Most tourists walk away from a grand cathedral like Notre Dame with a lousy iPhone pic that utterly fails the capture the majesty of the place. But Richard Silver’s panoramic photographs capture every detail, conveying the awe and wonder that inspires us to whip out our smartphones.

Silver started the project one crisp fall day in 2011, when he was strolling down Bleecker Street in Manhattan and decided to visit Our Lady of Pompeii Church. “I was enamored at the beauty of the ceiling,” he says. It inspired him to try a vertical panorama to capture the scene. “The output wasn’t perfect my first few tries, but now I think I have it mastered.”

He’s since honed his technique and has made beautiful panoramas of churches in 32 countries. Silver usually visits during the day and claims a spot in right in the center of the main aisle. He sets up his tripod at pew level, and waits. When people clear out of the frame, he focuses his Nikon D800, fitted with a super-wide 14-24 mm lens, on the altar. Silver shoots multiple frames, rotating the camera in an arc up toward the ceiling and down the other side. The result is a perfect 3:1 panorama with a 180-degree view.