Derelict Church
21st August 2011
In my quest for new derelict locations I was really fortunate to be taken to this fabulous abandoned church in the Welsh Valleys. Architecturally it’s an intriguing mix of stone and concrete, which was designed by John Coates Carter and built in 1923 on a steeply sloping plot so that it dominated its environment. Unfortunately the beautiful Arts and Crafts Impressionism Church suffered from major subsidence and problems with the roof resulted in the building being closed around 1980. Plans have been submitted to develop the building and site for housing and I hope that tree preservation orders and stringent building controls will ensure that the marvellous architecture is preserved.
Technically, this was a very challenging shoot as the dynamic range inside the church was extreme. The shadows were DARK and when the sun streamed through the windows it was very very very bright. I discovered that the autobracketing on my camera is cleverer than I thought and I was able to set the gap between each exposure to be 3 stops, giving me a range of plus/minus 9 stops in a seven shot autobracktet sequence - neat! But with this type of range there is no getting around the fact that the resulting shots are HDR composites. The amount of detail that has been achieved through this is amazing, but as a friend stated, they are a bit like looking at the set of a computer game.
Technically, this was a very challenging shoot as the dynamic range inside the church was extreme. The shadows were DARK and when the sun streamed through the windows it was very very very bright. I discovered that the autobracketing on my camera is cleverer than I thought and I was able to set the gap between each exposure to be 3 stops, giving me a range of plus/minus 9 stops in a seven shot autobracktet sequence - neat! But with this type of range there is no getting around the fact that the resulting shots are HDR composites. The amount of detail that has been achieved through this is amazing, but as a friend stated, they are a bit like looking at the set of a computer game.