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THE PYRAMIDAL TEMPLE







THE ENTRY: ...TO A EMPTY SHELL

I turn around to find the entrance and i get a big surprise
The entry is protected by a blue iron gate, apparently plagiarized from some europian subway dockyard
But beyond the blue gate is possible see clearly that The temple is a sort of empty shell

nobody live there not even the vicar or a guardian have a room....steel concrete,nice colored glasses but no any form of life inside there
...all empty..no sign of humans or human's activities ....(as flyier announcing events meetings ceremonies...not even a pen written piece of paper reporting the hour of the sunday sunday mass

But also become evident that the Church is carefully patrolled, even if none of the guardians wish to disturb a unknow tourist with a big camera...but they pop out at the corners of my visual field and keep a close watch




.. no sign of any iteration of this Temple with the social context around clearly nothing happen here except that (maybe ..) sunday celebrations

ZOOMING OUT

What most impressive is that in a souch crowded town, the extension of the garden around the Temple, (protected as the church from high fence ...)
That give the impression that the Church lay in the middle of nowhere, and make even more clear how much is separated from the social context all around







THE SIGN

The Temple is a Methodist Church at the extrem periphery of Bonua (a town in the District of Grand Bassam , no far from Abidjan the "de facto" capital of Ivory Coast)...
here the official indication..that i post also because give a idea of the context around the Temple (the sign is just at the opposite side of the street )





THE SOCIAL CONTEXT


At few hundreds meters from the church



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But may be a justification for the presence of such big Methodist Pyramidal Church there..

A conscious or uncouscious rivality with the a even bigger but proudly conic Catholic Church at the opposite side of the town , also that proudly isolated in the middle of nowhere

But at least in the Catholic church there are trace of human life..the Parish is living there and show up at soon he notice some visitors ...there is always somebody hanging on there

What in commun may be the love for big colored glasses...here may be riductive ddefinition "Colored glass windows", because is basically a whole wall to be composed by colored glass
But anyway ...there are traces of groups doing something...flyer, advice, even pepole busy to prepare things

And even if in the middle of nowhere here the church is not isolated by high fences patrolled by guardians

I didn't take photo of the Conic Catholic Church because is the only place around already documented in Google Earth
(search google earth photos for Cote D'Ivoire, Bonua)

The first one capture is really great.what program did you use?

the first one had no much processing...
just converted from raw automatically and scaled down
Opened in gimp to maximize local contrast (may help to make detail pop out), then i use a painting filter

then i put again original on top but with very low opacity, to soften the effect


Both "local normalization" and "painting " filters are included in the Gmic plugin , a sort of swiss tool for image manipolation

Even more simple for the BW version, the second

first a bit of sharpening then GEGL operation c2g, in this case trying to mantain the "number of samples" low to get a well visible and dramatic grain

What a beautiful building. You say it's fenced and guarded?

yes the gates are always open at least during the day, and is guarded in a very unobtrusive way:
the watchers are very discret ( at least with with tourists with camera, )

Close to the fence at the end of that empty field , partially hidden by some trees there is a modest building that look as a house for a guardian or a caretaker..

And ,outside but just in front ,at the other side of the street there is some kind of military base:
since the church was sponsored by the President (the fact is carved in marble plate ) i get the sensation that any suspect activity
would cause a immediate reaction

Thank you!I downloaded the program and it works correctly.



This what I get.it is not a place.I tried to a portrait.it is good.

yes it is nice

the effect of that filter (painting not all gmic) depend a lot not only from its setting but also from image size

Thank you Mrs Wilbress .I am not a photographer but i like designing and my thought is to try it to vectors and backgrounds to see what I can get.

Mrs Wilbress is my mascotte, the younger and crazy sister of a guy called Wilber , that show is face in the banner of this side, at the right

I am really sorry PhotoComix,nice mascotte!

alek, I love what you have done with the filter!
PC, I like the first b/w the best, love the grainy look. That building is very interesting, kinda surprising to see something like that in such a neighborhood.

There are much more astonishing surprises for Temples , Mosques, Cathedral
(Here photo are not mine below the image the link for the author page)

The Cathedral of Yamoussukro (catholic)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/igan/4301387301/sizes/l/


by http://davidderrick.wordpress.com


http://www.flickr.com/photos/13284719@N ... 7/sizes/o/





INSIDE


http://www.flickr.com/photos/anna_fudge ... 6/sizes/l/



It is also in the Guiness as the Word's tallest church
To be exact for respect to the Pope the building is 1 meter lower then the Cathedral of San Peter in Vatican
But then as a final touch was added on top a much bigger cross, so if the buildings height is measured from the highest point, the top of the cross the Vatican is the looser and Cote d' Avoire the winner

the Yamoussoukro Mosque

BUT n a good democracy also minorance should be satisfied...maybe the Yamoussoukro Mosque is not the bigger or the heighest, but for is impressive


http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Africa ... 977658.htm


By http://www.flickr.com/photos/rdpaul/

But the others Christians but not catholic confessions have also their pride, and do their best to compete

Thank you 2-ton!
Great photos PhotoComix.I liked The Cathedral of Yamoussukro the most.the first one.

thank but in this case the photo were not mine (there are link for the original page )

those are ..partially mine, meaning that are derived from a cc images but the edit is mine

It is again the Cathedral of Notre Dame de la Paix in Yomossokro a amazing city popped out by the transformation of tiny village in the new capital,several year ago , when was a economic boom and the Ivory Coast was one of the richest country in Africa

"SKETCH" version



PAINTED version



ORIGINAL (from http://www.flickr.com/photos/kro_royal/ )


(link for the page http://www.flickr.com/photos/kro_royal/2221527098/ )

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful PhotoComix. Those buildings are breathtaking and that stained glass window ... wow! Thanks so much for sharing.

They are all beautiful buildings. I am sure the locals are very proud to have such amazing architecture in their villages, and hopefull these structures create economic improvement to their lives.