The Desert Church -- Exterior

Saint Richards Catholic Church, taken in Borrego Springs over Thanksgiving weekend. I made use of a polarizer filter since I was shooting at about noontime.

C&Cs welcome.

G

i really like the 1st and 3rd, the filter looks a little strong though :)

Is this film GB? I want to say slide film, but not too sure. I only say that as the blue is really saturated, almost to the point of being black.

I like the last photo the most. It has the mountains in the background, It's a nice series of shots :)

I like the last one the best as well, and the first one second to that. They give a better sense of context with the desert mountain and palms.

And see, I really like that dark blue sky with the white of the church. I'd like to see better composition on all the shots but, I know and understand that, sometimes that is easier said than done.

Caleb - Yeah, the polarizing effect does hit a bit hard here, but that is actually by design in this particular situation. When you shoot out in the desert, mid-day shots usually look terrible: there's no color, no shadows, and all contrast. Your only real chance to snag shots that are keepers are polarized ones, which produces this artsy (deco?) look... I guess you have to take what you can get.

Danic - No, not film, but I can see where you might guess that. To me it looks very close to Kodachrome. Perhaps the Nikon D200 and KR look the same with polarizer filters. Funny you like the last one, for I initially felt it was the weakest of all, maybe being too direct / straightforward, hence boring. But it does tell more of a story than the others, especially the two middle shots. Thanks for commenting !

Canuck, thanks too. Looks like the last one is mostly the top choice here. Maybe the two middle ones are effects fodder? I like those mountains too! It's a shame that in Borrego Springs that so many potential wonderful views are ruined by telephone lines . The last is one of the angles that work.

P - Thanks for taking a look. I also think the contrast between the church and sky is something that makes impact. Better composition, like..? I'm always walking around, crouching down, zooming in and out looking for interesting angles and viewpoints, etc., but not sure there was much else to get here. I wanted to do an all night north star swirl with this place in the foreground, but it didn't happen on this trip... Maybe the next no-moon evening.

G

I really like the 3rd one for the deco feel, the others just don't move me. I would like to see a close up of the "touchdown" jesus.

The colors are really rich, I like #1. The sky in 2 & 3 are too dark for me. It might be interesting here early morning or at dusk? Too much happening on the ground with #4, red roof on the right, trees against the side on the right, no parking sign in front? But again GB1, you take terrific shots. S

Chris - Thks. I feel that shots should move a person, and if they don't, then they're probably lacking something. This is why I probably would be bored as a commercial photographer, just going out and photography mundane objects for business. btw, the "touchdown Jesus" looks like your Nikon God avatar :D

Thanks Shootme. I feel the same on # 4. If there were just two or three less distractions, it would be a nice scene.

It's funny.. seems like different people have different tolerances for clutter/distractions. I was looking at some graphic art last week where the artist had collages of photographed objects and people all mixed together. You could see what he was doing, or trying to do, but there was so many objects in there ... it was painful. My experience on this site made me almost want to immediately critique his work (glad I didn't blurt that out).

Yeah # 2 and 3 are pretty saturated. they're more art than photography. I have to continue working on that style and tweak it a bit,

G