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.

Going against tradition by introducing new header photo on Photo Potpourri

I'm in the throes of another, photography-starved period, thanks to the resurgence of COVID infections driven by the delta variant. As a result, I'm tending to non-shooting tasks at home. 

One example was the previous post on the World War II photos that were in my father's personal collection ... and the associated organizing and scanning of scores of other pictures (few of which carry identifications) of ancestors. 

Another task is far less serious, but it’s what this post is about. 

For almost the entire time that Photo Potpourri has been around (the 13th anniversary will arrive in early December 2021), I'd used as my signature image a monochrome version of a frame from my shoot of renowned Indianapolis musician and singer Tad Robinson (see photo at right). I took that photo at an album-release party held at the Jazz Kitchen in Indy in April 2010. In blogger years, 2010 seems so long ago that I can't remember what kind of art I used (if any) during the first 16 months of doing the blog.

But recently — perhaps because I've had too much time on my hands — I’ve been giving a lot of thought to changing the blog brand art. Freshen up the room, in a manner of speaking. I've always liked the monochrome approach; I remember tinkering with a color photo in the header quite a few years back, and I didn’t like it at all. It was too busy, too distracting. 

I also like the idea of sticking to an image from my music repertoire, and since I had a male singer on the home page in the brand anchor spot for so long, I wanted to use a woman in any new photo if I made a change. The first person who came to mind for that ... was singer Georgette Fraction of the metro Indy corporate band The Bishops, for which I did several shoots in the early 2010s. Georgette is a sweet woman, too; she’s certainly deserving of such an honor. That’s her in the new header; the source color version of the shot appears as in the lead-off position of this post. 

The image of Georgette was taken at the band’s performance at what was then known as Mickey’s Irish Pub in Carmel on Jan. 14, 2012. (I don't know what the site is used for today, but I know it ceased being Mickey’s quite a few years ago.) 

I remember that show very well because it was the night was the time I got to use a newly purchased Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. Canon’s “L” series lenses are their top of the line, and it was my second L series lens; I’d acquired the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS in May 2009. I was very impressed with the shots the new lens snagged for me that night.  

In fact, probably my favorite crowd shot at any concert I’ve shot was taken at Mickey’s that night (above). I remember these ladies had been dancing in front of new band guitarist Matt Ley for a while, and I'd gotten a few shots of them from the side of the stage, but I didn't like that perspective very well. 

I noticed there was some wiggle room at the back of the stage, so I went there and dropped prone to the floor (to minimize my conspicuous position). Almost immediately, I was delighted by the straight-on shots this new perspective was delivering. Like this one. The facial expressions and hand gestures on the two gals closest to Matt were reward enough, but being able to include the equally joyous third woman on the far left — outside the cover of the main stage light — proved to be what photographers like to call a “golden nugget” — an element (often unplanned) that serves as a bonus in the composition.

This morning, I went back to the blog post I had put together for the show in 2012 to remind myself of what I said about it, and the narrative is pretty thin, which is unusual for me and my posts. I didn't mention the new lens or say too much about the dancers image above -- other than it was my favorite of quite a few shots I took of dancers that night. 

But then I read, in that same Feb. 12, 2012 post, that I'd shot three concerts that night -- which was a month earlier. Then a lot of it came back to me. I'd started the evening at the Indy Acoustic Cafe series performances by James Griffin and Vince Gilbert. Those shows were in Fountain Square, which is on the near-Southside of Indianapolis. I'm sure I left Gilbert's performance early so I could hustle to Mickey's in Carmel for the Bishops show. So it took me almost a month to process images from those three shows!

For the Feb. 4 post that I did on the Griffin and Gilbert shows, I did mention the new Canon lens. But I also mentioned that I had decided on trying a new approach to shooting the Griffin show -- to use my Sigma 85mm f/1.8 lens almost exclusively. I wrote that I went back to the Canon lenses (24-70 and 200mm f/2.8L IS) for Gilbert's show. 

Reminded of that experiment with the Sigma 85mm lens, I will have to go back to my gallery on the Griffin show to see how that worked out ... and assess whether it was worth it. I can think of only one other time when I shot a concert with only one lens. That was the Epic Fail show at the Emerson Theater in Indianapolis in July 2011. I tried starting the shoot using my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens, but the stage lighting for that performance was so inferior that even with a 2.8 maximum aperture, I wasn't getting enough light to give me decent exposure. 

The only faster lens I owned at the time was a Canon "Nifty-Fifty," the affection name for the versatile 50mm f/1.8. The 1.8 aperture got me the exposure I needed, but it limited my focal range (I stood next to the stage -- or close to it -- for most of the shoot), I still had to use a relatively slow shutter speed (approx. 1/100), and it reduced my depth of field significantly beyond what I ordinarily want and need. I ended up with way more out of focus shots than I was accustomed to.

History, Ernie Pyle graves in batch of war photos in my father's collection

My father was alive for the first 11 years that I lived in Indiana, but in that time period, he never once mentioned that he knew that journalist and renowned World War II war correspondent Ernie Pyle was from Indiana. I have to believe he didn't know about Pyle's Indiana roots. 

On the other hand, it never occurred to me -- not during those 11 years or in the many years since -- that Dad might have indirectly crossed paths with Pyle during the Pacific Theater portion of World War II. Dad was stationed in the Pacific Theater with the Army Communications Corps in the war’s latter stages. 

This week, I sifted through a batch of photos in my Dad's collection -- photos taken on a Japanese island just a couple weeks before Japan's official surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. The photos had only recently been sent to me by my niece, Nicole. I'd never seen any of these pictures before. After my father's death in 1989, and before I arrived in Wisconsin for his funeral, my sister, Kathy, Nicole's mother, had collected these images (among other personal items of my parents) and taken them to her home without telling me or my brother. 

Kathy died nine years ago, and this summer -- some 32 years after my father's death -- Nicole graciously collected all of Kathy's family sentimental things that Nicole thought I would appreciate and shipped them to me. She needed four packages to do so! The first few contained home-movie reels, and I sent about half of those to a retail company that digitizes film, videotape, still prints and film slide images. 

Seeing the pictures on Iejima Island in the Ryukyu Retto chain of Japan gave me chills. Was my Dad there? I don't remember him telling me he was. And did he take these photos? I don't remember him telling me he took any pictures while in the service. More than likely, he did not take the pictures; the Army and Army Air Corps had communications staff, and they more than likely took the pictures. But that doesn't mean Dad wasn't there on the island when the images were taken. But was he? So many questions I want to ask Dad, but I know I’ll never know the answers.

Separate photos posted here show Ernie Pyle's first and second resting places on the island. The first is marked by a simple wooden cross (pictured at right) and appears to me to be one of several similar markers in an area that looks to be a cemetery of war casualties. The second resting place for Pyle on the island was at a site that includes the monument shown in the photo leading off this post. It was erected in September 1945, five months after his death. The monument bears the words: "At this spot, the 77th Division Infantry lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle. 18 April 1945." I opened these photos in Photoshop Elements to restore some lost exposure and shadow detail. I also used the software's healing tool to remove as many dust spots and other imperfections as I could. In fact, I did this with all of Dad's pictures taken on Iejima that I went through this week. 

At some point, Pyle's remains were moved to a third and permanent resting place, in National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. Although Pyle was not interred in his home state of Indiana, there is a modest museum dedicated to him  at 120 W. Briarwood Ave., Dana, which is in Vermillion County, Ind., where he was born. There also is a Pyle museum and library in Albuquerque, N.M., where after leaving Indiana Pyle and his wife eventually settled.  

Pyle was born on Aug. 3, 1900, and he attended Indiana University, where he would join the Daily Student and become its editor before leaving school a semester before graduation. He worked briefly at the Daily Herald in LaPorte, Ind., before leaving Indiana for Washington, D.C., where he got a job with the Daily News. Years later, he covered WWII, beginning in the North Africa and Italy campaigns before switching to the Pacific Theater in January 1945. I learned about Pyle early on in my years in Indiana; Hoosier journalists revere him. For the longest time, Ernie Pyle Hall at Indiana University housed the IU journalism program in Bloomington, Ind. It has since been repurposed as a welcome center for admissions and the Walter Center for Career Achievement.

Dad's pictures included several shots of U.S. and Japanese bombers, images that were taken in mid-August 1945, barely more than a week after the U.S. had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On Aug. 19, 1945, Japanese envoys made Iejima their first stop on their way to Manila, Philippines, where they would meet with U.S. Commanding Gen. Douglas MacArthur for discussion of surrender terms. 

My father, Joe Sr., scribbled dates and some identifications (or commentary) on most of the pictures. But among all the pictures Nicole sent me, this batch of war pictures was the exception where that information was included. Most of non-war photos (i.e., the ones of family members) contain no information, and those include scores of people who I am sure are ancestors on my mother's side of the family. But I digress ... 

The rest of the war-related photos might not be sexy or dramatic, and a few of them are of questionable quality (blurry), but I still think they are of historical import, regardless of who took them. So I will present some of them below. 

Above and first three below: Based on the comments Dad wrote on the back sides almost of all the photos of the Betty Bombers (that's the term American servicemen called the Japanese G4M Mitsubishi bombers), the U.S. soldiers were quite thrilled to see these planes up close when they arrived. Dad used the word "beautiful" to describe several of the photos of the Bettys. The Japanese envoys arrived on Iejima in these bombers. In the second photo below, Dad said, the envoys are huddling underneath the wings of a couple of the parked Bettys.  All of the photos of the Bettys are dated Aug. 19, 1945. 

Above and next two below appear to be some longer range shots of the Baker Strip aircraft takeoff and landing area on Iejima on or around the time the Japanese envoys arrived to await transfer to Okinawa and, later, to Manila. Dad dated each photo as being Aug. 19, 1945. While he didn't say anything else about the two photos below, for the photo above, he did explain that what we're seeing in the background are American C-54s, which he said would transport the Japanese envoys to Manila.  

Above and next two below: Dad wrote that these landscapes of Iejima were taken from what he referred to as "Suicide Hill." Iejima does have a rather tall hill in the middle of the island, but I could not find any reference online that used the phrase "Suicide Hill" to describe it. The term I see used repeatedly is "The Pinnacle," so I have to believe they are one and the same. Dad says the photo above shows the "342D Station Complement Sq Area" (I presume "Sq" is shorthand for Squad). Unfortunately, I don't know what that identifier means exactly. He also says that, in the first picture below, the land seen in the far distant background -- across a narrow area of seawater -- is Okinawa. Dad has each of these photos dated generically as "August 1945." 

Above and first two below: Until seeing Dad's pictures, I had been oblivious to the fact that apparently some U.S. fighter pilots were allowed to have artwork painted on their plane's noses as shown in these pictures, and apparently many pilots chose to have some risque pictures for their artwork. But in doing some research, I can confirm that Dad's comment on the artwork shown on the B-24 above was accurate. He said the aircraft was "quite a famous plane in these parts." Indeed, sources online say "The Dragon and His Tail" probably was the largest nose artwork on any U.S. bomber. In fact, the artwork extended all the way down to the plain's tail, surpassing the apparent limitation in the phrase "nose art." The artwork was painted by Staff Sgt. Sarkis E. Bartigian, and if you Google "The Dragon and His Tail nose art" on the Internet, you can find a lot of information about it. This link has a good description of it. Hopefully these photos are not considered inappropriate; they have a significant historical import, and I am not including a couple that are more graphic than you see here. 

Above and below: There is no information on either of these photos of soldiers and/or fliers, but my instincts tell me there is family on mother's side in the photo above, and that below are servicemen that maybe Dad knew or came across -- or perhaps they were just some fliers of extraordinary repute or in the same unit who asked for a group portrait by the communication corps photographer. The man on the left in the photo above also appears in a larger, more high-quality portrait among the war pictures Nicole sent me, which is why I'm thinking he's somehow a relation.

 

After spending so much space and time writing and talking about my father, some of you might be curious about what Dad looked like. So I'm ending this post with a couple of pictures of Joe Konz Sr. in his Army fatigues. The casual one above was taken in 1943 while Dad was stationed in Puerto Rico, a place he described in glowing terms on multiple occasions to us kids in our growing up years. Dad was so impressed with Puerto Rico that he often said he wanted to go back there some day. Alas, he never did. Below is a grouping of what appeared to have been a family photo session at Sinnissippi Park in Rockford, Ill., in 1941. Dad (on the left) is in full uniform and hat with his father (my grandfather) on the right, Dad's younger sister in front of his father, and Dad's stepmother in front of Dad. In my years growing up in Wisconsin, Dad told me he transmitted, via teletype, news of the official Japanese surrender document-signing aboard the USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945. After the war, Dad resumed work as a teletype operator for United Press International (UPI), the former news wire service. He initially worked in Chicago, his hometown, and then, in 1955, transferred to UPI's Milwaukee Bureau. He retired from UPI in the 1970s. Among documents I came across from the batches of my parents’ personal items Nicole sent me was a laudatory write-up by UPI of Dad's teletype work in the war.