- Ask Us About This Safari
- Day Safari
- 2 Hours
Photograph the interior of the National Cathedral, with all of the 3,000 chairs removed from the Nave
Quick Details
Hiding in plain sight is another architectural gem in northwest DC: Saint Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, seat of the Primate of The Orthodox Church in America, and offering great opportunities for interior and exterior photography work in a spectacularly colorful setting.
The St. Nicholas community, founded as a Russian church in Washington, DC in 1930, completed the present Cathedral in 1962. The church interior was painted in the traditional 12th century Russo-Byzantine style of iconography from 1991-94, in time for the 200th Anniversary of Orthodoxy in America.
Our safari begins with an orientation by architectural photographer E. David Luria and by the Cathedral’s Archpriest, Fr. George Kokhno. We are then led by Father Kokhno
to locations inside the Cathedral not open to the public, such as the upper balcony, and we teach you how to photograph these magnificent church interiors without a flash.
We then move outdoors to catch architecturally correct views of the exterior.
The safari fee includes a $10 donation to the Cathedral.
Meet at 3500 Massachusetts Ave., NW entrance to the Cathedral. Closest Metro is Tenleytown, change to 30 Metrobus going downtown to Cathedral. Limited parking available in nearby streets.
E. David Luria is founder and director of the Washington Photo Safari, which has trained 39,000 amateur photographers – an average of 5 people every day, 365 days a year, since it was founded in 1999. Trained in Paris by a protégé of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mr. Luria is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers and the Society of Photographic Educators and has had his images of DC appear in over 100 publications, calendars, and postcards and on 30 magazine covers.