Meet the Team: Photography and Technical Imaging Branch

The small but mighty PTIB often reports to work at dawn and stays late into the evening to capture the best images. After a gap in service during the Great Depression and WWII, AOC photography resumed in 1949 and has been going strong ever since. The department will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2024. The nine-person team took some time out of their busy schedules to talk about their work.

Michael Dunn leads the department and has served at the AOC for the last 26 years, and as the head of PTIB since 2005. His background is in art conservation. He's worked all over the country at museums and on historic preservation projects.

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Michael Dunn, Chief Of Photography.

Q: What is your role within PTIB and how has it evolved over time?

A: Since 2005, my focus has been on building, supporting and directing a team of photographers, technical imaging specialists and photo archivists. The principal areas of our mission are to support major construction and maintenance projects, events like presidential inaugurations, historic preservation, communications, exhibits and educational outreach. Around the turn of the century the transition to digital photography was gaining steam, and I am proud of my role in helping the AOC photography mission transition from wet chemistry photography to digital photography.

Q: Do you have a favorite photo that you've taken?

A: I have had the honor of photographing several presidential inaugurations. My favorite photographs are the ones that show the event in the context of the building and the carefully constructed stage that the AOC builds for this most important occasion. Inaugurations bring everything together — all three branches of government, the American people, viewers from around the world, witnessing the peaceful transition of power.

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Dewitt Roseborough, Lead Photographer.

Q: Tell us about how you got your start in photography and a bit about your background in the field. How long have you been with the agency and what brought you here?

A: I picked up a camera in high school, which my father left me after his passing but received formal training in photography in the U.S. Navy. I was a naval photographer for 21 years, traveling all over the world. After I retired from the Navy, I worked at the U.S. Naval Academy and came to the AOC in 2005. Here I focus on architectural photography and learned a lot from Michael Dunn and all of my other coworkers in the department. As the lead photographer, my job is to have a pulse on all the ongoing construction projects to make sure we have adequate coverage with our small team.

Q: What's your favorite part of the job?

A: I continue to be impressed by the skill and craftsmanship of the men and women who work at the agency to preserve this historic building. It's really awe inspiring. I also love inauguration time because it takes almost everyone in the agency to pull off; it's a real team effort and takes nearly two years of preparation to accomplish, with over a year of documentation by PTIB.

Q: How has the work in PTIB evolved over your tenure with the agency?

A: The role of PTIB has evolved over time; not everyone in the agency knows that. We aren't just taking photos — we have a large 3D program, including scanning/digitization, and we work with historical records and documentation as well. Researchers will come to us for historical images of the Capitol, and so will our maintenance team, to make sure they aren’t about to hit any wires with their digging. That's where our archivists come in.

Leslie Matthaei and Claralyn Burt are the two staff archivists. Both have experience working in photographic archives for the federal government and academic institutions, in addition to records management experience.

Matthaei and Burt have four primary responsibilities: to ensure that photographic and video assets are managed and preserved in perpetuity, to ensure that these assets are well-described and discoverable in the AOC Image Bank, which contains over 300,000 assets, to manage and maintain the AOC Image Bank, and to fulfill AOC staff requests for images.

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Staff Archivists Leslie Matthaei and Claralyn Burt assist Photographer Sean Greene in providing detailed metadata descriptions in the AOC Image Bank. Accurate descriptions help users discover assets in the system.

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Sean Greene, Photographer.

Q: How long have you been with the agency and how did you get your start in the field?

A: For about 10 years I worked as a freelance photo assistant and digital technician in New York City doing lighting and computer work for fashion and advertising photographers. It allowed me to work with top fashion brands and seasoned fashion and advertising photographers and was truly the best way to learn. Before I went to New York, I was a staff photographer for the United States Postal Service. Now, I've been working for the AOC for a little over three years and focus on the House office buildings. I have done some work documenting historic works of art, as well as capturing dedicated trade workers and laborers doing their jobs.

Q: Do you have a favorite photo you've shot? Why is it your favorite?

A: An image created with my colleague Luke Walter; it's of the Speaker’s Lobby and was taken for use in the Capitol Visitor Center's new Exhibition Hall space. We set the frame and placed the camera on a tripod and shot over 12 different exposures with strobe lighting in different positions to capture the perfect lighting for each area. It took a couple hours to shoot and about a day of Photoshop work. It touches on some of the best tools in technical photography, both traditional and digital.

Q: What are the most challenging aspects of your work?

A: One of the more challenging aspects of the work I would say would be on the video side — trying to distill a broad range of amazing work being done into a bite-size video. Showing as much of that as possible to accurately portray the work is a big task.

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Thomas Hatzenbuhler, Photographer.

Q: Tell us about how you got your start in photography and a bit about your background in the field.

A: Photography began as a fascination and creative outlet for me as early as my years in college. In 2011, I purchased my first "real" camera and began photographing everything and anything that I could: landscapes, portraits, weddings and events. Of all the many genres of photography I've practiced over the last decade or more, I find this role to be the most challenging, rewarding and engaging.

Q: Can you share any tips on the best place to get a good photo of the U.S. Capitol, and your preferred time of day for shooting?

A: I think the best time to photograph the Capitol is at sunrise or at first light. There is a peaceful and quiet feeling to the Capitol during those hours of the morning that translates into photography very well. I've spent many mornings watching the golden or pink morning light slowly working its way down the east façade of the Capitol in a state of awe. My tips on photographing the Capitol are simple: use a wide field of view and keep the camera level to the horizon. Doing so will keep the lines of the architecture straight and prevent the resulting image from looking as though the building is falling over.

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Q: Favorite photo you've taken?

A: One of my favorite images is an early morning photo of the Capitol Building from the roof of the Russell Senate Office Building. What makes this image special is the color of the sunrise and the double rainbow arching across the sky from the north end of the Capitol.

Q: What do you primarily cover at the AOC? What is your favorite type of assignment?

A: I have been with the agency for five years and am involved in documenting several stonework restoration projects, including the Russell Exterior Envelope Project and Phase 3 of the Capitol Exterior Preservation. I can generally be found, however, in the Senate office buildings, the Capitol Building, the U.S. Botanic Garden, or on the Capitol Grounds with a camera in hand. The challenge and duty to tell the complete story of a multi-year project through photography and videography is incredibly rewarding.

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James Rosenthal, Photographer.

Q: Tell us about how you got your start in photography and a bit about your background in the field. How long have you been with the agency and what brought you here?

A: I started taking pictures with my mother's camera when I was 12 and got my own camera a year later. I had always loved taking pictures of buildings, but my passion for documenting our built environment started in college. My degree is in historic preservation and architectural history. I started working with National Park Service in 1999 and traveled to 46 states during the 13 years I worked there. I have been with the AOC since 2012.

Q: What do you primarily cover at the AOC, and what's your favorite type of assignment?

A: My specialty is architecture and complex architectural interior lighting. I cover all types of work, from construction to preservation and conservation work, but my passion is for highly decorative spaces and the use of creative lighting to really bring the viewer into the spaces and see them as they may have never seen them before.

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Q: Do you have a favorite photo you've shot? Why is it your favorite?

A: I have a few: some of conservation work in the Brumidi Corridors — the process is fascinating— some of elaborate interior spaces, and some of historic events — because c'mon, look where we work! But I think my favorite photograph, if I must pick one, is of the Capitol Gnome. I was assigned to document the "tiny doors" in the Senate and House wings, which included opening the doors to shoot inside. One of the U.S. Capitol Deputy Superintendents had a small garden gnome, which I brought along to be a prop in one of the shots as a joke. It turned out to be the best photograph from the series.

Q: What are the most challenging and lesser-known aspects of your work?

A: The ability to pivot from one type of work to another on the fly. It's not uncommon to be documenting a concrete pour in the morning wearing coveralls and full personal protective equipment (PPE), changing into a suit for a mid-day congressional event, then back into field clothes for an afternoon of bronze statue conservation.

Ryan Pierce, Digital Imaging Specialist, has a deep background in historic preservation and is helping to develop in-house 3D imaging capabilities for the agency, including scans of the statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection.

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Luke Walter, Photographer.

Q: Tell us about how you got your start in photography and a bit about your background. What do you primarily cover at the AOC, and what's your favorite type of assignment?

A: I grew up making home movies on VHS and Hi8 with my friends and brothers, who now also work in the industry. From there I was hooked, going on to study formally in high school and college, while living and working in New York. I've been with the AOC for five years. I'm mostly covering the Library of Congress buildings now, and my favorite assignments highlight our various craftsmen and women doing what they do best.

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Q: Do you have a favorite photo that you've taken?

A: There are so many opportunities to create beautiful images around campus. From recent memory, two I've enjoyed producing are of the Jefferson Building: one of the exterior while lit for its 125th anniversary celebration and the other a vertical panorama of the interior of the Main Reading Room.

Q: What are the most challenging aspects of your work?

A: Moving safely around construction sites is something we're always especially cognizant of — that and allowing the tradespeople to work unimpededly.