St. Vladimir Memorial Church

In my little town in New Jersey is a community of Russians who settled in the area in the thirties, and they built an Orthodox church since, according to their website, "the desire to have a Church in close proximity to one's dwelling has always been a historical trend among Russians." The cornerstone was laid in 1938 and construction began 1940, but the church was not fully completed until 1988.

Even though it was a grey and gloomy day, I took several shots but none of them, as untouched images, was very compelling in my view. So I did some post-processing with Silver Efex Pro to clip the shadows and blow out the highlights to give it a pinhole camera look, then applied some sepia toning to add some warmth and ended up much more satisfied with this image.

Houses of worship are very compelling to me because behind them are the stories of individual people united to build a house of faith. The play between darkness and light makes me think of how the forces of good and evil are at odds, and how the Church represents to mankind the safe haven one can find in God.