The Artful Engineer

Two years ago, when we were driving to the Paint Mines Interpretive Park (the subject of this post) we passed a surprising sight: an onion-domed orthodox church. I didn’t stop to take pictures that day, but it went on my list of places to return to. This spring I finally did. The small church is St. Mary’s Dormition Orthodox Church, and poking around online will reveal a little of its interesting history.

The image above gives a sense of what I felt when I first saw it: the blue domes are a striking contrast with the surrounding expanse of grassland. I broke out the tilt-shift lens for this frontal view up the church steps:

On the Great Plains, there is always a big sky near at hand:

Changing to tighter views that concentrated on the most interesting features of the church—the domes—resulted in stronger compositions, I think:

Zooming in very tight on one of the domes, I was puzzled as to why the domes were so dimpled until I realized that this was almost certainly the result of hail. A little research online indicates that this area has been battered at least twice by tennis-ball sized hail over just the last two decades, and the church is quite a bit older than that. That size hail is more than enough to dent sheet metal (and punch holes through car windows, for that matter). The glare here helps emphasize the texture:

When I eventually started for home via a different route, I passed this cluster of three derelict buildings with Pike’s Peak in the distance. I was trying to balance having the mountain in the background with a perspective that allowed a clear view through windows on the near and far walls. The result was a compromise, but not a poor one. A different view is featured on this week’s home page. (The image will rotate out after a week, but can be permanently found here if you missed it.)

I’m not totally happy with the results of this outing and would like to return to this small but striking church. I especially want to visit after a winter snow, but summer thunderstorms would also add some nice drama (and probably light) that these images lack.

Thanks for visiting!