Eyes on the Chapel

As the communications specialist for Duke University Chapel, Andie Rea gets to see nearly every photo of the building that gets posted on social media.

While orchestrating the chapel’s #FindSanctuary photo campaign – which was part of a yearlong celebration of the Chapel’s extensive restoration – she got even more shots from disposable cameras that were available to visitors.

With its soaring Gothic revival spires and vibrant stained glass, it’s hard to take a bad photo of the 86-year old building.

“It’s an icon and a symbol of the university, I always feel proud when I see Chapel pictures,” Rea said. “Ninety percent of the images are mostly the same. But then you get that 10 percent that do something really creative.”

For the #FindSanctuary campaign, which began in 2016, amateur photographers – who had their work shown on a digital display in the Chapel – flexed their creative muscle. Rea recalls seeing photos showcasing the building from unique angles and capturing small, often overlooked moments of beauty.

As the campaign continues, amateur photographers among Duke’s faculty and staff are perpetually aiming their cameras or phones at the building, hoping to capture something unique.

Here’s the story of five Duke employees who succeeded in doing that.

Michael Palko

Michael Palko, an informatics educator for Duke Health, said he often advises fellow amateur photographers to keep their eyes up, looking at the world around them for images worth capturing. That is, except when it rains.

“When it rains, you look down,” he said.

Palko, who took an iPhone photography course on Lynda.com – an online learning site that’s free to Duke employees and students – was walking near the Bryan Center one afternoon last year after a rain storm. Looking down, he came across a puddle that reflected the Chapel’s sunlit spire. Nearby, a red leaf floated in the water, giving the image a dose of color.

Taking out his phone, he snapped the shot.

“I get lucky every once in a while because I take a lot of photos,” Palko said. “But something like that, I just knew everything was right.”

William Hanley

As an avid photographer and a Duke employee for 12 years, William Hanley has taken his share of pictures of the Chapel. But walking across campus one evening two years ago, he saw a shot he couldn’t pass up.

Some of the floodlights that shine on the Chapel were being repaired, leaving three sides of it in darkness.

“I’ve always taken for granted that there’s always light on the Chapel, it’s always illuminated,” said Hanley, an electronic resources management specialist with Duke University Libraries. “So it was a bizarre occurrence when light was only coming from the left and not from the front. I took a picture because it was so strange to me.

The shot Hanley got was of the familiar gothic shapes of one side of the Chapel cast against darkness.

“I’ve never seen it lit like that,” Hanley said. “I was dumbstruck.”

Jess Cruger

Jess Cruger hadn’t owned her digital camera long before she ascended to the roof of the Eye Center Parking Garage to take pictures of a nighttime thunderstorm. Only a day earlier, a friend had showed her the basics of using long exposures.

“Typical me, I took it to the next level right away and went to shoot lightning on a rooftop,” said Cruger, a research analyst for Biomedical Engineering and Neurobiology.

Using a 30-second exposure, she captured a shot of the floodlit Chapel with a bolt of lightning piercing the night sky behind it.

“I got really lucky,” Cruger said.

Since then, Cruger’s photography has advanced rapidly. Building on her experience, she’s become adept at “light painting,” which combines darkness, long exposures and creative use of light to create dazzling images.

Jacqueline Rimmler
As a member of the #PictureDuke Photo Club, which is made up of amateur photographers from throughout the Duke community, Jacqueline Rimmler is always looking for new vantage points from which to see campus.

Among the most fun spots to shoot is from atop the Chapel, where the group takes periodic field trips. It was on one of those trips that the clinical research analyst with Duke Cancer Institute captured a unique Chapel shot.

“It was a beautiful day and we were all snapping the same thing,” Rimmler said. “But then I looked over in the right direction and there was the tower’s shadow.”

Looming over the courtyard between the Chapel and Duke Divinity School, the shadow of the tower’s familiar shape makes for a dramatic presence.

“It was pure luck, but it was fun to see it and I’m glad I snapped it,” she said.

Chuck Kesler

During his six years at Duke, Chuck Kesler, the Chief Information Security Officer for Duke Health, has never tired of the view from the 12th floor of Hock Plaza, where he works.

Not long after sunrise around a year ago, Kesler noticed the sky was lit in pink and gold with clouds layered all the way to the horizon.

“That particular morning, the look of the sky struck me,” Kesler said.

Grabbing his phone, he walked out onto a Hock Plaza balcony and took a shot of the Chapel set against that backdrop. The result was an image that places the Chapel in a perspective many photos don’t.

“That view of the Chapel is one that a lot of people don’t get to see,” Kesler said. “I appreciate the fact that I get so see that so frequently. Seeing the Chapel as part of the landscape, as opposed to having it fill the whole frame, it just has a different impact.

“For an amateur photographer, we work in such a great place for these types of opportunities.”