St. Austremoine, Issoire (Puy-de-Dome) North aisle

12th Century church in Auvergne. Comments on architectural photography very welcome.

Its a pretty picture, I opened it up full because of the lovely colours and the glow though on closer inspection I can see a few things that could have improved it. There are some objects like the plaque on the wall and the chairs that spoil the composition, it would have been nice if you had found a view no spoiled by such things because I doubt they had any of that rubbish when it was first built - and something any architectural photographer would tell you straight away (which im not) is that its not straight. You could try cropping it with some software and tilting it slightly to the right. Its a nice picture though, good luck in the future.

Use a tilt-shift lens to get it straight, but had such a short time to get this particular shot that I didn't get it right. The exposure was 5 seconds at f9, and there were lots of people milling around. Should have made sure on the shifting of the lens, but didn't. Damn! Thanks for the critique!

Hi Dennis,

 

Crop out Left & Right, straighten it, and call it "Collumns" !!!

Fantastic (5 secs. mm - immpresive ! )

Overwhelmig capture! Colors, form, composition are really good. Well done.

I am an admirer of your work, which I find simply amazing. This shot is part of a set of studies that I am doing of romanesque churches throughout France. Going back in May to shoot again.

Outstanding...love the shapes and colors..and light.... outstanding!!!

It's a bit of a contradiction: romanesque architecture is often appreciated for its simplicity and purity. But a lot of churches were originally painted this way: fairy-tale-like but not really appealing to our modern taste. The beige color variations left after the paint had eroded away generally appeals much more to our taste (as the stone in the left part of this photo). At least in my opinion it's a good thing they didn't re-paint all Romanesque churches!

... in its 19th Century restoration paint job. But you can see from the pillar on the right, the original church was painted much like this. Whether the colors were ever this intense, we don't know, but they weren't necessarily somber and dour. I actually prefer the horizontal nave shot, because I think it gives a better idea of what the painting was intended to be, both originally and in the restoration.