St. John's of the Wilderness

I believe I mentioned in my last post that I had wanted for several years to photograph the interior of St. John's. I had seen the inside once. I happened to be passing several years ago when some workmen were doing repairs but I didn't have my cameras. Yesterday I got lucky again and passed when the sexton was doing some yard work and he let me in.

The image above is three exposures combined to span the range of brightness but that was only part of the problem. The interior lighting is very warm incandescent light but the light coming through the windows was very blue from overcast daylight. If I set the white balance for the interior lights the windows were all shades of blue with very little other color. Setting the white balance for the window light turned the whole interior shades of orange. In the end I set the white balance for the interior, added a 4th layer balanced for the window light which I masked out all except for the windows. That was made more difficult by the alter cross and candles which are in front of the windows. All told I spent well over an hour doing the computer work to create the final image above. This is only one of several I shot so I have more work to do. Be sure you click on the image above to see the larger version.