Nightscapades
Active Member
The piece of land on which this church sits was donated by a local family in 1865, and a timber structure was then built for the district's worshippers, opening in 1866. The building was used as a school for 40 local children through the week and for worship services for up to 80 Christians on Sundays. That original timber building didn’t survive long in the cold and often damp conditions here near Crookwell, Australia. Plans for a new stone sanctuary were drawn up in 1882. According to what little information I could find online, the church still contains a Bible and a Prayer Book that were donated by the family who gave the land back in 1866.
Behind the church is a small cemetery, which was opened in 1878, with the dead able to be interred for the sum of 5 shillings! To the north of the cemetery is the catchment of the Pejar Dam, the water supply for the nearby city of Goulburn. Glowing red on the horizon at the right of the shot, and lighting up the clouds that had drifted in to ruin my night of photography are the aviation warning lights atop several wind turbines. I posted a photo recently showing one of those turbines flanked by the Pleiades star cluster and the constellation of Taurus.
With Milky Way season nearing its end for 2018, the rich band of dust, gas and stars that makes up the core of our galaxy is hanging low in the southwestern sky now, making an excellent feature to set the church against. I still find this feature of the heavens to be one of the most beautiful and engaging things I’ve seen in nature.
This is a stitched panoramic image, comprised of eleven single overlapping photos that I shot. I used my Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Samyang 14mm XP lens @ f/2.8, with a 25-second exposure @ ISO 6400 for each image.
