I had just finished reading some information on "The Church at Auvers," by Vincent van Gogh (I was inspired by a Doctor Who episode).

The first picture I see on Caedes, following the read, is your church with a view out as opposed to van Gogh's view from outside of the church looking in. His picture showed a church, not of refuge, but one of possible perdition.

Your wonderful black and white, with spiders and dying, dried out flowers, and a crucifix finding final rest leaning up against the shadows of cold stone, reflect much of the same qualities.

van Goth created "The Church at Auvers" during the final year of his life. We can only hope you have no plans to cut off an ear and we will continue to see many more of your artful creations. ~~ John

'Poignant'.

First word that came to mind.


So..

Mission accomplished?


Right, almost forgot.. some reading material for you, if desired:

Colour Temperature

Specifically, the reference made to taking two exposures and then combining them in an image editing program/software.

Curious of you could improve upon your camera's sensor's performance, in short.

Well, someone put those flowers there. Why would they? Was it you? Such a contrast of living flowers and spider webs. They do look like old spider webs. I think you created this to elicit some kind of response in the viewer, perhaps religious, perhaps melancholy or longing for things lost and abandoned? The only thing that distinguishes this as a church would be the cross which I almost failed to see until John mentioned it.

It was a good idea and the black and white seems the only way to go for the full effect of what you are trying to get us to feel.

Too much negative space on the left hand side? I like the textures and details in the photo. Good presentation of the subject matter.

I do get a feeling of blackness and emptiness behind me when I look at this. . and of being part of that emptiness and neglect.

I do like the very dark nature of this. Is it too much? On one hand it makes the viewer look a while and search the picture for details. On the other hand, there is a lot of black space which is not for everyone I think. But for me, the black space is kind of the point - it's an empty church after all.

I just saw this in the VB and wanted to see who was responsible. Your handling of light and dark on this shot is phenomenal, Chris. Apparently I liked it at least three points more than the average voter if the C-Index of 51 holds. I disagree with Wendell and think this shot is perfectly composed. And I wonder what it is that the voters are looking at. This is a truly beautiful image. All things technical are spot on. If I ever take a shot half this good, I'll die a happy man.

This caught my eye; it makes me wonder what sort of place it is... it seems (at least in the photograph) so dark and shut away from the rest of the world. A good photo.