Chapel of the Holy Cross

Author's Comments

The chapel is a difficult photograph and I think that is part of why I keep returning to it. The building wants to be seen straight on, the way the architect drew it, but the road approaches at an angle and the parking lot puts you too close. The honest frame is from below, on Chapel Road, walking up. From there the cross rises out of the rock as if the rock decided it. That is the picture. Morning is the only hour I have made it work. The chapel faces roughly southwest, which means in the first hours after sunrise the red walls behind it are lit warm and full while the facade itself sits in cooler, indirect light. The contrast is what carries the image. Later in the day the sun comes around and flattens everything, and by afternoon the whole scene is bright in the wrong way - even, harsh, without the dimensionality that makes the architecture read against the stone. Winter mornings are my favorite. The light comes in lower and more raking, the air is clear in a way that summer rarely allows, and the crowds are genuinely thinner before nine. Spring is a close second. Bring something in the range of 35 to 50 millimeters for the wide frame from the road. A longer lens earns its place too, for the detail shots - the cross meeting the rock, the small windows, the way the concrete edge cuts against the sandstone behind it. The parking lot will be full by mid-morning every day of the year. Park below, walk up, take your time on the approach. The walk is the photograph.

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