Any photo hit-list for Montreal is incomplete without the lavishly decorated Notre Dame Basilica. Still a fully functioning Catholic cathedral, I have one important piece of advice for successfully photographing the gorgeous interior of this place: DON”T GO DURING SUNDAY MORNING MASS! Lori, our friend Natalie, and I thought it was our lucky day when there was no attendant at the entrance counter. As I tromped in, I recall exclaiming something enthusiastic like, “Boardwalk and Park Place guys! This usually costs like 5 buc- Wow, wait. I think they’re praying.” As silently as possible, the two ladies helped me collect my shattered dignity from the beautifully tiled floor, and we regrouped at a nearby cafe.
Since I obviously did not take pictures during the service, we returned once mass had ended, paid our $5 and shot until early afternoon. Aside from the multifaceted main sanctuary, there’s also a little known private chapel with some stellar spiral staircases in the back right corner which was equally delightful to photograph.
Post-Processing
- 9 bracketed NEF files imported to Adobe Lightroom 3 and converted to DNG
- Lens corrections and manual chromatic abberation correction in LR3
- Tone Mapped in Photomatix 4
- Tone mapped image blended with original source images
- Edited and polished in Photoshop CS5
- Final HDR photo re-imported to LR3 for sharpening and adding a slight vignette (once I move to PS, I usually stay there… I’m not sure what my logic was for re-importing to Lightroom… but that’s how it went down)
HDR Before/After
(Slide the slider to compare the before/after shots. Best viewed in Firefox. The “Before” photo is the middle exposure from the bracketed source images used in tone mapping.)
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oh wow..these photos send me chills! amazing capture! Thanks for the great tips on HDR. Have yet to jump into that territory.
Nice shot, Andrew. I like the interplay of the gold and blue colours. Also, like that you’ve left in some people for scale, instead of ‘shopping them all out
I took a number of shots there, but went on a Wednesday (which also serves mass), but it was empty. Beautiful spot, and a great shot!
Funny story. I mess up like that all the time. Lovely final product. I LOVE that slider… where did you find that???? Really cool stuff. Nice post buddy.
Great story and lovely image Andrew. I love the details and color.
Wonderful detail, Andrew. I have learned to check the times of the services in all churches I visit having done the same thing as you but in the National Cathedral in Washington DC.
lmao, that’s funny man. But hey, you got the shot you came for right? Looks awesome too!
Beautifully composed and wonderfully processed Andrew. You were lucky to have the run of the place even if it wasn’t during services ;-0
Sorry for the second message. Not sure why that happened
Beautifully composed and wonderfully processed Andrew. You are lucky to have the run of the place unless its during Mass
What a stunning Cathedral. The lead-in down the aisle works well – in fact it’s nice, for a change, to see an architectural shot that isn’t symmetrical. The blues are electric. Tremendous example of HDR. My son (a graphic designer) arrived in Montreal this morning for a month’s work – I’ll be telling him to go and take a look at this.
Stunningly beautiful Andrew! Really nice detail and color. I like the POV as well, shooting this off-center removes the staged scene look.
That is one stunning photo of the cathedral!
On another note, I can relate to your experience of coming inside the church while Mass is being celebrated.
It’s embarrassing right!? Unless you mean that you went on purpose… that’s not so bad I suppose.
Thanks for stopping by Elisha!
~Andrew