Bulgarian Stockphotos

Posts Tagged ‘church’

Caption:

Rotunda of Saint George Church in Sofia

Description:

The Church of St George is an Early Christian red brick rotunda that is considered the oldest building in Sofia.

It is situated behind the Balkan Sheraton Hotel, amid remains of the ancient town of Serdica.

It was built as a Roman temple in the 4th century AD.

After being attacked by the Huns it was rebuilt by the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century.

It is now mainly famous for its exterior appearance and the 12th and 13th century frescoes inside the central dome.

These were painted over during the period of Ottoman Occupation when the church was used as a mosque.

The frescoes of 22 prophets have now been restored.

The cupola shows a 14th century portrait of Christ the Pantocrator, surrounded by four angels and symbols of the Evangelists.

If you want to use this photo of  the Saint George Church, go to Alamy.

Photo Comments:

In many ways this is a straightforward photo.

My main considerations were:

Choosing a time of day when the sun would bring out the texture of the ancient brickwork.

Shooting from a low angle to include the sky rather than the hotel as background, emphasising the curvature of the roof.

Not going so low as to distort the basic shape of the building.

I also wanted to include the cross.

For this type of shot overall sharpness is important.

To ensure this I used a good quality lens – Tamron 28-80 SP

I mounted my Canon camera on a tripod – Benro Traveller.

I used liveview to aid composition and careful manual focussing.

I set the camera to self timer mode to eliminate any vibration from pressing the shutter button.

I often use this procedure.

(It’s an alternative to even more careful techniques such as combining mirror lockup with a remote trigger which I would use for longer exposures.)

Caption:

Church Of The Assumption In Koprivshtitsa , Bulgaria

Description:

This beautiful church dates from 1817 with an iconostasis created by the wood carving artist Hasji Georgi in 1821.

There are many icons including some by Zahari Zograf, Joan Kableshkov and Father Ivancho.

Many famous citizens are buried in the graveyard.

Koprivshtitsa is one of the most picturesque town in Bulgaria.

If you want to use this photo of the Church of Assumption go to , go to Photographers Direct

Photo Comments:

This photo is a good example of the benefits of shooting in RAW.

The top of the church was in bright sunshine, the bottom in the shade.

Shooting in RAW gave me the extra detail and exposure range I needed to post process the photo later.

New Feature:

Every post on this site shows one of my Bulgarian Stock Photos with details and comments:

Still, I know some people like to view a few photos together.

So, I’ve introduced a slide show type portfolio of 50 stock photos of Bulgaria.

Now, I don’t like those slide shows where you have no choice so I’ve used the simpleviewer plugin which gives you thumbnails you can choose.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

This feature is under the heading Portfolio-50

Caption:

Church Of The Assumption In Koprivshtitsa, Bulgaria.

Description:

This beautiful church dates from 1817 with an iconostasis created by the wood carving artist Hasji Georgi in 1821 and many icons including some by Zahari Zograf, Joan Kableshkov and Father Ivancho.

Many famous citizens are buried in the graveyard.

Koprivshtitsa is one of the most picturesque towns in Bulgaria.

It has many colourful national revival buildings from the 19th. century.

It is about 100 miles from Sofia and straddles the river Topolnitsa.

It is famous historically as the place where the first shot was fired in the 1867 uprising against the Ottoman occupation.

Kalachev Most, (Shooters Bridge) commemorates this.

Since 1956 there has been a national festival of Bulgarian folklore which takes place every 5 years.

Koprivshtitsa is a centre for hiking and sightseeing in the Sredna Gora mountains.

Photo Notes:

As a photographer, Koprivshtitsa is one of my favourite locations. It has fine old buildings and is surrounded by beautiful countryside.

This photograph presented a particular challenge in that the top half of the church was bathed in bright sunlight and the bottom half in shadow.

Clearly this sort of range is difficult to capture without losing highlights or shadows.

By shooting in RAW I was able to capture enough detail to balance the tone later.

If you want to use this picture, click here for Alamy