Barns and Churches and Sunsets, Oh My!

I’m in a rut. Seems like the only thing I shoot lately are barns, churches and some sunsets. Don’t get me wrong, I love shooting those but I am wanting to shoot other things as well.

I would love to shoot some more portraits. Two years ago Jeanne gave me some studio strobes for Christmas and I’ve used them a total of 6 times. Hard to get good at lighting when you only shoot with lights six times.

So today after work I headed home and saw this church off in the distance. I took a county road to it and the sun was sinking fast. I got one profile shot of the church and then the light got too dark to shoot. I was heading to my car when I noticed the sun was just at the right angle to shoot a silhouette of the church. So I walked back to the church and looked for the right angle but the sun was too low for me to get anything but a common right angle.

Then I noticed that there was a cemetery behind the church with a large cross at the rear of it. Mindful of all the graves I walked back there to shoot a silhouette of the cross in the setting sun light but the cross was way too high.

Now I’m really disappointed because I cannot get the church nor the cross in my composition so I started back to the car and then came across this tombstone with this big cross on it at just the right height.

It was a little tricky trying to keep the sun in front of the cross and I got some really weird colors but it kind of interesting in a strange sort of way. The lower part of the cross that looks like light is coming out of the side is really just cobwebs reflecting the sunlight. The black looking stuff coming out of the top is a tree that was off in the distance and because of the depth of field it is blurry.

By the way I received some comments that I should also post the technical information so I was shooting a Nikon D300s at 200 ISO in RAW format at F8 with 2/3 -EV to compensate for the brightness of the sun. I was shooting with a Tamron 18 – 270 mm 3.5 lens. I really like this lens because it gives me so much versatility in focal lengths and it is super sharp.

So I did get one shot of the church. Not a very good one but still a shot. The colors were nice but of the shots posted tonight I’d have to say the one of the grain bins is my favorite. I was actually headed back to the highway when I spotted them and thought they would make a nice image. I really like them.