The previous post was the second venue on our photo club field trip. The first
venue on our Saturday photo field trip was The United Methodist Church of the
Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. The church
was ready for use in 2017 and, at that
time, it had the largest stained glass window in the world. It is 35 ft above the floor, it is 35 feet
high and 92 feet across weighing in at 8 tons.
The church has seating for 3,500 worshipers. Our mission was to photo the window and the
architectural features of the church.
The church
is massive and as we found out, there were some real technical challenges when shooting
the stained glass window. First, there
are two huge speakers hung directly in front of the window. The only way to keep them out of the photo
was to go left or right or to stand as close to the massive window as possible
and look up at it....kind of like sitting in the first row of the IMAX theater. Ultimately, that is what I chose to do. When standing just below the window, the
second problem became very noticeable.
The illumination of the stained glass became more uneven as you got
closer due to roof overhangs blocking some of the sunlight.
The
solutions to these problems required editing for the severe
"Keystone" effect due to standing at the base of the window and
looking up 70 feet. The second problem
was mitigated by doing some serious dodging on the edges of the window. The result was not perfect but decent. I would like to know how others dealt with
these problems and how it worked out.
The exposure info for my shots were f5, 1/250, ISO 100 at 24mm. The photos were bracketed +/- EV2 and then
processed as an HDR shot.....tech stuff for the photo enthusiasts.
There are
lots of photos in the post mostly because it was a large church with many fine
features to display. Hopefully, the
photos are enjoyable and inspirational...that was one of my goals.
The large glass area is the source of the illumination for the stained glass window in the sanctuary.
The main entrance.
The entrance to the sanctuary.
Note the speakers blocking part of the window.
A closer look at the beautiful window.
Moving to the side gets rid of the speakers but there is too much distortion to clearly see the window.
A photo of just the center third of the window.
Here is the full window without speakers as taken from the base of the window looking up. Lots of editing was required to eliminate the "keystone" distortion and uneven lighting on the edges of the window.
The sanctuary seats 3,500 worshipers.
A small prayer chapel in the church.
A multi-purpose area with food service, a fireplace, and other amenities.
The lobby area had several works of art.
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