On photo expedition in the 'hood

With memorial day, nice weather has arrived. This looked like a good photo opportunity, so Diddlbiker set course to nearby Garfield, to take pictures of the Orthodox church. It is actually called the Three Saints Russian Orthodox Church. Originally built of wood in 1903, it burned down in 1915.
A new church was rebuilt at the same spot in 1916, made of brick this time. In the beginning, the interior of the church was very sparse (it almost went bankrupt because of the rebuilding cost) but eventually the inside became as rich as the outside with its golden cupolas.
Taking pictures of the church turned out to be tricky. My initial thought was to have the setting sun lighting up the gold, and putting the whole building in a warm orange glow. Well, I was right about lighting up the gold, but that warm glow never quite arrived, due to a lot of clouds and an upcoming thunder storm.
The alternative was to wait for the 'magic light' that appears after sunset. In this case, it took me about 45 minutes before the camera started to capture dramatic light as shown on the left!
The downside of the time exposure is blown out highlights; the center cupola and the light spots are just white spots without any details. But it was worth it, given the wonderful colors in the rest of the picture (there's no photo shop involved, this is just the way the camera saw it - reality was less spectaculair. Sometimes the camera wins it from Eyeball Mk I...