A while ago, I was fortunate enough to put my life on hold in Sydney, pack my bags and move to Rome for a year. This basically meant I had the most amazing cathedrals, galleries and museums at my fingertips, on tap, 24/7. And no matter how many times I visited the Sistine Chapel, it always felt like a new adventure.
You’ve seen the photos. Heard the stories. Maybe even studied the brushstrokes.
But nothing prepares you for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Not really. The moment you walk in, the world goes quiet — and your eyes go up. And then… everything else disappears. This happens every time I see this ceiling.
It’s not just a painting. It’s a cosmic drama suspended above your head. Every inch is alive — Adam reaching, God commanding, figures twisting, falling, flying. Every limb, every fold of cloth, every cloud seems to move.
And the scale — how did one man (Michelangelo!) do all of this, 20 metres above the floor, curved over scaffolding, with nothing but pigment, willpower, and what must have been divine stamina?
It’s not just beautiful. It’s overwhelming. You don’t look at the ceiling. The ceiling looks at you.
The picture in this post was taken of the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel on my Nikon SLR. The camera had only manual controls and no flash. With no flash, I placed the camera on the ground or a plinth and set the self-timer to 30th of a second with the widest aperture of 1.4 – enough to get some decent light in and was able to catch these shots.
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