City Quay Church

 

CITY QUAY CHURCH, IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY 1/1/2025

Simple signs of the real Christmas, two row of lights and the bright cross, caught my eye as I strolled along the quays on New Years night with my camera. The true meaning for Christmas was there to be seen in the small old church amid the high rise buildings of the new commercial buildings on City Quay.

The simplicity of the church lighting caught my eye, a stark contrast to the vivid colours of the nearby Customs House and the Convention Centre both of which I had been taking photos of. I really wanted to capture a photo of the church but it was a challenge. It is tiny compared to the almost overbearing Grant Thornton building to it's left. High metal fencing and a locked gate also added to the challenge. I put on my wide angled lens to ensure I could capture the complete church building and had it at 14 mm. It was really difficult to get the camera on the tripod positioned so the metal gate was not in the shot or impacting the composition. I ended up with the lens supported by the circular metal work, it was a tight fit indeed and I think the tripod was actually suspended in the air a tad. I wanted the starburst effect with the lights so I used an aperture of f/16. I had ISO set to 100 to minimise noise and the shutter speed was 30 seconds.

A fair bit of processing was needed in both Lightroom and Photoshop to correct the too dark building versus too bright lights. I also had to use the 'transform' option in Lightroom to adjust the perspective and tilt of the building.

Photo (jpeg version) as taken from camera.