UTAH STATE CAPITOL

Utah's state capitol building is a beautiful and beautifully maintained structure that is probably fairly typical as state capitols go.  It is of traditional architecture with a central dome modeled after the US capitol building.

I find myself very much drawn to the interior architecture of public spaces.  I am not sure if it is that the architecture is simply outstanding or if it is just something that is personal to me.

In any event, one of the challenges with building interiors is that they are often crowded and it is difficult to get a clear shot of the architecture itself.  Unlike with a lot of exterior shots, where people in the image help to establish scale, there are usually adequate clues (such as lights, stairs, or balconies) that provide that scale.  It was pretty quiet on the Saturday morning that we visited, so avoiding people in the shot was generally not a problem--unless they were us!

The other challenge is often the lighting, which is substantially less than what would be available outside.  In this case it was a clear and sunny morning and I just had to ratchet up the ISO a bit for the shots.

One technique for taking pictures of ceilings that I learned was simply to place the camera on the floor pointing straight up.  In the following shot my only wish was that the lens had had greater wide-angle capabilities.

Of course, then Bei wanted to be in the picture.  With a little trial and error, we got her fairly well centered in the shot.

My favorite shot was of the center stairs.  Ideally,  to gain more symmetry I would have liked not to have had the sign outside the doors on the second level, but that was not possible.  

Then we took some shots with us in the picture.