God's trade show

Religious paraphernalia -- from gilded goblets to huge Jesus statues to "high-tech" electronic rosaries -- is a $5 billion business. The International Exhibition of Church Furnishings, Liturgical Items and Religious Building Components, held in the north east of Italy, is like the CES of religion. Photographer Louis de Belle captured the high weirdness in a beautifully strange series "detaching for a moment all of (religion's) paraphernalia from the notion of faith."

"This trade fair's functional infrastructure, stocked with clergy apparel, liturgical items and cult objects, becomes the backdrop of a "counter-reality" made of bored salesmen, busy nuns and misplaced items," de Belle writes. "A last supper is hanging before a modest refreshment, agonising crucifixes are being quickly deposited, while industrious sisters do their business."

See more of the series: Besides Faith

Buy the "Besides Faith" book.

Read an interview with de Belle in Wired.