Practice Photoshoot - St Peters Church

After researching the work of Andy Marshall I was quite inspired to go out and attempt my very own type of church photography whilst using the ideas from Andy's work and implementing my own ideas for some fantastic shots. I was planning on going out on a bright and sunny day so I checked the weather and it said that Wednesday the 16th would be a bright and sunny day so I decided to choose that day to go out on the shoot. But as it happens luck didn't come my way and the weather was incorrect, the weather was mainly cloudy and foggy with not one single split in the clouds. Without being jolted I still went ahead with the shoot experimenting with my camera to see I if could still get some interesting photographs. I used my Canon 1000D alongside my Tri-pod. I also took a spare battery with me jsut incase I ran out of battery as I dont live near this location. I took around 50-60 shots of the church so below are my favourite ones with the settings included and why I have chosen them.



St Peters Church - Rear 1/200, F-Stop 4.5, ISO 400

 This is the first photograph I have chosen from my collection from the photoshoot. My aim here was to get the church in all of its natural beauty. I originally planned to do this sort of shot from the front of the church but there were advertisement posters plastered all over it so that was that idea ruined, luckily the rear looked just as good as the front. Now obviously the church is the main focal point in the shot but I wanted to make the tower of the church look like the dominant object in the photograph. To be honest I think this just came natural just from taking a standard shot in front of the church. There are also patterns included in this photograph from the windows of the church leading up to the church tower. This photograph would've looked so much better if the weather was better as I would've been able to concentrate more on the surrounding colours from the sky but instead I ended up with a big bloch of white. I used a 1/200 shutter speed alongside an F-Stop oof 4.5 due to how bright the natural surrounding light was. Most of the light was coming from the clouds because it was just pure white all around so I had to have a faster shutter speed to not let as much light into the shot. The only problem with this shot is that it gets a little bit too dark in the bottom left of the shot so if I was to take this photograph again I would use a slower shutter speed to let a little bit more light into the shot.

1/300, F-Stop 4.5, ISO 400

1/250, F-Stop 4.5, ISO 400

1/320, F-Stop 5.0, ISO 400

Beacuse of the weather the way that it was, taking straight shots infront of the church were pretty much all looking the same with the same background and they were ending up not proving to be worthy photographs. So because of this I decided to experiment with my camera and tri-pod taking photographs of the church at different angles and to be quite honest I was quite suprised at the results. All of these shots were taken around the same settings. This was again due to the surrounding background light and how much I was wanting in the photograph and to make the church the main focal point. I feel that taking these photographs at these angles conveys a completely different visual message to what they would if taken at a straight angle. By this I mean these angles display there historic patterns and features in all there glory and also showing that it stands over everything else making it look more dominant.




St Peters Church - South West, 1/125, F-Stop 7.1, ISO 400

This was perhaps one of my favourite shots from the photoshoot, I took this shot right at the end of the photoshoot. I used a 1/125 shutter speed because it was starting to get dark and a F-Stop of 7.1 because I wanted to get all the detail from the church and make it the main focal point of the shot although I was standing quite far away from it. I got the idea of this type of shot from some the inspriation of some of Andy Marshalls work. He has the rule of thirds concentrated into his work so I have tried the same thing here with the sky and the church tower being the top two thirds and the bottom half of the church and ground being the bottom third. With the trees either side on the photograph it creates a visual line to guide the eye composition leading up to the church. There is also a even balance of colour starting bright at the top of the photograph and gradually getting darker when moving down the shot.

Photoshoot Evaluation

Overall I feel that the photoshoot went very well as I was able to create a lot of different ideas for different types of shot. I was also able to take these photographs at the correct manual settings without any issues, this resulted in photographs at the right brightness and contrast and without them being blurry. If I was to go on this shoot again I would go when the weather is better as this would create completely different photographs altogether. I would also take more photographs using different ISO's because I only used one ISO. If I had used didfferent ISO settings I could've had different outcomes from the photographs and it also would've been good practice. I would also like to take some interior shots of the church as this would improve my skills the settings area of my camera as there would not be as much natural light inside the church. I would also be able to get all different types of composition in the photographs, so overall it would be good practice.