I love visiting cathedrals. I can be categorized as a secular tourist, an architecture lover and a medieval grandeur connoisseur. As I finally made it back tot he Chartres Cathedral, I could barely contain my excitement to find the place mostly empty, just as I like it.

Truly, I had it all on that day: A quiet magnificent gothic Cathedral with the most incredibles stained glasses. A soft winter light which was just enough to bring details to life without creating hard shadows or too harsh highlights. I also had the most previous thing of all: time!

In addition, the Chartres cathedral features something very special: a labyrinth on the floor of the nave. When I take pictures of cathedrals, I usually focus on columns & pillars, vaulted ceilings, perspectives, intricate details of sculptures and so forth… I guess it isn’t really original but still usually beautiful. In Chartres, the labyrinth made me want to do something different.

So here I was, taking loads of pictures of the floor of the nave, the choir and altar in the distance, raising my camera up to capture part of the vaulted ceiling and again lowering down to take more pictures of the choir and more of the nave.

What I had in mind, when doing so, was Lightroom panorama feature!!

And here is the result… a total fail!!

I’ve tried everything! Every Lightroom panorama options. Adding and removing shots. Rotating shots 😉 just in case!! I’ve worked the lens distortions of each image… Well I even tried Photoshop!!

Nothing worked and Lightroom was never able to match the columns around the altar. The example above is one of the less terrible result obtained.

Let’s not talk about the light, the contrast, the distortion and all the rest…

Lessons learned:

Practice,Practice, Practice

and 

Despite all the practice, there are going to be good days & there are going to be bad days.