TESTING THE LIGHTS - (how this picture came to be) - DC LDS Temple

There is a fun short story about how this shot came to be.

First of all I should explain that I spent 13 months on the road photographing over 4000 religious buildings from 2013-2014 but that's a story for another day.

This view and even this angle isn't for some reason one of a kind I'm sure others have done it plenty.
I've done it on several other visits

This is the popular view many get on most visits

I just happened to plan for a day the building is closed... usually Monday mornings is a good time, so there aren't a ton of vehicles in the parking lot.

This was the view I got that morning... really early in the morning while the stars where still out

WHY IS IT UNIQUE?
It's a small but influential reason...
What was unique is I happened to be there on a day they were testing the lights in preperation for christmas.

This building: The Washington DC LDS temple (which is barely outside of DC btw) has an amazing christmas lights display and tons of public come and walk around during the holidays.

Well the fun thing is it was still FALL all the leaves are on the trees for the most part. It makes the picture more full and even more beautiful colors. Also they usually don't have lights on at like 5:42am which is when I took this. So I was able to get no cars in the parking lot, I was able to get the lights on the temple way powered down so that stars were a possibility. So all those things came together to make these couple of pictures.

"Be ready for the great opportunities that fall into your lap"

I didn't plan it .... just one of the good things that happened as I traveled around the country. But knowing how to take advantage of good opportunities IS still a big deal. Being ready for those moment.

p.s. side story is I talked to the engineers and they were almost willing to turn the lights all the way off so i could get really cool star pictures.... but turns out it's not allowed and maybe even not permitted by the city for them to turn the lights all the way off because of air traffic needs.

Here are a couple other shots from that day

WHAT SPURRED THIS POST?
Someone actually baught a 24x36 of the vertical image (2nd one) this morning
So i was thinking back about that story.

My art is available here:
http://www.jarviedigital.com/Temples/Organized-by-Temple/Washington-DC-LDS-Temple/

And many other places online. (But my site is my favorite)