"Waiting for the Believers" fine art print is available in sizes ranging from 10" X 14" to 40" X 60". For ordering information about this photograph, click here.

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The "Waiting for the Believers" Story

This 13th century fortified Augustinian church was situated in a tiny village in the Dordogne region of southern France. As we approached the church, we noticed that a field was being burned outside the gates. When we entered, the early afternoon light was pouring in, illuminating the particulate matter in the air. The combination of the beam of light, the height and warmth of the stone walls, the worn, "soft" look of the stone floors and hundreds of old chairs set up in a totally empty church in a village of not more than 100 people, made for a setting ripe with a sense of spirit.

The "Waiting for the Believers" title came to me before I even started to photograph. It was as if the chairs were showing their patience. At one time, this was a burgeoning town and the site of an abbey, so the chairs were certainly filled. Humankind and individuals alike go through cycles of belief and non-belief, but the structure is always there, waiting patiently for the "believers" and "belief" to return. I knew this was a place and an image to which I felt a strong connection and wanted to make a solid attempt at trying to convey that feeling photographically. This was the first of several different images I took in the church and the one that says it best for me. It is a very difficult image to print, requiring 7 different exposures to selectively bring out different areas of the image and to keep the eye moving through the photograph.

This piece is truly about "light" and "the light" in its broadest and deepest sense.

— Allan Bruce Zee