autofantasia's photos with the keyword: church

For this week's Sunday Challenge which had the theme of green landscapes . As I've not been able to get out much with the camera this week I took a dip into the archives and came up with this shot, which was taken at Beamish Open Air Museum earlier in the year. The church you see here is, or at least was, St. Helen's the old Parish church of Eston, Middlesbrough, and it dates back to the 12th Century. However, by 1998, with the church having been disused for around 15 years and it having been partially demolished by local vandals it was in a very sorry state. So, despite it being a Grade II listed building, permission was granted for its demolition and it appeared then that its fate was sealed ... that was until Beamish stepped in at the last moment to rescue the church for preservation. They carefully deconstructed it stone by stone so that it could be rebuilt on the Museum site in County Durham next to Pockerley Old Hall, which can be seen behind the church high up on the hill. Some of the bricks still have numbers written on them, which I can only assume have been left to illustrate how the Beamish team were able to reconstruct the church exactly as it had been when it stood in Eston, albeit now fully refurbished and fitted out with replacement fittings including some beautiful Georgian pews. Please view on black for best effect. www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-21108837/church-moved-and-rebuilt-at-beamish-museum www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315277/Vandalised-medieval-church-rebuilt-brick-brick-40-miles-away.html

Or even just a sign of better times to come for ipernity and those that care so deeply for it ... as ever though, the Devil may well be in the detail. Or perhaps it's all just too little too late and we are all damned. Ipernity Members Association Project Please view on black for best effect ... while you still can!

Regular visitors to my photostream will know that I usually participate in the Sunday Challenge , but for a variety of reasons I've missed the last three. This week the challenge related to Dutch angle photography, a technique used to create or convey dramatic effects or portray a psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed. It's accomplished by simply tilting the camera so the horizon or subject is at an angle to the bottom of the frame of the shot and is something I often found myself doing before I even knew what it was called. Therefore, you'd think this would have been an easy week, but I'm afraid once again I didn't manage to get out with the camera. So, to avoid missing out again I've dipped into the archives and pulled out a previously unpublished shot, which I've then processed somewhat to add to the feeling of tension I was trying to convey. For those that are interested in these things the chuch in question is located in Harrogate and used to be called St. Mary's. According to Wikipedia the first church erected on the site had its foundation stone laid on 4 September, 1822 and was consecrated in 1825, but declared unsafe in 1903. The replacement church was built at the current site in 1916 to designs by the architect Walter Tapper and constructed in the 14th century English gothic style. Sadly, in 2007 closed as a parish church because of maintenance problems. More recently though it was revived by Mark Carey as a fresh expression of church, still within the Church of England, but now serving the whole of Harrogate and renamed as Kairos Church. Got to say though that when I was there recently the broken windows and boarded up doors made it look anything other than welcoming and I was left wondering if perhaps the project had failed. Please view on black for best effect.

A little bit of fun produced for the Come Slide With Me group challenge. It's based on a shot taken inside St Laurence's church in Ludlow and shared with the group by Ann Roberts . You'll find a copy of the original image in the Notes though it has been manipulated quite a bit since then. So much so that I can't even remember how I did it or even start to think how to deconstruct it.

Another bit of fun based around a shot I took within Brompton Church cemetery itself. I was looking for something I could use at the time for the Sunday Challenge when the theme was pareidolia . As I wandered around, I couldn't help but notice the way the back of the very oldest headstones had been eroded over time with the wind and weather. Such beautiful patterns and colours not to mention this little 'soldier' who'd been frozen in time. Not sure what was getting him all excited, but he was certainly shouting about it to anyone in his vicinity. Done some basic adjustments to bring out the colours of the stone to best effect and added some texturing, but otherwise pretty much how I saw it on the day.

Sadly, due to security fears, that's true of so many rural churches here in the UK. However, the padlocked fence here at Brompton Church wasn't to keep people out of the building, but instead being used to screen off a section of the perimeter wall that surrounds the cemetery and which has a massive large crack in it ... presumably in case it collapses. Pretty sure it's been like that for years, but I guess when congregations are dwindling such maintenance issues are way down the list of priorities. Anyway, I took the shot into the 'processing room' and here's where I ended up!

For this week's Sunday Challenge , which has the theme of broken . I spotted this collection of stone masonry propped up against a crypt outside one of the churches near where I live in North Yorkshire. I couldn't decide if they were all from the same grave or not, but I felt the grouping was an ideal subject for the challenge, even if it was a rather sad sight. Probably best viewed large on black if you have time.

For this week's Sunday Challenge , which had the theme of roof lines . St. James was consecrated in 1882 to serve the growing satellite village of Romanby to the southeast of Northallerton and was designed by Charles Hodgson Fowler of Durham, a well-known Victorian church architect.

Looking along the main path outside Brompton Church, near Northallerton, surrounded by the local cemetery.

For this week's Sunday Challenge with the theme of doors . This is the entrance to St Michael & All Angels, which is located at North Otterington on the outskirts of Northallerton. Quite a pretty church, but spoiled a little by the way large areas of the surrounding cemetery are sectioned off with chicken wire fencing. Not sure if that's because of a fear of gravestones falling over say onto a child, which I know has become a health and safety issue at many old churches, or if there's some other reason. Sadly though, like many rural churches in this country it was closed and so I couldn't get in for a good look around. Follow the link below if you want to read a little bit more about this particular church: www.visitoruk.com/Northallerton/north-otterington-C592-V15639.html

So, a fun week for all involved with The Sunday Challenge , well at least for some and I include myself in that category. The theme this week was HDR (High Dynamic Range) Imagery . It's a technique that really does seem to attract quite diverse opinions as I've found out over this last week as I've posted various attempts at creating an HDR image. As it happens I've always liked HDR, at least for certain subjects and when it has been applied in a controlled and sympathetic fashion. However, it wasn't something I'd ever attempted myself until this week so as I said earlier it has been a fun week. So much so that after playing around with the trial version of Photomatix I ended up taking the plunge and buying the software outright. If nothing else it means that I can continue to experiment with the medium without having the Photomatix watermark applied to my final creations. This particular shot that I've ended up using as my main submission to TSC is actually taken inside All Saints Church in Northallerton. In the past I've taken several shots of the exterior, but this was the first time I'd ventured inside and I have to say I was most impressed by what I found. Not quite York Minster perhaps, but very attractive all the same. I just hope that my HDR take on this subject helps convey at least some of the beauty and splendour of this grand old church. By the way, this was the result of combining three RAW files: one at normal exposure, one at -1.5, and one at +1.5. You can a representation of the three base files in the Notes.

So, decided to try bracketing on my Nikon D90 today with a view to trying HDR for the first time. This is the first attempt and I was a little disappointed with it as I felt the need to tweak it somewhat which I'd not expected would be necessary. Also, If it's a windy day and there are clouds in your shot ... be quick taking your set of photos otherwise they're extremely difficult to align!

An alternative version of Something Wicked , which was my entry for the recent Sunday Challenge when the theme was numbers . This time with a bit of selective colouring on the clock face. I think this still works, but I preferred the completely mono version I ended up using. The original image is in the Notes (top left corner).

This week The Sunday Challenge had the theme of numbers: as simple as that . As long as the shot contained at least one number then pretty much anything went and you could process it (or not as the case may be) in whatever way you wanted. I did have a few shots in the archives that I thought about using, but in the end I decided to take some new shots and eventually decided to use one of All Saints Parish Church in Northallerton. This rather impressive looking old building can be found a few hundred yards away from the main High Street and occupies a corner plot offering up many opportunities for taking photos. The original image is in the Notes (top left corner), but as you'll see I've done some processing on it since it came out of the camera. Although it was taken around midday, I decided to convert it to greyscale/mono to create a slightly more sinister feel as if it were actually coming up to midnight and the witching hour, hence the title.