New Hanover Lutheran Church

Posted by Russ Devan (New Hanover, United States) on 21 February 2008 in Architecture and Portfolio.

Because I had to work very late, I didn't get to photograph Wednesday's lunar eclipse as I had planned. By the time I got home from the office, it was very late and the eclipse was already in totality. One of the locations where I had planned to photograph the eclipse was here at one of my favorite landmarks in New Hanover. However, by the time I got there (nearly 11 pm), the moon was so high in the sky that it was nearly impossible to get a decent shot of it with a foreground subject. So, instead of a lunar eclipse photograph, I made this one of New Hanover Lutheran Church.

My daughter, the budding artist, wanted to go with me (even though it was past her bedtime). She brought along my backup DSLR and tripod so she could give it a go herself. After both of us making several iffy shots of the eclipse with the church steeple (and Lauren starting to shiver from the cold in spite of wearing Dad's warm knit hat and gloves that made her "look like a newb"...her words, not mine), we thought we would salvage the night and photograph the entire church lit up at night, without the eclipse. To add some foreground interest to the image, we tried illuminating the headstones in the graveyard with a supplemental light source. During our first attempts at this shot, Lauren tried painting the headstones with a small LED flashlight while I held open the shutter, but the small flashlight added negligible light to the image. We subsequently used an electronic flash carefully aimed at the headstones which worked much better. If I were to do this over again, I would illuminate the tree on the left side of the church, possibly from behind to give it a bit of a "halo" effect.

Thanks for stopping by.

"The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both."
- Zen Buddhist Text

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