In the very last SWPP monthly image competition of the year November 2011 I finally struck GOLD with this  image I shot of the inside of the Vatican in Rome. Like most images there is a bit of a story behind this one……..

GOLD - FINE ART CATEGORY - SWPP MONTHLY IMAGE COMPETITION

I had been in Rome with my wife for her mothers 70th Birthday and as I have never ever been to Rome before we certainly wanted to do the main sights and hot on my list was to see the Vatican. Unfortunately when we went there it was not letting any tourists in so I was slightly downhearted that I wouldn’t get to see inside. However when we were wandering past later a small crowd had gathered outside near the door and they were letting a handfull of tourists in so my wife and I joined the queue and were lucky enough to gain admission, Once we were inside we realised something rather special was due to be happening a new cardinal was to be ordained. I was struck by not only the beauty of what the interior has but also the 3 shafts of light that were coming through the windows surrounding the main dome. I had left my Canon 5D MK2 pro camera back at the hotel but did have my Panasonic GF1 Lumix camera with the 20mm f1.7 lens and keeping the ISO quite low I managed to brace the camera on a pew for a fairly long exposure to capture as much of the shadow detail as possible. Once I got back I realised the images looked great but I wanted to draw out every bit of interior detail I could so I combined 3 exposures to produce a monochrome HDR image using NIK filters in post production. I have had this image Giclee printed on fine art paper and plan to offer a limited edition run of 11×14 mounted prints of the fine art  image. The GOLD Awards are very few and far between so I was very pleased to be awarded one by the International team of judges.

I also scored five Bronze Awards this month with the following Wedding and Non-Wedding Images

BRONZE - WEDDING PHOTOJOURNALISM

BRONZE - MONOCHROME

BRONZE - FASHION

BRONZE - TRAVEL

BRONZE - WILDLIFE

For more of my award winning wedding photography images please visit my main website here