Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Saint Rose (Stained Glass)

All the churches that I have been in on the byway have wonderful stained glass windows. St. Rose's are exceptional. Because of their humanistic quality I couldn't help but frame them.

The original posted pictures were low-res because of the framing process I used and concerns about space. I decided to replace them with these High-Res non framed images. I may make a slide show with the Low-Res Framed ones. I will work out the space issue some other way. If you left click on these you will get a very large picture to view. These were taken hand held and are not as sharp as I would of liked, but still beautiful non the less.




I have been to this church several times and have been wanting to feature it for sometime. These are not all the stained glass windows in the church but a fair sampling. I wish I new what Saint was being portrayed in each scene. They definitely have a portrait look to them. The detail is remarkable.



I have found the best time to photograph stained glass is late afternoon/early evening. Otherwise I have problems with blown out high-lights. It really depends though on where the sun is in relationship to the windows and how much of the window is in direct sun. I normally have to change my camera settings when I move to the opposite wall.


I have always been intrigued by the beauty of stained glass. The colors when their lit by the sun are so vibrant and the surrounding patterns just fascinating. I like to study them to see what all is hidden. Not hidden really, but the things you don't see right away. The things you have to look for that a casual glance would miss.


This church also has an old fashion type iron gated cemetery that I've been trying to get a really nice picture of. So far I haven't succeeded but I did add a picture of it to the (Description of the ByWay Pictures)

These pictures were taken hand-held at ISO 200 f/2.8 1/90 sec. using the Canon 100mm Macro Lens.

Hope you enjoyed this post of Stained Glass Windows.

9 comments:

  1. These are beautiful windows and beautiful photos. I like the frames around them.

    But may I suggest you post them at a considerably higher resolution? One really can't quite see the details in the images you posted.

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  2. Great pictures!

    Here is a website that lists symbols associated with saints:
    http://www.fisheaters.com/saintsart.html

    The first window is Jesus and Mary at the death of St. Joseph, and the last window is St. Rose of Lima, but I'm not sure about the others. Maybe the soldier is the Centurion?

    A book you might find helpful: "How to Read a Church" by Richard Taylor - it lists the more common symbols and images.

    Your blog is great!

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  3. Irene,

    Thanks for the feedback. This was an experiment of sorts. The pictures for the blog share the same space as all my pictures that I share with friends and family and I am going to get tight on space before years end. These are by far the lowest res pictures I have posted to date. I plan on playing around with this post over the weekend and see what type of compromise I can come up with. I wasn't all that happy with the quality either. Thanks for taking the time and leaving me a comment. I appreciate it.

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  4. Kevin,

    Thanks for the info and kind words. I’ve been looking for something like this. I will definitely be checking out the book and web link. Centurion for the soldier is probably as good a guess as any. Sometime in the future I plan on feature the Saints and the various forms I find them in. This info will be a great help. Thanks Again.

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  5. These are gorgeous :]
    Well actually Rick Astley randomly came on the radio while we were sitting in the Kroger parking lot waiting for my parents, and the windows were down, so I had to turn it up a little and embarrass my brothers. Hahahha.

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  6. Having evaluated these I think I would re-shoot at ISO 400 and go for more depth of field.

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  7. Very beautiful images. I love the colors.

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  8. The facial expressions, and the shading on the figures, is really quite unique. When was this church built?

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  9. These stained glass windows are wonderful and I plan on reshooting them when I visit the church again. According to the history on the web this church was built in 1910. There was no detail given about the windows. You can see the full history by clicking on the History of Saint Rose in the Related Links Section.

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