Candles

When I was in Vienna in 2019, I walked into a church. I am not religious, but I do like churches, the architecture, the stained glass windows, and what not. My wife and I were doing touristy stuff while waiting for our friend.

It was a beautiful church, and a busy one. After a while my attention was drawn to the candle shelf and the people around it. It was a peaceful scene.

It reminded me of the famous candlelit scene from Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. The story goes something like this. Carl Zeiss, to show off its lens making capabilities, made a super fast lens: 50mm f0.7. It made Leica’s 50mm Noctilux, well, cute. Zeiss only made three of copies of the lens. One of the three went to Mr. Kubrick. The lens was used to shoot the candlelit scene without any electronic lighting; it was entirely, well, candlelit.

So inspired by that, I shot a few photos with almost no light source other than the candles. Not being Kubrick or having a super fast lens, I had to work with my f2.8 lens, and I was kinda happy with the result. And here are the photos:

That’s all for today. Enjoy your weekend!