Work in progress portfolio - reflections ethics, framing, timing and composition

I love photographing architecture because it is a huge part of travel photography. However, religious buildings have their own specifics and you need to photograph some concrete details that distinguish them from one another. What is more, these have to be recognizeable. 

The first challenge was framing and I had to choose between two approaches - one was to concentrate on details and show only that while the other was to show the whole building. I love photographing  architectural details but I decided that this approach will not be very effective when it comes to Orthodox churches since they are very similar in terms of style. The Orthodox tradition was established more than 1000 years ago and hasn't changed much since so choosing to shoot details only would have led to having very similar images that themselves cannot say much. 

Here is an example - this is a mural at the door of the church of my neighbourhood, dedicated to Saint  Prophet Elijah:

Overall, it is a good image showing an old mural BUT on the other hand, it tells nothing of the architecture of the place, especially to a non-specialist in medieval murals. 

Another vote against the 'detail' approach was the fact that photography is forbidden in almost all places of worship - Bulgarian Orthodox churches leading the way. Even if it is possible to pay and take a few pictures, I consider it unethical in some way since it is a place of worship and prayer, not a commercial museum and it should be treated with respect. Things get even more complicated with places such as mosques and cathedrals since I am not very well versed in the rules of worship and I prefer not to offend someone because of ignorance. No one would tell me off - places of worship are open to all - but it simply does not seem right to me. 

For this reason, I decided to concentrate on the overall view of the places I photograph. I've always been better at photographing the general view, the 'big' picture. Throughout the module I figured out that I prefer to tell the story behind the place I am photographing and to do this I needed to photograph the church AND its surroundings. 

I was advised to try tighter crop and use the square format and I did try it out but it didn't seem to work for me, or at least it doesn't work for all places: 

In the case of these two images it seems to create the desired impact but things look quite differently when it comes to more elongated shapes, such as the churches I saw in Romania: 

Shapes such as these will look too tight in square crop. Besides, I noticed that I am so used to shooting in rectangle format, that most images look well-composed only in this way. Re-framing them in square format cuts out some of the story of the place and makes the images too cluttered - since the whole surroundings are just as important as the place of worship. 

Timing proved to be an issue since some places look better at dusk whereas some are better-looking at daytime. So I decided to use the time that makes the place the most enticing or tells its story better.