The other day, a friend suggested that I might find a local church (St. James at Sag Bridge) to be of interest for a photo shoot. I wasn't familiar with this church. After looking up the address, I was surprised to learn that the church is just fifteen minutes from my Orland Park home. I've driven by the church countless times and never knew it was there!

The church is located in the woods off a two lane road in Lemont, Illinois. The entrance to the church isn't obvious and the speed limit on the road is 55 mph. So, unless one is looking for the church it is very easy to miss.

I'm glad that I found this church. The church was built in 1833, which is quite old for any building in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. In fact, St. James is the oldest parish in northern Illinois still functioning at its original location. The stones used to build this church came from the same quarry as the stones used to build the Chicago Water Tower.

At first, I was disappointed to find that the doors of the church were locked. Fortunately, the deacon was in the office in another building on the grounds. He kindly agreed to open the church for me, but asked me to wait until he finished an errand. Twenty minutes later, I was standing out in front of the church in the freezing cold weather thinking that maybe he had forgotten about me. But, soon after that he opened the church doors and turned on all of the interior lights for my photo shoot.

About five minutes into my photo shoot, the deacon started showing me photographs from more than 300 other Catholic churches in the Chicagoland area. As we were looking through the pictures, I was typing notes into my phone so I could later recall these opportunities for future architectural photography subjects. After twenty or thirty minutes of browsing through photos, the deacon announced that he had another commitment and needed to lock the church up in about five minutes. So, my total time behind the camera was limited to about 10 or 15 minutes! However, he invited me back to take pictures once the church is fully decorated for Christmas--which I understand is an amazing sight.

Please click here to view 15 of the images from this session.

St. James at Sag BridgeSt. James at Sag Bridge at 10600 S. Archer Avenue in Lemont, Illinois on December 6, 2013. St. James (founded in 1833) is the oldest parish in northern Illinois still functioning at its original location. This photograph consists of seven exposures blended together to create a high dynamic range (HDR) image.