Library of Congress - Great Hall

Author's Comments

The Great Hall asks too much of the eye at first. You walk in and the room refuses to resolve into a single photograph, because there is no single photograph to be made. The floor is a mosaic. The arches are gilded. The ceiling is painted. The marble staircases carry putti and globes and lamps held by bronze figures who have been holding them since 1897. It is a room that rewards decomposition rather than the wide shot. I go upstairs first. The view down from the second-floor railing is where the floor mosaic finally reads as a composition rather than a surface underfoot, and midday is when the stained glass ceiling is doing its actual work, pouring colored light down onto the marble. Then I come back down and chase details. The cherubs on the staircase newels. The particular way the gold leaf on the arches catches side light from the windows. The small mosaic portraits set into the second floor walls that almost nobody notices. The room is busy enough that you will not have it to yourself, but the crowds move through quickly. If you stand still for ten minutes, most of them will have cycled out. Tripods are generally tolerated if you are not blocking a doorway, though I often work handheld here because the light at midday is stronger than people expect. This is not a room to shoot once and leave. It is a room to circle.

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