Beginning in early 2009, almost by chance, my interests in photography and religion found themselves converging at one fortuitous moment. While standing in the historic Unitarian Church on Archdale Street in Charleston, SC I realized that despite Charleston's abundance of beautiful, historic churches rarely did people actually experience them as a whole. I also discovered that few modern collective photographic representations of them could be found. It didn't take me long to realize that the explanation for this was because photographing the interior of a church is neither easy nor monetarily profitable.

With that problem in mind, a hope to solve it, and a desire to increase the visibility of the interiors of Charleston's historic churches and synagogues I decided to revisit the Unitarian church with my camera. Using a process called HDR, or high dynamic range photography, I discovered that the difficulty of photographing the vast differences in brightness and darkness encountered in a church could be molded into something more manageable and closer to the way the human eye sees.

From that point I began traveling to each church, photographing it, and posting the pictures on the web for everyone to view. Inspired by the experience, as well as the response the photos of each church received, I have continued to photograph other churches in and around the Charleston area, while also expanding the project throughout the south to places such as Asheville, NC, Savannah, GA, and Beaufort and Bluffton, SC. I also have plans to travel to St. Augustine, FL, Nashville, TN, and Wilmington, NC soon. As new church pictures are completed I will continue to post them for all to view with a goal of photographing America's historic and beautiful churches. Thank you for experiencing them with me.

(see my other work at StevenHyattPhotography.com)