Transylvanian photographer István Vajk Szigeti’s image of a lonely church in a field is the day’s photo on National Geographic Hungary. We could boast that we knew all along he’s a great photographer, and in this case, we would be completely right, as he has been our in-house photographer for some time now. And photography isn’t his main occupation either: His day job is as an architect.
“The picture was taken at the end of June after a rainy day, just as the clouds were starting to part and the sun was setting,” Szigeti said about the drone photo. “I went out for two days in a row at this time of the day to take this particular image. With a drone, it is very difficult to take a picture like this because it takes much more time and the setting can go away fast. Eventually, I captured 10 photos, and maybe this one really illustrates this phenomenon and the landscape and church as well.”
The Roman Catholic church featured in the image is located about half a kilometer from the nearest village, Csíkdelne/Delnița, and was built between 1450-1500 in Gothic style. Much of its original appearance is preserved to this day.
While at first sight seeing a church in the middle of farmland is somewhat surprising, the reason for it being there is quite simple: it was originally built to serve three villages and was placed to be roughly equidistant from each one.
Title image: Beyond the glass mountain by István Vajk Szigeti.
