Cologne cathedral

COLOGNE CATHEDRAL in 8 pictures (jan 2015)

cologne cathedral (1248-1880)

The Cologne Dom is called the mother of gothic cathedrals. Outside and inside it is enormous indeed. Packed with detail every ornament is reaching to heaven and high as it is, it seems almost halfway there. 850 years ago the Dom showed its almost white yellowish stone, now turned black from modern city pollution. Imagine the city in the middle ages. Small dirty houses, freely flowing shit over the unpaved streets, in its centre the almost white brilliant shining cathedral. That must have been stunning. Right now, black as it is between clean houses and streets, the dark colored cathedral contributes to the atmosphere of medieval times.

Huge inside you could feel lost, but you don’t. The cathedrals enormous inner space feels warm, the cold-hard lined stone architecture feels soft, the far away high ceiling seems close, creating an atmosphere of togetherness for the people inside. Cologne posseses more gothic and romanic churches, like the close-by Great St. Martinchurch.

cologne cathedral interior

To translate this atmosphere in pictures, I used the Fuji XE2 with 35/1.4 and 18-55/2.8-4.0 lenses. ISO about 4000 in RAW, a bit underexposed. Processed in lightroom with negative saturation and claritycompensation. A bit sharpening, adding some grain and warm splittoning in the shadows was all that was needed.