St. Catherine's Church of Lomice

St. Catherine's Church of Lomice sits alone on a low rise of farmland in Walsh County, North Dakota. This historic stone Catholic church is surrounded by a mix of marshland and open prairie in one of the quieter corners of the state. Built between 1936 and 1938 by Czech settlers with a steeply pitched cross gabled roof and walls made from granite fieldstone the parishioners gathered themselves. The grounds hold a distinctive set of stone grottos, one large and three small, built from the same fieldstone and laid out as a walking circuit around the church. Even though the parish officially closed in 2005 a local preservation group has kept the church and grottos well maintained. The rustic grey stonework against open sky and prairie grass is the draw here. You can easily shoot the church from an angle that takes in the full gabled silhouette and the bell gable, using the rise it sits on to set it against a crisp blue sky. Golden hour warms the granite and rakes light across the rough stone texture. The isolation means you can take your time and experiment with the wide, uncluttered foreground of grass and farmland. The setting is quite rural and the access roads are unpaved in some places. Although this is no longer an active parish, be sure to treat the site and adjacent cemetery with respect. (Whitman, North Dakota, United States)