The Story
November 2009. My wife was now a little more than a month away from the scheduled date for the birth of our daughter. Her mother's birthday was a few days before this day so we went to Marinha Grande in the weekend for her to be with them.
It was a rainy day and I had been googling for some interesting places nearby for some photo trip. I identified two places: Batalha and Nazaré. We had lunch with her folks and then I drove to Batalha. The idea was to take some photos of the Monastery and then go to Nazaré.
When I arrived at Batalha, it was raining quite a bit. I waited a couple minutes in the car to see if it would stop, but it didn't. Tired of waiting, I picked up the gear and the umbrella and went for a look around. Maybe the rain would stop meanwhile... It didn't. I started with the Unfinished Chapels, where I took some photos and them started to go around the monument to search for another interesting spots. In the opposite side of the monastery, there is the entry to the church itself, so I went in.
This church is quite different from the usual churches: it has no statues, almost nothing to remind us that it is a church. The day was very dark because of the clouds and the inside of the church was lit only by chandeliers light which created a very interesting atmosphere. I started experimenting different perspectives and this one was the classic one: a symmetrical view of the main hall, with one chandelier on each side. I took some other photos in different perspectives in the, almost one hour that I've been there. I was fascinated with the lightning and the low light on the outside allowed me to capture the stained windows perfectly, without underexposing the inside of the church.
I was looking for some good church interior photos for some time now, but never got satisfied with the result... until this day.
Of course that Nazaré trip was canceled. When I left Batalha it was already nighttime.
Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
1/3 second
F/4.0
10 mm
800
Original Photo
Post Processing
This was my first choice from the dozens of photos I took that afternoon. At first I thought of converting it to Black & White, but quickly gave up that idea. The colored stained windows deserved to be left untouched.
So I imported the NEF file into Lightroom and done minor adjustments: corrected the White Balance, slightly increased the Blacks, boosted the Clarity to 50%, increased the Vibrance, reduced the Saturation and added some Sharpening.
In CS4, I've: reduced the Noise, adjusted the Levels ("Increased Contrast 1" preset), reduced the Saturation and adjusted the Midtone Levels in Color Balance.
That was it, just minor adjustments as you can check in the final image.
Final Photo
Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Mosteiro-da-Batalha-I-144401972
