St. Peter's Cathedral Saltzburg.

[John 2]

I seem to be photographing a lot of Church interiors this year. Don't know why. St Peters intrigued me. It was an abbey and so the Cathedral precinct is substantial, housing a fascinating museum spread through several buildings - no photos allowed presumably because of the value of some of the exhibits (£/$Millions). The Cathedral itself is not the most attractive I've seen but fascinatingly, has no less than five organs - the most of any cathedral world wide apparently. I have been unable to determine why. I have come across Cathedrals that have organ pipes distributes throughout the Knave and Transept areas (e.g. Westminster Cathedral) but they are generally linked to one consul. In St Peters, each organ is quite separate. The Main Organ Loft was over the entrance and included an orchestra pit. The other four organs, self evidently known as Swallows Nest Organs (see below) were place in diametrically opposed positions around the Nave/Transept intersection. You can just see two of them on either side of the alter windows in the first image. The other two faced them on the opposite corners nearest the camera.

It was a rainy, rainy day outside and the light was awful. These images were shot at ISO 4000 so you might see the odd bit of noise here and there.

All Fuji XT-1 +18-55mm zoom

1 The Nave.


2. The High Alter


3. The Copula above the nave/transept intersection. Two merged images. 18mm wasn't wide enough to capture the whole area.


4 The Principle Organ Loft.


5. One of the Swallows Nest Organs.

[Shadowman]

Cathedrals are my usual subjects when on a guided tour, I tend to stay outside when the trip is of my own choosing. Haven't taken a guided tour in about eight years so very few cathedral interiors for me lately. Was this visit a guided tour or were you experimenting and looking for a particular lighting?

Nice captures.

[Wavelength]

Excellent set of images with majestic outlook; really well done

[Manfred M]

Beautiful images, John.

It must have been a slow day as you seem to have been able to avoid getting any people into the first two shots.

[bnnrcn]

Great set of images John

[SamRothstein]

Beautiful. I love old cathedrals like this, and would love tour this one someday. Thanks to your great photos, this place is on my list.

[Ziggy]

Very well done, enjoyed viewing.

[John 2]

John, no we were just wandering under our own steam. Guided tours tend to be a bit restrictive. The lighting was what it was in that a very grey day outside made it particularly dark. You'll note that none of the internal lights are on. I exposed for the windows so they wouldn't burn out and then raised the shadows in PP. Thank goodness for RAW.

Thanks Manfred. I think the combination of rain and the start of the Christmas Markets that day had most people otherwise occupied. The building wasn't empty by any means but I was able to choose my time.

Thanks Nandakumar, Binnur, Sam and Jim for commenting. Well worth a visit Sam.

[IzzieK]

John...all beautiful areas you have shot here...the processing is great but in #2 bothers me a bit because those two squares (?) on the floor looks like it is standing (?) especially the first one looks like it is a support to the structure of the main subject.

[dem]

Excellent work, John. I really like the straight verticals in #1 and #5. Great composition and fantastic rendering from raw.

IMHO, this series is quite educational and it demonstrates the importance of planning your shots and getting things right at both shooting and postprocessing stages.

Thank you for sharing.

[Mike Buckley]

Very rich, warm tones though not appearing at all unnatural.

Thanks for the explanation of the organs. It's not unusual for a large cathedral with several chapels to have one main organ and some smaller organs in some of the chapels. Even so, I have never given any thought to how many organs any particular cathedral has.

[John 2]

Thanks Izzie. It's just the effect of the WA distortion. I should have corrected it.

Thanks Dem. I agree but it took me years before I learned the value of stopping and "reading" a scene before pressing the shutter button. Still don't always remember even in shots like these where there is no time pressure.

Mike, you got me thinking (as always). I've come to the conclusion that the warmth you describe is probably down to the metering method. I rarely stray from Auto White Balance and so metering for the windows to avoid blowing out the highlights by recomposing on a half press of the Shutter Button, probably has the white balance erring that way and consequently warms up the interior. Altering the exposure compensation instead might avoid that I guess. Not sure - anybody any thoughts .