Night at the Cathedral

My original plan yesterday was to shoot a sunset from the high bridge.  The clouds didn't cooperate so I decided to head over to St. Paul's Cathedral and try some night shots.  While there weren't any clouds left I figured that the architecture would be enough to add interest to the shot.  As it turned out the Cathedral was much like my shot from Duluth.  The lack of clouds didn't bother me.  Clouds would have added drama but the occasional clean sky works.

All said I spent about an hour walking around the cathedral trying different angles and elevations.  A couple of locations required a couple different shots to fit the whole building in.  The picture that I posted on Facebook was a good example of that.  I wanted to have the stairs in the shot with the railings leading up to the building.  I also wanted to have some space above the top of the church so, if printed, the top wouldn't be cut off.

For my recent shoots I've been using my new Promote Control.  After my previous remote release started to fall apart I wanted to replace it with something that had a little more functionality.  A couple of the benefits of the Promote Control is it bypasses the built in 30 second limit and expands the maximum number of shots in a bracketed series.

The first image is the one I posted to in Facebook.  It is a combination of two HDR's.  With the 24-70mm lens I wanted to show how large this building is.  Shot from a low angle helps to accentuate the size of the building.

The second is a popular angle.  I love the gentle rise of the grass in the foreground and the cars parked just in front of the church.  They help to establish how large the building is.