August 3rd - The Finals at Worth1000.com

Visit www.worth1000.com and vote for all the finalists in the 30-day Photography Challenge! My final image will be posted here after voting is completed. :)

This was my entry - it came in 7th place. :)

Day 30 - McDonough Presbyterian Church

This view is of the largest sanctuary, but there are several large buildings to this church. The courtyard seen just behind the front trees has an old bell in the center and education and recreation buildings surrounding it. The peachy yellow brick looks radiant in this beautiful sunshine. And the gorgeous blue sky cooperated nicely today! :)

Day 29 - Turner United Methodist Church

I've been wanting to shoot this cute country church for a while, and today I got the opportunity while in the area for a real estate shoot. It is so quaint and old-world looking with its tree-lined drive, one-room style construction and beautiful cemetery to the side.

Day 28 bonus - Golf Course at Heron Bay Resort Community

Here's a bonus I shot for a real estate listing in this master planned community. I'll add it to the map - but it's so new I bet there's nothing but trees and dirt. [Edit: strike that. The satellite image here must be newer than some of the other areas, because you can see the development at Google Maps!] I was bummed about the hazy sky. Nothing I did would make it turn a pretty clear blue. Did I mention it's HOT here!? :p

Day 28 - Faith Baptist Church

You can almost feel the 100-degree heat and hot full sun just looking at this picture. I cloned out some ugly powerlines in the trees, but the color and contrast is true. :)

Day 27 - Flowing River Fellowship

Finally a church that begs for a blue border (my favorite color :)). This small warehouse-type church building sits directly across from Flippen UMC from day 4. You can see a little of its reflection in the left set of windows. I desaturated the reds a lot because Georgia clay makes everything tinged a rust color, especially the pavement and base of exterior walls. I wanted the colors to be simple and crisp.



Here's a closeup of the entry. (The marquee says "FRF" with a stylized dove behind it, "An Oasis for the Thirsty")

Day 26 - CompassChurch.tv

This is a church of a new generation. The actual name of the church is a URL. The symmetry of the building spoke to me and I focused on the graphic center of the entryway. An interesting side note - the sermon series advertised on the billboard is "God Loves Sex". If that doesn't draw people in, nothing will. :D

Day 25 - Wesley Chapel United Methodist

Early again. :) Tried out some new (and free) plugins from this site. I used the contrast enhancement here along with a Photoshop shadows/highlight adjustment.

Day 24 - Liberty Hill Baptist Church

I'm early today! Don't hold it against me. ;)

With such a patriotic name, I thought a red, white and blue frame was in order. I loved the welcoming entry on the main chapel of this church. The building stretches about 100 feet in both directions from this cropped view.

Day 23 - Tri City Seventh Day Adventists

I love the sign on this little church! It looks so space-age and futuristic. From the street (it sits at the top of a pretty long hill) you can see the downtown lights in Atlanta at night. Converted to B&W, sharpened and blurred in Photoshop.

Day 22 - Peoples Baptist Church

I wanted to do a triptych of this large church, but only got two images that looked compatible to me - so here's a diptych instead. Corrected lens distortion, cropped and levels adjustments in Photoshop.





Here's the third image I couldn't make fit - the color was too off, and it looked too out of place next to the others.

Day 21 - St. James the Apostle Catholic Church

Night is a great time I'm finding to shoot these really large, busy churches. This is another by-hand HDR with just two exposures. Since the name is in large letters on the front of the church, I thought it would be redundant to put the name in the frame. So here's St. James Catholic - our one and only Catholic church that I know of in Henry County. :)

Day 20 - Jodeco Baptist Church

Whew - just made it! I crashed today - slept nearly all afternoon. It was dark when I got up, and I was soooo tempted to pull the plug. But I didn't! (I'm giving myself a huge pat on the back here, lol!) So here's another night shot I didn't think would turn out at all. But I really like it now. This is Jodeco Baptist Church. It's a big modern building that really shines at night. Jodeco Methodist from day 2 is less than 1/4 mile up the road.

At the end of this challenge, I'll have to plot these on a Google Map so you guys can see just how close all these churches are. I don't think any of them are more than 10 miles away from each other.



And here's one I got ready just to have something to post. I shot it the same day I did my first night shot and the lobby of my church. It's my son, sitting on one of the sofas at our church trying to hide from the camera. We had just colored his hair bright red. He looks really cool, but you can barely tell because he refuses to be photographed. :P

Day 19 - Community Bible Church

Sunset shot, with a little gaussian blur set to multiply and then masked to show mostly the left side and edges. Sky was enhanced a little with some overlay color just to keep it from looking too washed out.

CBC is the church I grew up in for both church and school, although not at this building. I'd say it classifies as a mega church - this shot doesn't even include the education building, youth building, gym, chapel, atrium, school and sports fields. They even have a coffee shop in the lobby.



To answer Buff's question from yesterday's pic, I have only shot Christian places of worship not out of any prejudice but because there are no other religions prominently represented in my immediate area. It's different in the city (Atlanta) where ecumenical ideals are much more accepted and practiced.

Day 18 - Shiloh Baptist Church

This is the new sanctuary for Shiloh Baptist Church. The older chapel sits to the right of this building and is still used. It's a very large church that sits directly across the street from two very large churches in the downtown McDonough area. In fact, one of the churches across the street was the gothic style Baptist church from day 11. I've been inside this sanctuary twice for town hall meetings with our state representative. Very pretty and huge!

Day 17 - Pinecrest Baptist Church

This is my by-hand attempt at HDR with a combination of masking three different exposures and then applying a highlight/shadow adjustment on the flattened result. Noise reduction and some sharpening with Neat Image. No color adjustments, though - the sun was blood red behind the roofline. I love how it came out!

(And yes, this is another mega church. It's as big as the 16-plex theater it sits next to. :) )

Day 16 - Southside Christian Fellowship

Yay - the bug is gone, aside from a little tummy rumbling. Still, Wednesday night isn't the best night for a mega church shot. I waited around until almost 10pm and the two I wanted to try for still had tons of people coming and going. So this little (well, medium sized) church was empty and had lots of pretty lights surrounding it.



Thanks for the well wishes and allowing me to stray slightly from the theme yesterday! I am planning to do something with this collection - either with each individual church or a community organization like the chamber. I can't afford to print them right away but I will be doing something to share them. Thanks for all the great and encouraging comments in that regard! :)

Day 15 - Lutheran Hymnbooks

I'm breaking the mold a little today... count this as my day 31 bonus if I wind up making the rest of the month. A pukey stomach virus has me incapacitated today, and there's no way I can drive to a church tonight.

But I tried to stay with the theme somewhat. These are Lutheran hymnals that belonged to my grandmother. Not fancy - I used my Olympus 550UZ for convenience and speed. But they're precious keepsakes. :)

Day 14 - Eagle's Landing First Baptist Church

(and Eagle's Landing Christian Academy, a.k.a. ELCA)

I had to pano this one, or all you'd see is a thin horizontal line in between sky and pavement. I was standing about 100 feet from the front doors of the building and stitched 7 shots together to get this image. After stitching, I put a curves adjustment on the pavement to make it darker (I like asphalt to be black).

If you click on this image, it links to a version that is 1000px wide. If you click on the thumbnail below it, you get the 4700px+ wide version!

Day 13 - His Freedom Reigns Christian Church

Well, rain all day provided the prime opportunity for a night shot since it didn't stop 'til late afternoon. This imposing brick church sits on one of the corners of the McDonough town square, just north of the gothic style Baptist church from day 11. The court house sits just to the right of this building, across the street. You can see the side and part of its clock tower in this straight out of the camera bonus.

Aside from a little levels adjustment to increase contrast, the only other change was a desaturation leaving a tiny bit of color (a trick I picked up in Popular Photography once - leave a slight bit of color in a B&W conversion for a subtle wow factor).

Day 12 - Timberridge Presbyterian Church

I wanted to get a night shot tonight, but I settled for dusk instead. I was really tired and wanted to get home. It stays light here until about 9:30pm. I'll try another nighttime shot later in the week when I'll be out that late on purpose. :)

This church is out in the country/rural part of my county, surrounded by forest on one side and miles of cow pastures on the others. Pretty big for a country church, huh? I'll start the mega churches on Monday. I know several of them would be good for nighttime just because there's always dozens of cars in the parking lot no matter the day or time of day.

Day 11 - First Baptist McDonough

We don't have as many old churches as some areas, especially not Europe. But this gothic-style church is located in the oldest part of town, so this is as historic as it gets. I love the arches on the walkway (I'm sure there's a proper name for that part of the church... cloisters?) and the roofline that looks like a castle turret (?).

Day 10 - Mt. Carmel UMC & BONUS!

Night shot of Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church. The billboard out front said "Seasons Change. God Doesn't." :)



I was at my church tonight (Trinity Family Worship Center) when it was raining and I feared I wouldn't be able to get an exterior, so I shot this picture of the lobby interior. After the program, the rain had stopped so I did a night shot of a church down the road and saved this for a bonus. :)

Day 9 - Eagle's Landing Church of God

This view is deceiving. Eagle's Landing Church of God is a huge church. This is just the main entrance to the large sanctuary. See? :)

Day 8 - Stockbridge First UMC

A semi-mega church, this modern building recently replaced the much older chapel that sat on the same spot. Stockbridge First UMC is directly across from Stockbridge Presbyterian which was featured on day 1.

I should have done this all along, but starting today I'll make my smaller pictures here link to a larger file. Hope you enjoy!

Day 7 - Stockbridge First Baptist Church

This is a vertical panorama of 5 different photos. I couldn't get far enough away to get the whole church in the shot because of a 5-lane busy road, power lines, street signs, etc. So I took 5 or 6 hand held shots and manually stitched them together. It wasn't that difficult - wasn't my first time doing this. But it took a while. Sorry I'm so late today!

Day 6 - Central Baptist Church

It rained all afternoon. Luckily the sun came out just as it was going down. This little church had the cutest mailbox shaped like a church. In order to get the big church in the shot I had to shoot from the back of the mailbox.

Day 5 - Open Door Chapel

This little chapel is tucked away under a thick, dense bunch of pine trees. I've driven by it hundreds of times but never stopped to look closely til now. It looks like the perfect spot for a wedding. :)

Day 4 - BONUS! Noah's Ark Baptist Church

This little church is on Noah's Ark Road, so it's not just coincidence that the church has a doubly Biblical name. It's been there nearly a century and is still going strong.

I wanted to experiment in post-processing to make the photo look aged. Let me know what you think. :)

Here's the original if you want to compare.

And here's an alternate version without the extreme DOF. Some of you mentioned it looked like a toy with the extreme focus. Thanks for all the feedback!

Day 4 - Flippen UMC

Happy 4th of July! This little country church actually has a larger newer sanctuary behind it. I like the symmetry and traditional face of the older chapel.



And here's a bonus shot with a patriotic frame since it's American Independence Day!

Day 3 - Eagle's Landing Christian Church

This is a brand new church less than half a mile from my house... thus the field of red Georgia clay in the foreground which I tried to minimize. The sun was almost gone behind the trees to the left, casting a pretty yellow glow on the trees on the right.

Day 2 - Jodeco UMC

This is just one of the 12 or so churches on this 5-mile long road. Jodeco is a made-up word, even though it sounds native American. The developer of this area took the first two letters from the words "Jonesboro Development Company" and named the road "Jodeco Road".

Day 1 - Stockbridge Presbyterian

July will be the T-H-I-R-T-Y days of churches in/near my hometown.