City Methodist Church

First, thanks to my swell neighbor, Jen (blog here) for inviting me to join her on a photography adventure to Gary, Indiana. I know, you're wondering what the heck we would want to photograph in Gary. Turns out it's home to a beautiful abandoned Methodist church that I think may have been placed on Earth purely for the enjoyment of photographers and filmmakers. A photography group that Jen is a member of arranged an outing on Thursday morning. It was incredible, and I'm so glad I went. If it weren't so cold I would have explored the building for hours.

The building is completely derelict, with most of the windows broken and all of nature making its way in. The floor's integrity is questionable in some areas, so we avoided deviating from the main routes.

One of the first rooms we checked out had a decaying sofa and a beautiful fireplace. It may have been my favorite room:










Someone artfully placed a rose on the arm of the sofa. Little "props" like this could be found throughout the building.

Next we explored the main sanctuary, which was completely breathtaking. I attempted an HDR image, but wasn't happy with what I got after running it through the software, so come good ol' fashioned exposures will have to do :)









Next we headed to the second and third floors, where there were plenty of other props and little "scenes" just begging to be photographed:




This is HDR. I wish the ones I did in the sanctuary had turned out as opposed to this one, but its kinda cool.






We didn't go any further down this hallway. We were certain either a) the floor would give way or b) a man with a chainsaw would jump out at us.

I couldn't feel my fingers at this point, so it was a good spot to call it a day :). Overall a fun adventure, and I've enjoyed seeing photos shared by others in the group. I'll have to get over my shyness and post a few of my own.

And hopefully we can see what Jen did too! That is one of the coolest parts of this group - seeing how others photograph and "see" the same location.

Hopefully there will be more projects like this to come!

Winter

Before I begin, a reminder regarding the poll to the right above the music player: please take it! I have several answers already (thanks to those who partook!), but more is always better. Please :). See the post prior to this one for the full question.

After a long line of portrait-related posts, I bring you some mother nature! Woo hoo. These are all from my Christmas "break" (if you call 4 days off a break). The first day we had just experienced an ice storm. The second day it was snowing like crazy, which was quite the challenge. The third day things were clear, and I believe I like that better, lol. I won't be taking many more photographs in the middle of a snowstorm unless I have a large umbrella over the camera and a built-in heater on the lens (ooo, idea! j/k).

Day 1:






Poor penguin :(

Day 2:











Day 3:

Various shots of the creek:







They call it "magic hour" for a reason:









You know what the worst thing about this was? My butt. I crouched down for several shots, and being that we had 6-8 inches of snow, my butt inevitably ended up with some snow on it. Brrrrrrr.