In some ways this photo is a continuation of an ongoing theme in my recent Photo of the Week instalments – photos shot during the Golden Hour and then tonemapped to bring out the best in them. However, unlike the previous examples, this shot was not taken in Ireland, but rather in my native Belgium.

Although I was baptised into the Catholic Church, we’ve parted ways in the almost 30 yeas that have elapsed since then. However, despite me turning my back on the church (not the ideals of Christianity, just institutionalised Christianity), I still love church Architecture. Churches are usually designed with great care, and are often the most beautiful buildings in a town. This is not just any church though, it’s one of the churches in my home village of Duffel in Belgium, it’s also the church myself and my brothers were baptised in (at least I think all three of us were baptised here). This is not the biggest church in Duffel, but, in my mind, it’s the one with the most character.

The full name of the church is Onze Lieve Vrouw van Goede Wil, but you almost never see it written like that, on paper or signs you’ll generally see it as O.-L.-Vr. van Goede Wil or O.-L.-Vrouw van Goede Wil. In English that roughly translates to Our loving Lady of good will, in other words, it’s a church dedicated to the virgin Mary. Today it’s a small church in a small parish in a small village in the Belgian countryside, but in the past it was a place of pilgrimage. A supposedly miraculous statue of the virgin mother was found in a Willow tree growing in a marshy field where the church now stands.

O.-L.-Vrouw van Goede Wil
on Flickr – Full-Size

  • Camera: Nikon D40
  • Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
  • Exposure: 1/640 sec
  • Focal Length: 32mm
  • Focal Ratio: f/4.5
  • ISO: 400
  • Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
  • Processing: Generated by tonemapping a single RAW file in Photomatix Pro and then selectively tweaking the exposure slightly using the Dodge & Burn plugin in Aperture.