Everywhere the glint of gold

For such a beautiful old building I am awfully disenchanted with the photos.

We'd left the house before dawn to hit the road that morning and it was only time for people to be waking up when we rolled into town. And it was not a good part of town. The benefit of being up so early was that we were quite slap-happy while lost in the ghetto, right down to rolling on the floor in tears when I spotted a rough-looking pit bull puppy going for a walk carrying a 2x4 (I kid you not) in his jaws, happy as a clam!

Things got a little more sober when we first laid eyes on the inside of this church. All was silent, the sunlight was pouring in the broken windows, our footsteps echoed in the beautiful arch of the dome. Everywhere was the patchy irregularity of water damage, crunchy bits of broken plaster and the glint of gold in the mosaics. The carvings on the walls and ceilings were meticulously shaped and painted and were obviously once very important to a large congregation of people. We had stepped back in time when craftsmen cared about their work and when faith was still enough to inspire love for art.

A smaller, Baptist-looking church was downstairs but was decidedly uninteresting compared to the sanctuary above. Additionally, climbing up into the bell tower (via a series of interestingly-placed rusty ladders) was underwhelming.

One of my favorite things about churches is the architecture - more specifically the architecture in relation to acoustics. Standing directly under the dome, I could not hear the person talking right next to me, but someone standing on the other end of the church fiddling with his camera was deafening in my ears. There was more than one time when I was alone there and spooked at the sound of my own footsteps. Interesting, that.



I did write a lot of notes about this place, but it's amazing how a page or two handwritten turns into very tiny typed text. This remarkably un-embarrassing photo of me was taken by Trav.

As far as my photos go, they're up because it's a beautiful building and I think keeping such loveliness shut away is a shame. Not because I am pleased with them. While it's true that I probably shouldn't share sub-par photos publically, perhaps someone could give me a pat on the head and (1) say how proper white balance is difficult to work with in a building that is already sandstone-yellow, especially when the sunlight is turning lead into gold, and (2) explain how to get around this with some method other than by throwing everything into black/white. In fact, processing them was such an irritating experience that even now I think I am going to go off and kick things. Later.