Gothic

St.Patrick's Cathedral, New York City

"I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor." John McGahern

Before I set foot for the first time in New York City I believed everyone who said that the USA doesn't have beautiful churches. Today, I pity everyone who says so as they are clearly wrong.

New York City has two of grandest cathedrals, St.Patrick's and St.John the Divine Cathedral. While I have never seen the St.John Cathedral, I have been to the St.Patrick's Cathedral several times and everytime I go in there it always feels like it's my first time.

My best experience was last year during Christmas time. We went in there in the evening and there was choir practice. The sound coming from the organ was so beautiful and haunting that I couldn't move. It was a total Gothic experience. Yeah I know this is Neo-Gothic but it's so well made that it's hard to believe that it wasn't build by the real Gothic masters.

iPhone photography is kind of difficult here as it's somewhat dark but with a little patience and using the praying benches as tripods I managed to get some good photographs during the last few years.

This black and white photograph was captured on my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app. Some minor editing was done in PS CS4. Settings for Hipstamatic were BlacKeys B&W/Lucifer IV