Author: Mark

28 Mar

History of Trinity Lutheran Church, St.Louis – Part 2

In my previous post I mentioned about my inspiration into architectural photography born at Concordia Seminary in St.Louis. I also wrote about my new project which began in late 2013 called “Churches Under God” where I began a series of photographic shoots capturing historic churches in St.Louis, Missouri beginning with Trinity Lutheran Church in Soulard. Here are a few more photographs I captured during this visit.

No visit would be complete without a strong exterior photograph of the front of the church. If you have not read my previous post on Trinity Lutheran Church where I mention the extensive storm damage in 1896, I invite you to check that out here.

Trinity Lutheran Church, St.Louis

Here is a photograph of the alter of the church captured from the balcony.

Trinity Lutheran Church, St.Louis

Next is a close-up of the handcrafted artwork of the pulpit on the left, and the choir’s balcony on the right.

Trinity Lutheran Church, St.Louis
Trinity Lutheran Church, St.Louis

For those of you who are photographers, you might be able to appreciate this one. In these days I was working on perfecting the method of producing what are called HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography. The process is like this.

You take a number of photographs at slightly different shutter speeds so you can capture into detail even the shadowy parts of a photograph. Usually this is just a series of maybe 4-6 photographs. However, since I was granted the great privilege of going inside the bell tower, my goal was to capture both the details of the stained glass windows, as well as the details of the inside of the bell tower itself. Because it was such a large contrast in light levels between the details of the stained glass windows and the inside room of the bell tower, to accomplish this task it took a series of 10 individual photographs. With each one captured from a tripod, I blended the photographs together with this photograph “Behind the Glass” being the result.

"Behind the Glass" - Trinity Lutheran Church, St.Louis

The follow is an excerpt from my article about the history of Trinity Lutheran Church found in its entirety at ChurchesUnderGod.com:

The ringing of the 4 bells in the Bell Tower was no small or simple task in 1866, when the Boys’ Youth Group raised the money for them. Because of the Civil War, all metal was confiscated so the creation and installation of the bells were delayed until 1866 even though they were purchased 2 years earlier. As tour guide Dennis Rathert at Trinity Lutheran Church describes; ringing the bells required 7-8 teen-aged boys, 5 alone just to ring the big bell. To ring the big bell 2 boys would be positioned on a landing above while 3 boys were positioned below. When the bell was set to be rung, the 3 at the bottom would grab the rope and pull with all their might, while the 2 boys up above would leap off the landing and ride the rope up and down as the bell rung. Sometimes the 3 boys at the bottom would feel left out so they would hang on when they were told to let go and then bump their heads on the stairs above. To this day you can still see names, initials, and years from some of the more long term bell ringers. Some of the years still visible are from; 1905, 1909, 1913, and so on. Up until the 1950’s a pair of loud speakers could be heard playing Christmas music out toward the neighborhood.

Again, I would like to give many thanks to Rev. King Schoenfeld, Dennis Rathert, and Dave Perry of Trinity Lutheran Church for granting me the high privilege to visit and photograph their beautiful church.

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26 Mar

My Love of Architecture Photography and the History of Trinity Lutheran Church, St.Louis

One day while I was sitting at my desk at the Intelligencer Newspaper in Edwardsville, Illinois in late 2013, I was reviewing some of my photographs I captured at the Cathedral Basilica in University City, St.Louis. I started doing a search of 1) churches in St.Louis over 100 years old, 2) Judeo-Christian in denomination, and 3) still operating as a church. I was amazed! This list of churches fitting those parameters were around 2 dozen. It was this list that sparked the project I called “Churches Under God.” I spent the following couple of years setting up appointments and interviews with a few of these historic churches in St.Louis. Over the next few weeks I will share photos from this project.

Cathedral Basilica, St.Louis
"Charity of Light" at the Cathedral Basilica, St.Louis
"Under God" at the Cathedral Basilica, St.Louis

Let me back up a little bit. My family moved to the St.Louis area from the Wisconsin/Minnesota area back in the mid 1980’s. My father attended Concordia Seminary to become a Lutheran minister after leaving the banking industry. Because of this I grew up countlessly roaming the beautiful architecture of the Concordia Seminary campus. This is really where I gained my love of architecture and of the city of St.Louis. I moved around alot in my early adult years but St.Louis always kept calling me back, that is why I returned for good in 2004. St.Louis is so utterly blessed to have such wonderful and historic architecture. One can endlessly explore the city and find examples of this everywhere.

Concordia Seminary, St.Louis
Chapel of St. Timothy & St. Titus, Concordia Seminary, St.Louis. Photograph given "Award of Excellence" by Associated Church Press
"The Passage, " Concordia Seminary, St.Louis
"Hope Springs" Concordia Seminary, St.Louis
Luther Tower, Concordia Seminary, St.Louis

This week I will share a few photos from my trip to Trinity Lutheran Church in Soulard. Thanks to the help of Rev. King Schoenfeld, Dennis Rathert, and Dave Perry I was able to meticulously photograph the interior of Trinity Lutheran Church. I also did some in-depth research on the church’s rich and fascinating history. This is an excerpt from the article I published about the church, which can be found in its entirety on ChurchesUnderGod.com:

The year of 1896 was a very tough year for many churches in South St. Louis. On May 27, 1896 a very large tornado ripped through the city destroying a number of churches, completely leveling some of them. Trinity Lutheran Church was also hit very hard in this storm. Some of the damage Trinity experienced was; 35 feet of its steeple was torn off, the altar which housed a painting, instead of the present polychromed carving of the Lord’s Supper was completely swept away, and an angel statue was completely destroyed. What amazingly survived was the baptismal font and the pulpit. The storm had also divided the balcony and destroyed much of the stenciling in the walls and ceiling. However, there was great effort taken during the restoration to retain the original color scheme of the interior of the church. Also, 15 feet was removed from the length of the church in order to attach a parsonage during the storm restoration. It was at this time during the restoration that the church was fitted with electricity. However, the church needed both gas and electric because the electric company would shut the power down at 9pm every night. This would of course effect evening services, in which case gas was used to light the church.

Trinity Lutheran Church
Trinity Lutheran Church

I continue to find the history of St.Louis and its churches intriguing, especially when I learned how much these local churches were the social and moral compass for the communities, even by those who were not members. In many American communities the largest weight of community outreach and assistance was bore by these local churches.

I invite you to schedule a time to tour Trinity Lutheran Church and see it for yourself. My photographs can only do it so much justice. There is no substitute for seeing it for yourself.

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21 Mar

Climbing “Below the Bridge” to Capture This Photograph Was Worth It

In the St.Louis region we do not get snow with any frequency or consistency. Unlike living up north, it is a special occurrence when it happens and I usually try to find a way to photographically take advantage of the opportunity. In one of those special mornings, I went out driving around the Illinois side of the St.Louis area exploring for places to shoot. In the area of Lebanon, Illinois I passed over a highway bridge located close to a railroad bridge. I pulled over and made my way under the highway bridge, and through a significant amount of mud, I line up this photograph just right. By the time I got back to my car, I was covered in mud from slipping and sliding and drudging through it all.

In the early morning after a fresh snowfall, the snow remains on each individual branch but only for a short time. Soon after it melts quickly and completely changes the overall image of the landscape. The contrast of the branches in black & white with the white snow gives an added depth to the branches into the proceeding distance. The stillness of the creek water also gives a sheer glass appearance. This is one of my most popular photographs and is easily my wife’s favorite as well. I love this photograph because it is a constant reminder that struggling to a location to get that one photograph you can only envision in your mind can so be worth it, because once you’ve got it, its yours and moments like that never last long.

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18 Mar

Experimentation is “The Gateway” to Great Photography

The St.Louis “Gateway” Arch in St.Louis, Missouri is easily one of the most photographed locations and objects in the St.Louis region. With it being so massive, it offers a challenge in trying to devise a unique way of capturing an image of it without the use of any aircraft. I spent an afternoon experimenting with angles, reflections, and exposure with this image being the result.

With this perspective it almost appeared like a futuristic racetrack shooting into the sky. If it weren’t for the faint clouds captured above, one might not even recognize this was a photograph pointed skyward. The lines of the seams on the metal plates of the arch add some interesting depth of field, as the blue sky reflects giving the steel a cool blue appearance.

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14 Mar

Shadows and Lines Can Lead You to a “Dark Alley”

Another photograph I captured in the early 2000’s during a walk through South St.Louis resulted with this image ending in a “Dark Alley.” During this time I experimented alot with adding slight color to my black and white photographs in an effort to completely change the atmosphere. The original photo had more light colored bricks with lots of shadow.

The result was this cool blue image detailed enough to capture each brick, while giving this oppressive feeling of being completely surrounded. Is it a sanatarium? Is it some government building? I wanted to leave the viewer with a more imposing, sinister feeling with this photograph.

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12 Mar

Photography Begins With What You “See”

In the early 2000’s after my return to St.Louis I began to focus on a few specific aspects with my photography; 1) architecture & texture and 2) minimal amounts of color. During my exploration of downtown St.Louis, I gained access to some of the upper floors of an old office building and capture this photograph, “See.” It was shot with the old Nikon I referenced earlier.

I wanted to capture strong depth-of-field as well as the texture of the concrete around the glass. The thought process was to create an image that was less based in reality and more of a surreal or sci-fi graphical element. The image was edit in Photoshop but only to remove all the color except for the one glass piece.

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07 Mar

Ghostly Silhouettes in the “Rear Window”

Like my previous post “Long Hall” I was exploring some old buildings in downtown St.Louis with my return to the area. “Rear Window” was my experimenting with perspective with textures like broken glass and angles.

The frosted glass made for some unique silhouetting in the distance, along with the contrast of one clear plate of glass. The cracks in the glass and old window frame also created more stark contrast to the frosted white array. This is another example of some of my earlier work with digital photography.

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05 Mar

Capturing the Depth of the “Long Hall”

In 2004 I returned to the St.Louis region and was living on the Illinois side. Whenever I got the chance I would explore some of the old buildings of downtown St.Louis. Wandering into a hallway I’m not sure I was allowed to be, I captured this “Long Hall.” It was part of a skywalk system between two buildings. The white brick and the frosted glass windows offered a great contrast with the black window frames and black door at the end of the hall. I always love to capture strong depth-of-field in order to have the viewer truly be drawn into the photograph.

This was also one of my first photographs captured with a digital camera, the Nikon E4500. With its rotating lens it provided alot of ease in capturing interesting angles that were more challenging with other cameras. Though the megapixels sizes it captured had limitations I did not have with film, it was a fun camera for my first digital.

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29 Feb

On a Forgotten Farm Where One Car Have “Gone to Pieces”

The past several photos I shared from the old swamp full of abandoned vehicles, near the Fort Ransom County farm in North Dakota had a few things in common, they were mostly whole. The remains of this car is not the case and has certainly “Gone to Pieces.” The tall grass definitely takes up a majority of the photo, with only parts of the vehicle sticking out from below. They are truly nested and over grown within the grass, creating a stark contrast in textures.

The second vehicle in the background hints to how it could have appeared before. I photographed everything with a tripod, 100 ISO black & white film and f22, because I wanted to capture every detail clearly, from the background to every blade of grass.

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27 Feb

Enjoying the View From “Behind the Wheel”

This photograph captured at the abandoned Fort Ransom County farm continued my study of the swamp of abandoned vehicles behind the farm. The unusual perspective of the dashboard “Behind the Wheel” of this old Chrysler minus the interior roof and door created a vision of this out-of-place view of their expected norms.

The challenge of this shot was to capture most of the dark place beneath the dashboard, while maintaining the detail but not blow out the light colored tall grass behind it. I learned early on, especially with shooting film, the value of bracketing photos with slight changes in camera settings in order to find the one shot that lights the subjects perfectly.

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