After nearly three years, we have completed our California Missions project. We have now visited and photographed all twenty-one of them. The last one was actually just 30 minutes from our house in San Fernando. Look for a “meta” blog review about all of the missions in the next few weeks. Here is San Fernando Rey:
San Fernando Rey de Espana is in the middle of a residential area that built up around it. Once inside the gates, you enter a world until itself. There is a huge courtyard, a beautiful church, and one of the best museums we have seen. There is much more to see and experience than making a few photos.
Most of the “old” missions do not have a crucifix on the altar, but a statue of the patron saint.
The grounds are not huge, but they pack in a lot. Don’t miss the wine cellar and the library.
Tips Specific to San Fernando
Because we were there in harsh mid-day light, we had to “think” in black and white. We used our infrared cameras and converted the images to black and white. We also shot color and desaturated some of the images. This created a little bit of a gritty look (like bleach by pass) that I like with the old architecture. We like to process our photos using Nik’s Silver Efx Pro and Color Efx Pro.
You can probably spend a good 2-3 hours at this mission. Call ahead to see if there is a mass or wedding, etc. There happened to be a wedding this day that we had to work around it.
We are happy to complete our missions project, but are also planning to visit them all again during a different time of year and, especially the ones where we do not have a lot of good photos. There are many articles about the various missions on our blog. Here are the two main blogs about the CA missions – CA Missions I and CA Missions II. You can also search our blog for California Missions.
I plan to write a final “meta” blog about the best of the CA Missions in a few weeks.
To see more of our photographs (and buy them), please go to www.pamphotography.com
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