{"id":599537,"date":"2026-04-12T17:25:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599537\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:25:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:25:23","slug":"photographing-sacred-spaces-across-the-world-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599537\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographing sacred spaces across the world \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Val Brinkerhoff\u2019s quest to photograph sacred spaces around the world began with a curiosity about the shapes and symbols of the temples and tabernacles of his own faith. \u201cI wanted to really understand what a temple was communicating,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI knew the (Latter-day Saint) standpoint, but I wanted to study sacred architecture of many different faiths.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quest led the then-associate professor of photography at Brigham Young University across 45 countries over five years, documenting everything from standing stone circles in Scotland to Islamic mosques, from Catholic cathedrals to ancient pyramids. As he studied at the massive stones of Stonehenge, the angled tight joints in Incan walls and soaring steeples in Europe, he saw patterns that communicated themes of connection between earth and heaven. <\/p>\n

Ancient structures like Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza incorporate precise alignments with the stars and the sun. Traditional Christian church steeples with square bases, octagonal midsections and spherical tops represent the progression from earthly to heavenly realms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a visual language,\u201d Brinkerhoff explains in what he wants people to see in the thousands of images he created from his journeys. \u201cI wanted to teach people how to read a building like a book and understand the language.\u201d <\/p>\n

To Brinkerhoff, 69, understanding sacred architecture reveals humanity\u2019s universal yearning for the divine. The structures he photographed were constructed across millennia by diverse cultures but speak a common visual language about our relationship with the sacred \u2014 a spiritual heritage embedded in stone that can inspire believers today. <\/p>\n

This story appears in the March 2026 issue of Deseret Magazine<\/a>. Learn more about how to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek, Lebanon. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Temple of Baal in Palmyra, Syria, before its destruction by the Islamic State group in 2015. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Wat Chaiwatthanaram Towers in Ayutthaya, Thailand. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Stone head of King Antiochus I at Mount Nemrut in southeastern Turkey. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Cardston Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Cardston, Alberta, Canada. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Biblical figures at Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, Frances. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Pillard arches in C\u00f2rdoba Mosque in C\u00f2rdoba, Spain. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Golden Stupa in Bagan, Myanmar. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Main temple at Angkor War, Siem Reap, Cambodia. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Angkor Wat, pre-Rup Temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Dome of the Rock mosque on the temple mount in Jerusalem, Israel. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"El Kaazneh (The Treasury) at Petra, Jordan. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Callanish stone circle on the Isle of Lewis in Outer Hebrides, Scotland. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Moorish Archway in house of worship in Granada, Spain. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Row of Buddahs in Ayutthaya, Thailand. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"White Stupa in Bagan, Myanmar. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"Creation symbols at Angkor War, Siem Reap, Cambodia. | Val Brinkerhoff \"\"St. George Temple, St. George, Utah. | Val Brinkerhoff for Deseret Magazine <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Val Brinkerhoff\u2019s quest to photograph sacred spaces around the world began with a curiosity about the shapes and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75,13137],"class_list":{"0":"post-599537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-news-feed-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}