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Cellpic Sunday – Saint Patrick’s Cathedral

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

New York, New York.

Before departing from New York City on a cruise to Canadian ports, we spent a couple of days as tourists in New York. A short walk from Times Square we strolled down Fifth Avenue. Our timing was perfect to see that the Sunday service had just concluded and parishioners were heading out of the beautiful Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. If you look closely at the steps of the cathedral, you’ll notice a figure of a larger-than-life girl. In a future post, I’ll tell you the story of Little Amal and the nine-year-old Syrian girl she represents.

According to Wikipedia, St. Patrick’s Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in Midtown Manhattan. It is the seat of the Archbishop of New York as well as a parish church. The cathedral occupies a city block bounded by Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, 50th Street, and 51st Street, directly across from Rockefeller Center. Designed by James Renwick Jr., it is the largest Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral in North America. The cornerstone of St. Patrick’s Cathedral was laid in 1858 and the cathedral was consecrated in 1879. We wanted to visit the inside of this beautiful and historic symbol of New York City’s Catholic heritage, but with the large crowd and Little Amal, we decided to wait for another time for our visit.

About the photo: How do you capture an iconic symbol in a photograph and not make it look like every other tourist photo you’ve ever seen? In similar situations, I’ve opted for panoramic photographs stitched together and looking straight on to be sure to capture the true height of those beautiful spires. This time, I tried a single vertical composition but I purposely tilted my Samsung S20U to be sure I captured the entire facade. I included the skyscraper in the background to emphasize the difference between this historic church and modern New York City. This image went from Lightroom Classic to DxO’s Silver Efex 2 for conversion to black-and-white. Click on the image to view it in 2K HD on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

61 comments

  18. beautiful capture of the cathedral John. what’s great about these places is that the interior is just as grand as the exterior. an architectural marvel.

    so it’s awesome that you give it such care when you photograph it!

    – Archer

    Reply

  27. I would love to see the church’s beautiful architecture or attend a daily mass to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city. Thanks for sharing, and have a good day 🙂 Aiva xx

    Reply

  32. That’s extremely hard to capture, even at that angle. Were you lying on the ground? How far away did you have to stand? It’s a great shot. I have a few shots like that in Melbourne, but I think something had to go, the bottom or the spirals.

    Reply

    • I was on the other side of a wide street, maybe four or six lanes, I don’t remember now. In any case, I was far enough away to be fully upright. The S23 has a 0.6 zoom mode for an extra wide shot. I used that mode for this image and it worked well to get the entire facade.

      Reply

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