By Lucy Chumbley September 06, 2011 ( Volume 80 , No. 5 )

In recent months, passersby might have observed a wild-haired, moon-faced man in a hat crouched among the tombstones of one of the Diocese of Washington’s parishes.

They might have seen him circle the church slowly, studying cupolas and cemetery angels and appraising the angles and the light, before raising his apparatus and shooting.

Meet Tom Wolff, who for the last year has traversed the approximately 1,864 square miles of the diocese in his 27-year-old Honda to photograph its 89 parishes.

The Parish Photo Project began last summer at the behest of canon to the ordinary Paul Cooney. Overseen by Leta Dunham, a diocesan contractor who also photographed a number of the parishes, the project sought to obtain high quality images of each church in the diocese.

“Though the diocese is home to churches constructed over a 350-year period in a range of architectural styles, we realized we had no comprehensive photographic record of them,” Cooney said. “Our goal was to produce a series of professional photographs for parish and diocesan use that showed our churches in their best light.”

The photographs have appeared in the Window, on the new diocesan website, edow.org, and will be available to individual parishes on request.

Wolff, whose work has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, House & Garden, Garden Design, Smithsonian, Audubon and the New York Times Magazine began the project at St. John’s, Mount Rainier, near his home. He planned his trips on MapQuest, visiting a handful of churches on each excursion, and became adept at spotting signs bearing the Episcopal shield.

During the course of the project Wolff, who is Roman Catholic, developed great affection for the Episcopal “brand” and also amassed a large amount of parish trivia which he shares with gusto.

On a recent Friday morning with thunderclouds threatening, he was squinting at St. John’s, Broad Creek through his lens.

“This is perfect, this building,” he said, standing in the cemetery among ground-nesting wasps and waving a hand toward the church’s weathered pink brickwork. “It’s beautiful. Everything about it is really pretty.” He peers through the lens again. “The only thing that’s wrong with it is the lamp over the door. They should replace it with something more interesting, more in keeping with the church.”

Though rain is imminent, overcast days like this are just right for exterior photos, he said, because there is less contrast between the sunny and shady sides of the building. “An overcast day is sort of a free day – you can go anywhere.”

Sometimes he made multiple trips to the same church, to get the lighting just right.

“You can’t just drive down there and get out of the car and take a picture with these places,” he said.

“Sometimes the church would be east facing, so you’d go in the afternoon and get a dark façade.” Some churches with a north/south alignment, such as Transfiguration, Silver Spring, had to be photographed on an overcast day.

“One church I really liked was [Christ] Chaptico,” he said. “I arrived early and realized there was no way to photograph it until the sun was going down. So I ran off and shot another parish and went back. I must have been there for several hours.”

During that time he absorbed a little parish history: “The English used it as a stable in the War of 1812,” he said. “And Francis Scott Key’s mother is buried there. That’s what the ladies doing the flowers told me.”

Some churches – like St. Barnabas’, Laytonsville – were difficult to find.

“But I found it. I went there twice, actually. I went there three days. Once it was absolutely dark – it was 7 p.m. on a winter’s night and that was way too late.”

On the longer drives, Wolff took his wife, Beth, and 5-year-old son, James, along for the ride.

“I would take Beth and James on all the ones in St. Mary’s County because it was such a long way, and it was entertainment for them,” Wolff said. “The churches were such destinations. I think the diocese should do a bus trip.”

While Wolff worked, Beth and James explored the churchyard.

“Beth would teach him words written on tombstones,” Wolff said.

On trips to Southern Maryland, “we’d go to this place – Capt. Billy’s Crab House – and get crabs and seafood,” he said. “There’s a church near there – Nanjemoy.”

At St. James’, Indian Head he arrived to find the nave filled with cots for the Warm Nights program, and a cadre of volunteers preparing a meal in the parish kitchen. More typically, he said, the churches he visited were deserted on Saturdays – unless the flower guild was there.

“Sometimes there’s people visiting a grave,” he said. “Sometimes there are people on picnics. But mostly they were really under used. Not once did anyone ask what I was doing.”

Well, maybe once. At St. George’s, D.C. Because there had been some recent trouble in the neighborhood.

“That’s the good thing and the bad thing about them,” Wolff said. “They’re just kind of accepting.”

At some churches Wolff shot interiors and other details that caught his eye, such as the tombstone of an astronaut he found at St. John’s.

“I didn’t recognize the name but they called him a space pioneer and there was a picture of a rocket on his grave and the moon,” he said. “You’d come across these tragedies; four children lost within a year of each other. It was really sad. Or there’d be a tombstone with a lamb on it.”

“It was fun to explore them,” he said. “There’s always a detail about the church that’s the one.”