Lighting up Bawsey Ruins in the night

Last night we visited Bawsey Ruins near King's Lynn over the border in Norfolk. This is a long abandoned derelict church also known as The Church of St.James.

I first spotted this structure from the road as I was driving past on my way to another place in the dark. It peaked my interest and did a bit of research to locate it on a map to see if it was accessible.

After many months of cancelled attempts to shoot this with too much daylight and not enough dark clear nights, last night we made it. It takes some commitment to trust the weather apps and drive a 240 mile round trip to get here.

A little history

This 11th century church is thought to have originated as a minster in the Late Saxon period. It was the parish church for the now deserted village of Bawsey but it is not clear if the medieval village houses were close to the church. The church is thought to have been disused by 1517 when the village of Bawsey had 60 acres of land converted to pasture. It is known to have been in ruins since before 1770.

Dronut

For this shot I set up a Godox AD200 inside the tower gelled red while the lights fitted to the drone lit up the exterior as it spun around.

I used a 14mm wide angle lens tilted way back which changed the perspective of the drone circle to make it appear vertical rather than the horizontal spinning the drone was actually doing.

Sans Dronut

Before the drone was airborne and whilst it was still fairly early on in the blue hour, I set about lighting the ruins with ground based lights.

Here I set up two Smallrig P108 Pro RGB LED lights on maximum 5 watt power either side of the church. Inside the ruin, I set up a Godox AD200 flashgun with a red / orange gel to light the interior walls.

It might seem a little irreverent to use such a colour on a place of religious worship but it sure looks good to me!

Dronutters

Another drone donut, this time over the point of view we intended to shoot star trails.

I used the same flashgun inside the tower but this time, the built in LED on the flashgun provided just illumination to light the interior.

At this point we were slightly disappointed that the clouds were still visible and yet again the weather forecasting apps were wrong. Again!

Undeterred

Despite the pesky clouds clinging on in the corner, I made the best of it and went for a 150 shot x 30 second star trail.

I ended up using only the last 90 shots and binned the rest of the frame due to the clouds.

The Test Shot

When I arrive home, almost always after midnight, I'm still buzzing from the great night out I just had. I can't resist trying a test stack of the frames I captured just to see if the time wasn't wasted.

This is around 60 of the 150 frames stacked in Photoshop without any processing at all. Note the plane trails which I knew I would have to clone out the following day! Some of the plane trails are so far away in the distance, it's easy to miss them in the edit.

Full Frontal

As we waited for night to fall, I shot this point of view. It's not as successful as the others above but I find a "warm up" shot always helps. This is the warm shot!

The Obligatory iPhone Shot

Whilst I'm stood freezing in the dark waiting for the star trail to finish, it's easy to become bored. So I tend to occupy my time by taking random shots with my iPhone 16 Pro Max and marvel at the quality for such a small image sensor. I then open it up on my huge 32" monitor and then see how incredibly bad the noise is and take heart in the fact that camera phones still have a long way to go before they replace my big heavy and expensive pro camera kit!

About me:

I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in landscape, urbex and artistic model photography. I like to collaborate with other photographers and occasionally shoot outside my comfort zone.

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