RETURN TO LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

I made my first visit to the Library of Congress during our visit to Washington, D.C. in 2016, and it was love at first sight.  This September when we visited our daughter in D.C., we spent a couple of nights at a hotel only a couple of blocks from the Library, and I had a chance to return armed with my new wide angle lens.

Here first is a shot of the west facade of the main building, the Thomas Jefferson Building, a photo that I converted to a black & white--not an especially remarkable exterior for a government building completed in the 1890s.  It is the interior that is stunning.

The great entrance hall, populated with numerous supporting pillars and covered with murals, is spectacular, if difficult to capture in a photo.

Visitors have an opportunity to walk up a flight of stairs at the back of the great hall to a glass-paneled overlook of the library's main reading room.  Because the overlook viewing area is relatively confined, visitors are generally limited to viewing the reading room for only a few minutes at a time so that others can have a chance to look.  The room is a bit difficult to capture in its entirety, even with a wide angle lens, as it sits beneath the building's dome.  Another reason to return to the building on a future trip.

My understanding is that anyone looking to use the reading room or to view documents must obtain special permission in advance.

There is a separate room on the north side of the entrance hall that houses historical exhibits, including a display of antique maps.  The ceiling of that section is interesting, though challenging to photograph.

This shot illustrates the distortion that wide angle photography can create, as the ceiling I was photographing was actually the same width for its entire length.

At the far end of the room was a separate circular ceiling mural that I shot.

But what really garnered my attention were the ceilings in the main hall.

First, the central ceiling, which I shot on an angle as well as rectilinearly.

A shot of the ceiling above the corridor running across the front of the great hall.

And finally a shot of a ceiling on a stairway leading from the main hall to the reading room overlook.

I shot all of these with my lens set at 15 mm and, despite the visitors milling around, was able to use the technique that I often rely on when photographing ceilings--placing the camera on the floor pointed up and triggering the shutter using a remote.

John