They're not perpendicular in that picture. They're foreshortened - the one dark gap in the rings is narrower towards the horizon (farther away from the observer). The view is about right - the apparent altitude of the highest point of the rings would be 90º minus your latitude, so about 52º above the horizon from DC, which is roughly what that image is showing (we can't really tell the field-of-view span angle from a single pic.)
What's actually wrong is the orientation relative to the Capitol. The highest point of equatorial rings would be due south, and that's at the right edge of the image, so the center of the image is oriented so that we're looking roughly southeast. But we're looking almost directly at one wall, and the rectangular building is oriented to the cardinal directions, so that can't be southeast.
I think it would look something like that if you were looking directly east, since the distance and the perspective would bring it to the vanishing point in the center of the image.
So, from that POV, the rings would not be able to go past the center of the image.
This view would still be possible if this is a cropped down section of a larger image that was pointed slightly to the left I think.
What's actually wrong is the orientation relative to the Capitol. The highest point of equatorial rings would be due south, and that's at the right edge of the image, so the center of the image is oriented so that we're looking roughly southeast. But we're looking almost directly at one wall, and the rectangular building is oriented to the cardinal directions, so that can't be southeast.