A collage of some pictures I took at churchs in Milan (and a museum in Florence), temples in Singapore and Hong Kong and a mosques in Istanbul and Eyup

I have always taken pictures in churches, temples and mosques

wherever I go so I thought I would try putting a few of them

together.

Great montage/documentary Bill

Very creative, looks like a lot of work.Nice idea.

Very interesting. My favourite is probably the Muslum woman in prayer, for the scattering of red against the creams, and her distance from the background people, giving her a sense of private prayer while in a public area. The mosque panaramic works well with the Buddhist photos- the organisation of the mosque vs. the street chaos of the Buddhist. Quite fascinating.

 

The churches... very few signs of people(except the hand, and excluding whichever one's in the museum). I like the photos, though. The composition of the bottom one with the sheet is eye-catching, although I'm not entirely convinced by the crop(the white rod sneaking in from the right), but probably couldn't do anything about that.

 

The Hindu(I assume) ones, I'm not as sure about. Good colours, but no actual worship.

 

Anyway, individually I like most of the photos, esp. the Muslim woman(not sure which my least favourite is). Together, I do like the mix and variety of religous practise, but I wonder what a tighter message would look like... only people in worship, etc, maybe similarity of colours if the different faiths to link them together could be interesting(I see lots of reds here).

Thanks Stephen for a thoughtful and insightful critique. The muslim woman in prayer is probably my favorite also. I love her expression. After Mecca and Medina, Eyup is probably the holiest place in Islam and I was fascinated by the people there. She sat that way for half an hour probably. I love the two chinese girls also for the mix of modern and ancient (what they are doing is actually a bit of Taoist folk religion not really related to strict Bhuddism). You are corrrect about the rod. I will probably clone that out. But, they are priests robes not sheets so for me, they carry a sense of worship. You are right that in general, more scenes of worship would work better. I kind of picked and chose from what I had. I may look for more. But, with the hand and the statue of a worshipper, I think Christianity is represented. The hindu ones - as you noted - need work. I worked with what I had, but they are not that great. I was a bit more nervous taking pictures of worshipers there as it was a more intimate and smaller ceremony and much more difficult to blend in. The color idea is fabulous! As I take more pics, I will absolutely keep that in mind. All in red would be quite interesting. It's also true that a tighter message would help. I didn't really ahve a message in mind except something along the lines of "most people have some kind of faith and we probably have more commanlities than differences if we would stop shooting at each other long enough to figure that out." Anyway, a more coherent message would be better. I'll have to think about it.

Hi Bill, technically I don't see anything wrong with the colors and composition except for the middle image of the woman with head scarf and cropped body of the standing figures. Perhaps a square crop of just the woman is better here.

 

Anyway, you're quite a free thinker to mix all religions together as I'm sure certain religious group may object here. A touchy subject?