ST. STANISLAUS ROMAN CATHOLIC ORATORY

St. Stanislaus Catholic Church is located just to the west of the north-south freeway on Milwaukee's south side.  It is notable for its twin clock towers.  Unlike some churches, St. Stanislaus is not generally open to the public except during services.  I last visited the church two years ago and visited it again during this year's Doors Open Milwaukee event.  The church appears larger from the exterior than it does from the interior.  But the interior is stunning and appears to be in impeccable condition.

Here first are a couple of shots of the exterior.

These were taken in the later afternoon on a sunny day.  Unfortunately, the church faces east, so the light was not good and the exterior does not show as well as it would when the sun is in the east.  In any event, the most impressive aspects of this church are on the inside.

Speaking of which, here first is a shot from the rear of the nave.

I took this shot with my wide angle lens, which wound up including the overhang from the balcony.

Here's another shot taken as I approached the sanctuary.

The ceiling is very ornate.  I tried to get a shot of the ceiling from directly underneath, using my wide-angle lens and with the camera resting on the floor pointed up.

I was a little disappointed because, despite the lens being nearly wide open at only 16 mm, the shot didn't include that much of the ceiling, I think because the ceiling just isn't that high.

A focal point of the sanctuary is the crucifix structure and the apse ceiling behind it.  Here are some shots of those features.

This last is of a lovely mural at the base of the apse ceiling.

Here is a shot of the complex altar piece in the sanctuary.

The pieces on either side of the sanctuary are nice as well.  Here is the one on the right side.

One of the techniques I would up using was HDR, high dynamic range.  I hadn't planned to do this, but I wound up taking three very similar photos looking across the nave at some of the stained glass.  The three shots differed in their exposure, and I decided to combine them in post processing.  Even though the shots were not exactly identical in terms of the position of the camera, the software did a good job of merging the three files, and this is what I got.

Kind of a nothing shot, but it has gotten me thinking of using the technique more going forward.

Here is a shot looking back toward the rear of the nave.

The traditional rose window at the rear of the balcony was very nice.  In a second shot I was able to expose for the glass and black out the surrounding walls.

Some of the church's stained glass windows are different from the ones I saw two years ago, and they are quite an improvement,  They are long and narrow and I decided that it would be better to focus on individual components.

Although St. Stanislaus isn't as well known as, say, the St. Josaphat's or Holy Hill basilicas, it is a gem not to be missed.

John

DOORS OPEN MILWAUKEE 2018: CHURCHES

At this year's Doors Open Milwaukee event, I visited three churches on Milwaukee's lower east side, First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, and St. Paul Episcopal Church.  All three venues were constructed in the last quarter of the 19th century, all are within three blocks of each other, and all are classic architecturally.  But none are, in my view, particularly outstanding.  Here are some of the photos that I got.

First Unitarian Society.

The Unitarian church was the smallest and had the most rustic interior.

Probably the best feature of this church was the large stained glass window above the balcony at the rear of the nave.

Immanuel Presbyterian Church.

Interestingly, this church's organ was at the front of the church.  While I was taking pictures, I was fortunate to hear a recital by the church's organist, including an emotional rendition of J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (emotional for me at least).

The church also featured an excellent collection of stained glass windows.

This last igroup was at the landing of the stairs leading to the balcony.  A fine collection.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

I didn't really care for the dark brown stone used to face St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

The interior was more attractive, but, perhaps because I am a bit jaded, I thought it was OK but not great.

The church's best features, and the ones the docents properly touted, were the stained glass windows, including a number created by Tiffany.

Photographing stained glass windows can be tricky because of the vast difference in brightness between the window and the interior walls.  Either you have to overexpose the window or underexpose the walls.  In this last photo of the rose window, I exposed for the glass, and then darkened the "non-window" areas in post processing.  In fact, post processing helps a great deal in this process.

I visited a fourth church during the Doors Open Milwaukee, St. Stanislaus, on the city's south side.  It was by far the most interesting of the religious venues, and I chose to provide it with its own post, which follows this one.

John

NORTH POINT WATER TOWER

The North Point Water Tower is located on the bluff above Lake Michigan on Milwaukee's East Side.  This year it was included in the Doors Open Milwaukee event.  The tower was built in 1871 and remains been a Milwaukee landmark.  It of course no longer serves as a functioning water tower, but it is architecturally distinct and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Here first is a view of the tower's exterior.

The tower is 175 feet tall.

Here is another shot of the tower looking up from just outside the entrance.

This shot is a bit silly, as it provides little in the way of perspective.

During the Doors Open event, the door to the tower was literally open and visitors could squeeze inside to view the tower's standpipe and spiral staircase.  The light inside the tower was surprisingly good, and I took the following shots primarily in an attempt to capture the staircase (which visitors were not allowed to climb for obvious reasons).

I tried these shots as black & whites but in the end decided that they were more interesting in color.

John

DOORS OPEN MKE: BLACK CAT ALLEY

Another venue in this year's Doors Open Milwaukee event was Black Cat Alley, an alley running between Prospect and Farwell Avenues on Milwaukee's East Side in the block behind the Oriental Theatre.  Two or three years ago the alley was designated as a graffiti zone and various artists have been invited to "decorate" the alley.  I have visited the alley a couple of times previously and paid another visit right after my disappointing visit to the Oriental Theatre as part of the Doors Open event.  Here, without further comment, are the graffitis that caught my eye and that I shot and kept.

I remain impressed by the abilities of graffiti artists, who often express themselves in anonymity and in spaces that very few of the public ever see.  So it is gratifying to see that this particular venue has been created to provide more public exposure for these artists.

John

ORIENTAL THEATRE

Each September Milwaukee holds a weekend event, known as Doors Open Milwaukee, inviting interested persons to visit various venues throughout the metro area, many of which are not generally open to the public or not open just for curious visitors.  For the past several years, whenever I have been in town during the event I have visited a number of the venues with my camera.

This year one of the venues was the Oriental Theatre.  Built in the 1920s, the venue was opened as a "movie palace" with East Indian decor.  Like most older movie houses, it was built to accommodate perhaps 1500 patrons, including both main floor and a balcony.  More recently, in an effort to keep up with modern multiplex cinema venues, the theater was divided into three auditoriums so that multiple movies could be shown at the same time.

A couple of years ago, I had talked with personnel at the theater about photographing the facility's interior and had been told that that was not feasible.  So I was excited to learn that the Oriental was going to be part of this fall's Doors Open event.  The description for the venue included the fact that the theater's lights would be on so that visitors could see what the decor looked like.  That is not what happened.

The lobby area was lit as it normally is during showtimes, which is to say a typical interior space--dim.  I did get a few shots of the East Indian motif, including elephants and lions.

Not terrible; not great.

The main auditorium was another story.  The lighting was, as far as I could tell, at the same level as during a movie, in other words, extremely dark.

I took this shot from the balcony.  I had to shoot it at a high ISO and a long exposure, specifically, three seconds.  Hand held.  To give an idea, I did not know that the color of the area above the stage was in the red end of the spectrum until I reviewed the actual shot.

John