Confluence - a photo on Flickriver

Confluence

York Minster, situated in North England, proudly claims to be one of the world's most magnificent cathedrals. I'd been planning to visit the location for over a year, but it wasn't until I was standing inside it, taking in the awesome spectacle of its nave, that I realised how true that claim is.

The site's history extends back almost 2,000 years, with the remains of Roman barracks uncovered in the 1960s and now on display in the Minster's undercroft. The current building is around 800 years old, and on its north side is the Chapter House, a circular space ringed with low stalls, soaring stained-glass windows and a 60ft-high ribbed-vault ceiling. The day-to-day running of the Minster once took place here, and it was praised as revolutionary for its time because it lacked any central pillar to support the ceiling. From a photography standpoint, this was must-see architecture, not least because the absence of a central pillar meant it would be possible to capture a look-up directly beneath the ceiling.

The image was captured shortly after the Minster opened in the morning, and is a blend of eight bracketed exposures that were later blended in Photoshop using luminosity masks. My aim was to bring out as much of the nuance as possible in both the Chapter House's stone pillars and in the wooden roof, so I shifted the midtones and shadows towards the brighter exposures. At the same time I wanted to preserve the detail within the windows, so the highlights were geared towards my darker exposures. I also wanted to emphasise a sense of depth and proportion across the ceiling, so a combination of the Pen Tool and radial gradient masks were used to blend in brighter exposures at the centre of the frame.

When colour-grading the image, it was important to me to try to put the focus on the location's symmetry and ornate decorated architecture. For this reason I opted for quite a muted palette. The bold reddish-yellow tones across the ceiling were toned down, with only a low-opacity Colour Lookup applied to the centre of the ceiling using the Soft Light blend mode and the Soft Warming preset. Small adjustments were made using Colour Balance, Hue/Saturation and Curves layers to add a hint of blue to the shadows and to play up some of the warmth from the interior lighting, particularly along the carvings at the lower-centre of the frame.

Using Nik's Silver Efex Pro on a layer set to the Luminosity blend mode, I gently increased the image's dynamic brightness and amplified the whites, as well as lowering the midtone and shadow structure along the stone columns, which had a lovely gritty texture but which I thought might distract from the glass windows and ceiling that were the key components of the image. Lastly, inside Colour Efex Pro, I used the Pro Contrast filter to selectively increase the intensity of light coming through the windows on the left side of the frame. This was to ensure a balanced finish, as the position of the sun early in the morning meant the windows on the right side were slightly brighter than on the left.

The final result hopefully conveys the location's beautifully geometric architecture, and perhaps also the admirable workmanship that went into planning and constructing such a sublime building and on such an enormous scale during the late 13th century.

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Taken on: April 19, 2017

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York

YorkMinster

Minster

Cathedral

ChapterHouse

Look-up

Symmetrical

Glass

Windows

Ceiling

Interior

History

Heritage

Religion

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Holy

Contemplation

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Camera: Nikon D800, f/7.1, 6 sec, 14mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D800
Lens:	14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture:	f/7.1
Exposure Time:	6
Focal Length:	14mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	+2 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.6.1 (Windows)
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