Photo Credit: © Elliott Kaufman The lighting had to capture the ambience of this church restoration. That meant that it played a supporting role and had to remain very low key. Using a DSLR with a tilt-shift lens meant the perspective did not have to be corrected in post.

Often, as architectural photographers, we photograph what's new. But every now and then we have the opportunity to record a restoration project. Hall Partnership Architects assigned me to document a two-year restoration project of St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church in New York City on assignment for their portfolio, Web site and promotional materials, as well as to create images they could submit to competitions.

When you step inside the nave, the subdued lighting immediately hits you. The stained glass windows were of little help, and the chandeliers added little beyond that. The only substantive lighting was directed at the altar and that would actually work against the shot if left as is. But all this is what contributed to the charm and atmosphere of this old structure and my lighting would have to support that. I used tungsten lighting exclusively so as to maintain a warm glow throughout, and I kept the lighting very soft so as not to create any harsh shadows: I needed to show all of the arches, the wall surfaces behind the arches, and selectively the dark wood ceilings that were about 75 feet high. In keeping with this, I also wanted all of the candles lit, which required asking church personnel for help. And to balance the blue light streaming in through the windows, all my lighting would be warmed up further with 1/4 CTO gels.

I'd worked with the architects in the past, so they trusted my judgment and simply directed me to the work they did and I personally made arrangements with the church. I did a tech-scout in advance, and arrived with my first assistant, Kara Hayden, fully prepared for this one-day shoot, which would involve both exteriors and interiors. All photography was done with a tripod-mounted Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II (tethered to a MacBook Pro), with the 24mm tilt-shift lens used for the interiors. I prefer working with this lens as opposed to correcting for perspective in post, as it gives me a truer sense of the proportions I'm dealing with.

This shot, in contrast to the majority of the shots produced on this job, focuses on the symmetry of the space. Shooting at midday in November, I was fortunate that it was heavily overcast outside. That meant that I wouldn't have to deal with blown-out windows. In fact, I would normally have had to shoot the windows separately and drop them in, but not here.

For my lighting, I worked from the back of the nave toward the altar. I knew that I needed to get highlights on the pews, because they were lost in a sea of darkness. Considering that I was shooting this as a symmetrical shot, the lighting had to be fairly symmetrical as well, which translated into adding lights on both sides of the outside aisles, each 6 or 7 feet up. All the lights were 600-watt Lowel Omnis, for which I have homemade dimmers (used where needed). The pews on the left nearest camera are tinged blue by a stronger light streaming through the stained glass on that side. All the Omnis are barndoored, with a diffuser inserted to keep the lights from going harsh. I added a second set of pew lights a few feet in front of the first two to fill in toward the front, and especially to illuminate the statues and columns.

There's another light on a floor stand, right below camera, shooting straight up. The Omni lets you flood or spot the light, so I narrowed the beam to a spot (again through a diffuser), and that gave me that whole upper region, from the cross under the arch to the beams in the ceiling. I hadn't even noticed the beams up there until I lit them.

As you recall, I'd mentioned the harsh altar lights. They were situated about 20 feet in the air, from left and right. That illumination was maybe 10 stops brighter than the rest of the lighting. So I had to bring someone in who could dim them down to about 10 percent of their original brightness.

Finally, the two small chapels at the front of the church were considerably darker than the nave and I felt a little detail was needed there. So I installed one light inside each chapel, bouncing the light into a corner. You'll also note a lighted space above left. That was the rector's office, with enough existing light that I didn't need to add anything. The exposure on this shot was f/11 at 5 seconds. This one picture took an hour and a half to set up and shoot.

Now we move to a different part of Manhattan, on assignment for the Armory on the Park Conservancy (for promotional materials, Web site, and fund raising). Shooting the Park Avenue Armory (also known as the Seventh Regiment Armory) was decidedly different in several respects. We shot this before any restoration work was done. And I had to recapture the place as it had originally been recorded a century ago, so I used a 4 x 5 camera (in my case a K.B. Canham DLC45) and chose a 90mm lens. That also meant I'd be shooting film, Fuji NPL, opting for color neg because of its increased latitude and forgiving nature in terms of color balance. I also had to figure out the original angles used in the old shots and even the tilt and shift of the lensboards. This way the client would be able to present both images side by side. The entire assignment covered 12 rooms and details, and spanned several weeks. This shot took a good 2 1/2 to 3 hours on a winter's morning. With me were first assistants James Ewing and Kara Hayden, and Lissa Frenkel, of the Conservancy.

Since the original shots were not lit in any way, lighting these spaces became the most challenging part of the job. These rooms all featured very dark wood paneling and very poor available light, with window lighting that would blow out any area it hit. The whole idea was to retain the muted colors and bring out as much detail as possible. My approach was to use a combination of strobe and tungsten lighting, the strobe simulating window lights and the tungsten focusing more on specific areas. No gels were used. With the paneling being very glossy, I also had to deal with harsh reflections and glaring highlights. In fact, there were one or two windows behind me that I boarded up to keep them from producing a glaring light.

This room was probably 40 feet long. At the far end is a set of doors, with a window on the left. We didn't need to diffuse the window light, since it was weak. And the light bulbs did nothing to light the space. In fact, I had to change those bulbs from clear to frosted. So what I tried to create was a feeling of daylight coming in from behind the camera. To begin, I had two Chimera softboxes on 11-foot stands flanking the camera left and right. These lights are starting to light the room, including the balcony. I also had a strobe umbrella on the left, throwing light towards the door but more towards the right side of the room underneath the balcony, filling in any part of the room that was missed by the softboxes. The Dynalite strobes were powered by 1000 w/s packs.

I added a Lowel Omni on a floor stand right in front of the camera, aimed straight up at the ceiling. And I also had an Omni underneath the balcony where you can't see it, in the corner, aimed into the fireplace and green wall above. That green wall was soaking up the light, so I added two more Omnis (flanking the softbox on the left), on C-stands. All the Omnis had diffusion and barndoors, with flags used selectively around these lights.

Then we move to the right. There is one strobe underneath and on the balcony, each bouncing into the corner off a white bed sheet (gaffer-taped to the wall), again to bring out the wood paneling and green wall on the left. On top of the balcony, I had a lot of barndoors and flags so as to avoid throwing odd shadows on the floor.

I left the existing lights on for just one second. Then I covered the lens for a quick moment to allow an assistant to turn off those lights, since the light switch was in the shot. Following that, I popped the strobes four times, also turning on the tungsten lights, which remained on for 12 seconds. After switching off the tungstens, I burned in the windows for the remainder of the exposure. In total, this was a 25-second exposure, at f/22.

Some interesting tidbits. You see those lockers and doors in the back? I opened some of those lockers to prevent glaring reflections. And the doors are slightly ajar because they mirrored me and the camera, not to mention the lights. Also, one of the things that I was struggling with is the electricity, which is archaic. Each room had its own breakers, and we were tripping those breakers with almost every pop of the strobes. So we had to wait until the breakers cooled down to reset them, and then proceeded with the next shot.

Elliott Kaufman, www.ekaufman.com, operates out of New York City, and specializes in architecture and interiors.

Tech Tools

Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II with a 24mm tilt-shift lens; K.B. Canham DLC45 with a 90mm lens Lights: Dynalite; Lowel Accessories: Gitzo tripods with Bogen heads; Chimera banks