The Cathedral of the Plains - 5/19/2019

While driving from Kansas City to Denver on I-70 for a family graduation, we passed by the Cathedral of the Plains in Victoria, Kansas.  We have stopped here several times over the years and enjoy seeing the amazing church.  Victoria is just off I-70 and the Cathedral can easily be seen from the interstate.  I took a few more photos on this visit and wanted to share them.  I copied information on the history of the church from their website.

The "Cathedral of the Plains" is Saint Fidelis Catholic Church in Victoria, Kansas. It has seating for 1,100 people, which, at the time of it's dedication in 1911, made it the largest church west of the Mississippi River. The church is 220 feet long, 110 feet wide at the transepts and 75 feet at the nave. Its ceiling is 44 feet above the ground and the towers are 141 feet tall.

Since St. Fidelis Catholic Church is not the seat for a bishop, it is not a Cathedral. It received its nickname from William Jennings Bryan when he visited St. Fidelis in 1912.

After several years of petition, St. Fidelis Church was declared a minor basilica  as of February 21, 2014. The Cathedral of the Plains is the first basilica in Kansas and the 78th in the United States. The church now displays a tintinnabulum (bell) and an ombrellino (umbrella) in the sanctuary as symbols of the basilica's link to the pope. The official name is now The Basilica of St. Fidelis, but most people continue to call it the Cathedral of the Plains.

Three previous churches served the community of predominately German immigrants, but the present church was begun in 1908 and completed in 1911. The exterior is constructed of large native limestone blocks weighing from 50 to 100 pounds each.

The Romanesque design church contains German windows & works of art, Austrian hand carved stations of the cross, and Italian marble altar. The church is open to the public (free) from dawn to dusk and anAn audio tour is available. Stop by early on a Friday evening and you may be treated to the sounds of the Saint Fidelis organist rehearsing. Groups or individuals may arrange a guided tour by contacting the Parish Office at 785-735-2777.

Sunday Masses are celebrated in St. Fidelis Church at 5PM on Saturday and 10:00AM on Sundays. Daily Mass is celebrated at 7PM on Monday and 6:45AM on the other weekdays.

The stained glass windows are reason enough to visit the church.

 

 

Kansas Clouds Before a May Storm - 5/19/2019

As we drove from Kansas City to Denver on I-70, we noticed some unusual and beautiful clouds in a very rural part of Kansas.  We made a two day drive out of it by stopping in Hays, Kansas for the night.  Hays is about the half way point for the trip.

On the following day, we drove through extremely heavy rains, high winds, and, at times, heavy fog that caused us to slow to 60 mph so we didn't overdrive our visibility.  Later that evening, the snow started in the Denver area with 2 to 4 inches of accumulation.

I think the clouds were a precursor to the storm.  The unusual streaks in the clouds probably indicated strong high altitude winds ahead of the storm.

Just for fun, I tried a black and white version of one of the photos.

There were a number of stone fence posts along the farm road.  Creating these posts is becoming a lost art because of the cheaper and easier to install alternatives.  The new stuff can't match the timeless beauty of the stone posts.  The stone posts have been there for many decades and will probably still be there for hundreds of years if not removed.

United Methodist Church of the Resurection - 3/27/2019

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.