (i.e., three years ago), there have been only a couple occasions when the primary subject of a shoot of mine was devoted to a church or churches. Most of the church pictures in my collection came about incidentally, while coming across them doing a neighborhood photographic shoot, for example. Or while visiting a new community while traveling.

So when I went to my archives to look for images for the galleries, I discovered a flaw in my workflow process. I didn't have any easy "go to" church folder where everything I wanted would be in one place, like it would be for a football game, theater production or concert I photographed. 

The process required looking at all the major folder headings on my external hard drive and trying to remember if I shot a church while doing this, that or the other shoot. So assembling the galleries took time, but I have to admit I enjoyed reminiscing while putting them together. Coming at different points in time, almost every one had their own special memories.

The dilemma I had was how many churches to include in the gallery display. In some cases, I took only a few exterior photos -- three or four, maybe. There were times when I was in such a hurry, I got only one or two. But in a few rare instances, I had access and time to explore the interiors.

So today, three years after I initially had intended, I formally introduce the "Churches" folder at my site at SmugMug.com. You can visit it by following the link in the previous sentence.  

As always, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, just click on the image. Leading off the post and below are a few images from that collection. 

The collection began in in May 2008, when I did a shoot in the Irvington neighborhood of Indianapolis. It was there I took the shot of the Irvington First Baptist Church exterior (above) and the "looking up" shot of the doors to Irvington Methodist Church (below). The most recent church in my collection is St. Mary Mother of the Church (second below) in Garner, N.C., which I took two months ago.
 

Because the first thing one notices when coming upon a church for the first time is its exterior, I present several imposing exteriors from my church collection, beginning with the Chapel at St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Ind., above, which was going through a face-lift at the time I visited it in September 2013. Below are several others (in sequential order): interior of Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University, the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Savannah, Ga.; Congregation Mickve Israel, Savannah, Ga.; Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal, Charleston, S.C.; Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, Fla.; St. Mary's Catholic Church, Indianapolis; SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Indianapolis; and the former Central Avenue United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, which now serves as the home of Indiana Landmarks Inc. Concluding the grouping is the striking modern look of Risen Lord Lutheran Church near Greenwood in Johnson County, Ind.

Above: Realtors tell people who want to put their house on the market that a home's "curb appeal" is critical in drawing prospective buyers inside for a look. One of the prettiest church curb appeal that I've seen through the years is this one of Swifty Creek Baptist Church, Cary, N.C.

Getting inside a church has always been exciting, but it hasn't happened often. Inside Joy of All Who Sorrow, an Orthodox Christian church in the Old Northside neighborhood of Indianapolis, there is some beautiful wood work (above) and gorgeous murals in the sanctuary (below). The sectioning of a simple piano (third below), splashed with sunlight coming through stained-glass windows in the church's adjoining hall, presented a composition challenge.  

The sanctuaries of St. Mary's Catholic Church in downtown Indianapolis (above), taken in October 2012, and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (below) in Savannah, Ga., taken in March 2017.

Inside SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis, you have some individual cushioned seat accommodations (above) and another example of skilled wood sculpture (below). These were taken in October 2012.

The inside of the former Central Avenue United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, (now Indiana Landmarks Inc.) is so strikingly beautiful, I thought it was worth presenting several images here. The photos above and next three below are from the main sanctuary area, now used as an assembly hall. The fourth below is a detail shot of stage light fixtures from the main room of an adjoining theater facility.  

Shots from the back (above) and front (below) of the campus chapel of St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Ind. These were taken in September 2013 when the college was still in operation. School trustees closed the college at the end of the 2016-17 academic year, citing financial problems. In April 2018, an article from a northern Indiana newspaper reported that St. Joseph's officials were trying to work a partnership with Marian University in Indianapolis to reopen the St. Joseph's as a two-year school. 

There are so many facets of a church to which my camera and I are drawn. The architecture, certainly. The interior woodwork and stained-glass windows, definitely. And the variety of door designs at the main entry point. The shots above and below are such examples. They are from the Joy of All Who Sorrow (above) and, in sequential order below, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (which is across the street from Joy of All Who Sorrow on the Old Northside of Indianapolis), St. Mary's Catholic Church in Indianapolis, St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Zionsville, and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine in St. Augustine, Fla., Christ United Methodist in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Cary (N.C.) Alliance Church. Another is the set of doors to Irvington Methodist Church in Indianapolis, which I presented above.