National Cathedral

Author's Comments

The cathedral sits on the high ground of the city and from certain angles it is the only thing you see. I have photographed it in every season but winter is when it rewards you most - the bare trees do not soften the silhouette, and the stone reads cleaner against a cold sky. The west façade at nine in the morning is the expected photograph and it is still the right one. The light rakes across the carving and you begin to see how much is actually there, how much detail was built into stone that most people walk past without looking up. Inside is a different discipline. On a sunny day the stained glass throws color across the nave floor in slow-moving patches, and if you position yourself in the south transept around noon you can catch the Space Window scattering blue across the pale stone. It is the kind of photograph that requires waiting. A cloud passes and the whole thing goes flat for ten minutes. Then it returns. The gargoyle tour is worth doing once, probably more. Rooftop access changes the scale of everything, and the grotesques up there include a Darth Vader that is more famous than it deserves to be and dozens of others that are better. From the roof you also get the city in middle distance, which is its own reward. I tend to leave with more interior frames than exterior ones, which surprised me the first few times. The building wants to be photographed from inside looking at light. That is what it was built for.

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