Foggy Sunrise in Kenmare BayA foggy sunrise in Kenmare Bay in County Kerry, Ireland.
Ireland is famously green, even in October. Apparently, that's because it is very wet there. It rained several times while we were in Ireland. But it sure was beautiful. I shot the photo of Kenmare Bay (above) during breakfast. I really liked the fog and low clouds. Below is a photo I took of Sheen Falls. The Sheen River was so full of water after a rainstorm that the waterfall disappeared. The photo gives you a real sense of just how lush the vegetation can be in Ireland.
Sheen FallsLate afternoon at Sheen Falls in County Kerry, Ireland.
With so much rain, you will not be surprised to hear that Ireland has a lot of rainbows. We saw several while we were there. In the photo below, you can even see where the rainbow ends. Is there a pot of gold there?
Rainbow over Kenmare BayA rainbow over Kenmare Bay in County Kerry, Ireland.
This is the last of my blog posts on Ireland. We all had a lot of fun in Ireland and I was happy to bring home a bunch of nice photos and lots of happy memories.
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Cliffs of Moher and O'Brien's TowerSea cliffs known as the "Cliffs of Moher" in County Clare, Ireland, featuring O'Brien's Tower. The cliffs rise almost 700 feet from the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
One of the things that Ireland is famous for is its rocky shoreline. Ireland has some truly magnificent cliffs. Above is a photo of O'Brien's Tower at the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. O'Brien's Tower rises about 214 meters (702 feet) above the Atlantic Ocean.
The Cliffs of Moher are probably the most famous cliffs in Ireland, but I found the Kerry Cliffs (photos below) in County Kerry to be quite magnificent as well.
The different weather I experienced at the Cliffs of Moher and the Kerry Cliffs present quite a contrast in these photos. It rained quite a lot during my visit to Ireland and the dramatic cloudscape adds quite a bit to the beautiful ambiance.
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Bunratty CastleBunratty Castle is a large 15th-century tower house in County Clare, Ireland.
Ireland is not as famous for its castles as some other countries are for theirs, but it does have castles and they are well worth seeing. Bunratty Castle (featured above and below) is fun to visit. It's a 15th-century tower house in Country Clare. We visited the castle last October on our return from visiting the Cliffs of Moher, which I will feature in a future blog post.
We enjoyed walking around the grounds of the castle and the adjacent folk park. The folk park has lots of interesting things to see, including animals, such as these little goats:
Small goatsSmall goats in the folk park around Bunratty Castle in County Clare, Ireland.
Bunratty Castle was interesting and fun, but we actually found Staigue more interesting. Staigue is a stone ringfort (photo below) in County Kerry. The fort is thought to have been built during the late Iron Age, probably somewhere between 300 and 400 A.D.
The fort was built without any mortar and the walls are so strong that, almost 2,000 years later, one can climb up the walls and walk around. The fort sits at the head of a valley that stretches down towards the sea. Standing atop the walls, one can see sheep grazing in the valley.
Next up, I'll post about some of the cliffs we saw during our visit.
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O'Connell Bridge DublinView of the O'Connell Bridge over the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland.
I visited Ireland last fall with my family. We began our visit in Dublin, which is split roughly in half by the River Liffey (photos above and below).
Dublin is quite a nice city. I love the walk along the river and all the old European architecture and cathedrals (following two photos).
Dame Street DublinDame Street in College Green, Dublin, Ireland.
Dublin Christ Church CathedralChrist Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland.
But Dublin presents quite a contrast with much of the rest of Ireland. We traveled out west into some of the more rural parts of Ireland and we were amazed. We drove along the coast of County Kerry in the southwest and found some gorgeous green countryside.
Green Pastures in IrelandGreen pastures along the southwest coast of County Kerry in Ireland.
We also spent some time in the small villages. The following is a photo of Kenmare, which is a very charming village in Country Kerry.
Dublin was a fine city and we certainly enjoyed Dublin, but we preferred the countryside. The west coast had all the charm and beauty we could have asked for. I'm going to share some more photos in future blog posts. Stay tuned!
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Brilliant skies over a wintry WashingtonA brilliant sky over a wintry Washington, D.C., skyline at dawn. Featuring the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol.
We received some more snow here in Washington, D.C., so I went out to shoot another landscape. This time, I shot the sunrise over the D.C. skyline from across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. It was another very cold morning, but I was very happy to see the skies light up in brilliant color.
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Snowy FallsSnow and cold temperatures at Great Falls in northern Virginia. On the Potomac River near Washington, D.C.
Lately, we've had some cold weather here in the District of Columbia. A storm brought us some snow, which is fortunate because we don't often get much accumulating snow here. So, I figured that I shouldn't let the opportunity pass me by and I headed out to Great Falls Park in nearby northern Virginia. I took this photo of the falls and the Potomac River. I think it turned out great and I hope you like it too.
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2024 United States Capitol Christmas TreeThe 2024 United States Capitol Christmas Tree on a gloomy evening in Washington, D.C. The 2024 tree is an 80-foot Sitka spruce from Wrangell District Region in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
It has been a bit gloomy as of late, here in Washington, D.C.. The U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree seems to be trying to project some holiday cheer into that gloom.
It is a beautiful tree this year. The 2024 Capitol Christmas Tree is an 80-foot Sitka spruce from Wrangell District Region in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. It was a long journey getting the tree to D.C., requiring travel both by boat and by truck.
Of course, the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree is not the only Christmas tree in D.C. Here is a photo of the Norwegian Christmas Tree in Union Station. The tree is an annual gift from the people of Norway to the United States. The gift has been a tradition since 1997 and it lights up the interior of Union Station quite nicely.
Happy holidays everyone!
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Wild Ponies Grazing at SunsetWild ponies grazing as the sun sets in the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island in Virginia.
Earlier this summer, I visited Assateague Island and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia. The wildlife refuge is famous for the wild ponies that have lived on the island for hundreds of years. Evidence suggests that they are descendants of the survivors of a Spanish galleon that wrecked off the coast of Assateague.
In addition to the wild ponies, a large draw of the island is the Assateague Lighthouse, which still operates and is open to the public.
The beach at Toms Cove attracts a lot of people. I was able to capture an image of the galactic core of the Milky Way extending over the beach. The little buildings you see are lifeguard shacks.
Milky Way Over Toms CoveThe Milky Way over Toms Cove on Assateague Island, Virginia.
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Awe of FireworksTwo onlookers watch fireworks shoot out over Lake Wesauking in Towanda, Pennsylvania.
I celebrated Independence Day this year with friends at Lake Wesauking in Towanda, Pennsylvania. Some neighbors put on a spectacular fireworks display over the lake. I had fun taking photos of the fireworks. Here are just a few of my favorites. Enjoy!
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Spring Sunrise Over Yosemite ValleySunrise over Yosemite Valley in the early springtime. Featuring the sun rising behind Half Dome with snow at its peak, rushing water from Bridalveil Falls, and the stark face of El Capitan.
In mid-April, I had the good fortune of being able to visit Yosemite National Park, California. I was there a bit before peak season. The flowers in the meadows hadn’t yet bloomed, but there was still snow on the peaks, the weather was gorgeous, and I got to skip all the crowds.
I took lots of photos and I’m especially happy with the one above. It features the sun rising behind Half Dome, the stark face of El Capitan, and Bridailveil Falls full of water.
The following is a photo Upper Yosemite Falls and Lower Yosemite Falls.
Below is a photo of Half Dome and Cook’s Meadow.
The following is another with Half Dome, but this time featuring the Merced River.
Below is Upper Yosemite Falls and Cook’s Meadow.
And finally, here’s a photo of Wawona Covered Bridge.
I hope you all enjoyed my photos. Yosemite is one of my favorite places.
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Spring is back and here in Washington, D.C., that means cherry blossoms. As I do every year, I ventured out to the Tidal Basin and attempted to capture the beauty of the season. Enjoy!
This one looks like the blossoms are forming a heart around the Washington Monument:
These aren't cherry blossoms, but magnolia blossoms. They also bloom here at about the same time and are also very pretty.
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Last year, I made two trips to Acadia National Park in Maine. The first one was in August, which I wrote in a blog post about visiting Maine in the summer and the second in October, which I mentioned in my cautionary tale about hiking for sunsets. The photos in this blog post are from that second trip in October. The leaves were just starting to turn, the sky was overcast, and everything was very wet.
[Above: Overcast skies above Jordan Pond. Below: Red tree roots with moss and Cobblestone Bridge along Jordan Stream Path.]
It was quite stormy while I was there, which made the seashore even more interesting than usual. Thunder Hole (below) was closed off to visitors due to safety concerns. The following photos are all taken from along Ocean Path Trail after a recent storm.
Acadia National Park is wonderful and I hope to go back again soon.
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Winter hit us here in Washington, D.C., and on Monday and Tuesday it actually snowed! I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I got up well before dawn and visited the Capitol. Because of the overcast skies, I didn't get much of a sunrise, but in the early dawn, I did get some brief color.
I spent some time taking photos of the area around the Capitol. Unfortunately, I had to cut things short because of freezing rain. While I didn't get to spend as much time shooting as I would have liked, I did get this pretty photo of the National Mall:
I think the following photo gives you an idea of just how early I was out there shooting. It was awfully cold.
Hopefully we get some more snow this season. I have some other locations I'd like to shoot as well.
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Happy holidays everyone!
Above is the United States Capitol and the 2023 United States Capitol Christmas Tree. The tree is a 63-foot Norway spruce from the Greenbrier Ranger District in West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest.
Below is Union Station in Washington, D.C. Each year, Union Station features giant holiday wreaths above the entrance.
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I made a second trip this year to visit Acadia National Park in Maine. The first trip was in August. I had gone there with my family and we had so much fun, we decided to return in the fall to see what it was like with the leaves turning. It was fabulous. I'll share some photos from that trip in a subsequent blog post. But for the moment, I'll share a little cautionary tale.
For this trip, I wanted to see if I could get a nice sunset or twilight photo overlooking Jordan Pond. The Bubbles Divide Trail leads to the tops of The Bubbles, which are small mountains overlooking the pond. I'd never done the hike before, but from the maps, the trail looked promising.
I left in full daylight by myself, as my family was off having dinner. It was my intention to arrive at the top of the mountain well before sunset. I made sure to pack a map and a flashlight, because I knew that sticking around for the sunset would mean hiking back in the dark.
The trail wasn't especially long or especially difficult, though it had recently rained, which made things quite slick and muddy.
The trail deposited me near the summit of one of The Bubbles. Unfortunately, there's no actual view of Jordan Pond from the summit. So I had to do some searching around to find an actual vista. As you can see from the photo above, I found one. It was the top of a cliff overlooking the pond.
When I got to the top of the cliff, it occurred to me that I wasn't certain of the way back to the trail. I didn't see a clear or marked path to the trail. Now I figured it wouldn't be especially hard to retrace my steps and find the trail. There were also quite a few other people around I could simply ask. However, from previous experience hiking, I knew two things. First, everyone would likely leave right after the sun dipped below the horizon, when there's still some remaining light. However, I normally want to stick until it gets dark. And second, everything looks very different in the dark, especially unfamiliar trails and landmarks.
So, before I settled down and unpacked my gear to shoot the sunset, I retraced my steps back to where the trail emptied out onto the summit and I committed it all to memory. I did not want to find myself a couple of hours later alone and lost on the top of the mountain.
I returned to my spot atop the cliff and settled down to wait for the sunset. Lots of other hikers came and went. And then just as I predicted, everyone left shortly after the sun dipped below the horizon. I stuck around a while longer to see if the sky might turn interesting colors and I prayed that some of the distant clouds might move in closer (they didn't).
When I finally decided to pack up and leave, it was cold, very windy, and almost completely dark. Everyone had already left except for one other group, which consisted of about five people. They saw me get up and asked if I would come over and take a group photo for them. So I obliged them and they seemed very grateful. And then, with some embarrassment, they asked me if I knew how to get off the mountain. They explained that they had been wandering around the mountaintop for a while looking for the way down. When they saw me, they figured they would wait for me to leave and follow me down. I told them I'd be happy to lead them down the mountain and they all let out visible sighs of relief.
I lead this group of fellow hikers back along the route that I had memorized. On our way to the trail, we ran into another group of hikers who were heading right towards the area we just came from. One of the new hikers pointed over my shoulder to the place we had just come from and asked if that was the way down the mountain. I said no, it actually leads to a cliff. At that point, the new hiker looked very confused and pulled up his map. After fumbling with his map for a moment, he confessed he had no idea how to get down. They also had been wandering around in the dark trying to find the trail. So I invited this second group of hikers to join us.
And that is how I ended up leading two groups of hikers in the dark down a mountain I had never climbed before. I was so glad that I had taken time earlier to familiarize myself with the way back. It really pays to plan ahead and take into account that everything looks different in the dark.
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Here are some more photos from my travels last summer. We briefly visited Niagara Falls and I’m glad we did. It was stunning! In the morning, the light shone through the mist below American Falls and formed a rainbow. I captured this photo of the Maid of the Mist sightseeing boat traveling underneath. I think it’s quite lovely. The skyline of the City of Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada, is in the background, and Horseshoe Falls is way in the back, behind American Falls.
I also captured some of the falls at night. Here’s one image of the falls lit up with colored lights:
If you stick around late enough, you can see fireworks!
I’ve heard from many that the views of the falls are better from the Canadian side, but after seeing my photos, I hope you can agree that the view from the U.S. side is fantastic too!
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This summer, we drove up from D.C. to Maine for an August vacation. Maine is wonderful in the summertime. The weather was pleasant and the scenery was amazing. While we spent most of our time in Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, and the surrounding area, we made stops in Portland, both on our way up from D.C. and on our way back. Portland Head Light (above) was especially scenic.
Most of the scenery we got to enjoy was in Acadia. Here's a sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain:
On my first visit to the top of Cadillac Mountain, I encountered thick fog and couldn't see anything. That was quite disappointing, so I was relieved on my second try to get this beautiful sunrise. There's nothing worse than getting up at 4:00 AM to take a sunrise photo and encountering thick fog. (Don't most people sleep-in when on vacation?)
Fortunately, sunset photos don't require waking up so early. Here are a couple of photos from Otter Point:
In this case, shooting the sunset meant skipping dinner with everyone else. Unfortunately, the best times for shooting landscapes happen to be the most inconvenient.
Here's another sunset, but this time at Bass Harbor Head Light:
Maine is well known for its lighthouses. The following is one more of Portland Head Light:
This trip in August was my first attempt at shooting landscapes in Maine. I think it was quite a success. We all had a lot of fun too. I'll definitely have to go back!
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Fall is here and I'm a bit behind on blog posts and such. I'll try to catch up. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens here in Washington, D.C. It's a lovely place in the summertime and I try to visit at least once each year. This time, I got a nice photo of a blue dasher (dragonfly above) posed on a pink lotus and a "Blue Lotus of the Nile" (below). Enjoy!
This year, I celebrated Independence Day with friends and family in the Southwest Waterfront in Washington, D.C. We were treated with a beautiful sunset and gorgeous weather. I brought my camera and took this lovely photo of the sun setting behind the Arlington, Virginia, skyline and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. I took some photos of the fireworks as well. Unfortunately, the wind blew the smoke from the fireworks towards me, inhibiting my view of the fireworks. Oh well, I had a lovely time with everyone I was with and I especially enjoyed the gorgeous sunset.
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Here are a few photos from Doyles River in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. The first two photos are of Doyles River Falls. I took the third photo upriver from the falls. I liked the tranquil pool.
If you ever have a chance to visit, the river and the falls are beautiful, but the hike is steep!
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Springtime in Washington, D.C., brings adorable ducklings to the National Mall. Here is my latest attempt to capture the pure cuteness of ducklings. I hope the eye-level view adds some good perspective. Enjoy!
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The cherry trees in Washington, D.C., are in bloom and that means that winter has come to an end and spring is here. Winter was unusually warm this year and we received no snowfall. That was terribly disappointing. D.C. can be beautiful when covered in snow, but without snow, it can be awfully drab. But now that spring is here, the colors are coming out.
I recently went out to shoot the cherry blossoms like I do every year, but the weather didn’t cooperate. A few weeks of unseasonably warm weather brought us an early bloom, but then a sudden cold snap hit us right when peak bloom hit. I went out twice to shoot the blossoms. The first time it was cold and sunny with clear skies and the second time it was cloudy and overcast. It was pretty, but neither of those are ideal conditions for landscape photography. Oh well, one can’t have perfect weather every time. It’s fun to get out there and try anyway.
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Happy holidays! As many of you know, I try to take a photo of the United States Capitol Christmas Tree every year. I usually take the photo with the Capitol in the background, but the Capitol is covered in scaffolding right now, so I shot this one facing the opposite direction. I think it looks quite nice with the Washington Monument in the background.
The tree this year came from the Pisgah National Forest in the southern Appalachians in western North Carolina. It's a 78-foot-tall red spruce affectionately named "Ruby" (shortened from the spruce's scientific name, Picea rubens).
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Here's the last of my fall foliage posts. I took these photos on a glorious morning at the Tidal Basin. The trees were colorful, the air was calm, the clouds were dramatic, and the sunrise was stunning. It was a great morning!
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Here are a couple of photos from Rock Creek in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. I'm doing my best to capture the beauty of the season. Enjoy!
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Autumn color is turning out to be especially good this year and I'm trying to make the best of it. Here's a recent one from Great Falls in Virginia. The waterfall is in the Potomac River and not far upriver from Washington, D.C.
Stay tuned, I've got more fall images on the way!
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Autumn is here and it's a great time to go out and take some photos. Above is the first of a few that I plan to share. I took this one very early in the morning on the Bearfence rock scramble in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. It's pretty tough getting up early enough to drive out there and hike up the rock scramble in the dark, but it's certainly worth it!
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In October, I visited the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island, Virginia. It's a marvelous place, with beautiful forests and fantastic wildlife. Summer is peak season for tourism on the island, but I find that in the summertime, the mosquitos can be quite troublesome. Fortunately, one can avoid the mosquitos by visiting off-season in October.
I took the above and below photos in the Assateague Channel, which is the small area between Assateague Island (where the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is located) and Chincoteague Island (where the city of Chincoteague is located). Early in the morning, it's especially beautiful and tranquil.
The claim to fame for the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is the presence of feral ponies. Popular legend has it that the feral ponies descended from survivors of wrecked Spanish galleons off the Virginia coast. They are magnificent to behold in their natural habitat, but they can be elusive. Fortunately, I was able to get some nice photos of them the last time that I visited. I hope you like them. I was particularly excited to get photos of the foals.
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Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens (National Park Service) is one of my favorite places here in Washington, D.C. It's a wonderful bit of nature tucked away in the outskirts of the city. I try to visit every summer to see the flowers and wildlife and I'm never disappointed. Here are several photos from my recent visit.
The lotus flowers bloom every June and July and they are gorgeous. If you're lucky, you will also see some wildlife. Here are a couple of a blue heron and one of a green heron:
The water lilies can also be quite beautiful.
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Spring is here in Washington and it's just lovely. The weather is warm and sunny and everywhere you look, the flowers are blooming. I brought my camera to work and spent some time at lunch taking a few photos. I feel so fortunate to live and work in such a beautiful place.
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Hello Spring. I'm glad you're finally here, but do you think you could warm up a bit? It has been awfully chilly. But don't overdo it! We don't need to jump into hot and humid just yet!
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I just got back from a short trip to West Virginia. I was there for recreation, but took some time to take some photos. The snow was beautiful. Here are a couple of photos that I think turned out pretty well. Enjoy!
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I visited Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia over Indigenous Peoples' weekend. It was peak season for fall foliage and there was a lot of water in the falls. Above and immediately below are photos of Blackwater Falls from two different vantage points. The falls are formed where the Blackwater River transitions from Canaan Valley into rugged Blackwater Canyon. The river gets its name from the tannin-darkened water.
Bellow are images of Blackwater Canyon, Elakala Falls, and Lindy Point, which again features Blackwater Canyon. I had a great visit to the Park and I'm pleased that I was able to bring home some wonderful photos.
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Tucked away in the center of West Virginia is a trio of waterfalls called the "Falls of Hills Creek". Above is the middle of the falls. It is about 45 feet tall. Bellow is the lower of the falls. It is about 65 feet tall. Since Falls of Hills Creek is fairly remote, there was no one else there when I visited, making for a very peaceful visit.
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On a sunny day,
Dragonflies eat mosquitos,
A smile adorns my face.
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I recently returned to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It's one of my favorite places and I try to visit often. During my last visit, I climbed to the summit of Hawksbill Mountain. At 4,050 feet (1,234 meters), it's the highest point in Shenandoah and a really great place to shoot a sunset, like the one above.
I also visited South River Falls. There are many waterfalls in Shenandoah. This one isn't the tallest or the most frequently visited, but it is certainly one of the most beautiful. I love the tranquility of the space, enclosed by lush forest. I suspect it would be more frequently visited if the trail were a little less steep and a little less rocky.
I actually took numerous photos of South River Falls. I really like the angle and composition of the first one, but the second one (below) is also quite nice with the sun peeking through the foliage.
While in Shenandoah, I also stopped by Big Meadows late at night. It was a mostly clear night without any moon. Those are perfect conditions for astrophotography. The following is a photo of the galactic core of the Milky Way stretching above the meadow.
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A couple of weeks ago, NASA had scheduled to launch a rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. I thought it might make for a nice photo to shoot the Washington, D.C., skyline with the rocket rising in the distance. Unfortunately, NASA scrubbed the launch because of high winds. However, while I was waiting around for the launch, I got some great photos of the D.C. skyline at sunset. I've found that planning is an important part of landscape photography. An equally important part is being able to adapt when your plans don't work out.
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This year, winter in Washington was long and dreary. We had lots of that hybrid rain and snow that we call “wintry mix.” It seemed like it would never end, but now it has. I cannot imagine a more dramatic end to such a winter than the arrival of cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin. It’s a truly magnificent sight. I feel so blessed to live here in Washington and to be able to experience the arrival of spring with the cherry blossoms.
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I recently came across a bald eagle here in Washington, D.C. I was very excited to see it and have my camera with me! I absolutely love raptors, especially bald eagles, and I'm thrilled to have these photos!
This bald eagle wasn't the only bird I saw recently. I also came across this blue jay. We don't have a lot of blue jays here in Washington and I'm very fond of of these birds too. I feel very fortunate to get this photo.
On the other hand, we do have lots of ducks here in Washington. Here are two mallards. I love the coloring of male mallards.
We also have lots of birds of the metallic kind, such as this jetBlue passenger airplane taking off from National Airport.
I had no idea that January could be such a great time to shoot birds.
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Every year, I try to shoot the Capitol Christmas Tree. Usually I shoot it just after sunset, when the tree lights are on, but it's not so dark that the sky turns black. This year, I decided to try shooting just before sunrise. However, I wasn't sure whether it would work at that time of day and the overcast sky did not look promising.
When I arrived, the reflecting pool was perfectly placid, creating an amazing mirror image of the Capitol and tree. Then, after taking only two pictures, the wind picked up and destroyed the reflection. I might have packed up to go home then. The cloud cover was discouraging. An overcast sky should have ensured a drab sunrise. Instead, I stuck around and only five minutes later, the sun found a small break in the clouds, right along the horizon, and turned the sky a brilliant fuchsia color.
It was a brilliant sunrise! I'm glad I experimented with the sunrise and stuck it through after the wind picked up. Incidentally, if you look past the Christmas tree, you can see the inauguration stage under construction in the background.
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Sometimes when you hear or read about ugly things in the news, it's nice to go outside and watch a sunrise. It can be a powerful reminder that the world is a beautiful place.
Here are a few photos from a recent, peaceful morning at the Tidal Basin. The world is a beautiful place.
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Autumn is now in full swing here in Washington, D.C. The leaves take a little longer to turn here because the weather stays warm longer. The fall foliage first appears in the north and west and then gradually makes its way here. When it finally arrives, one of the best places to appreciate it is in Rock Creek Park.
Here are two recent photos from Rock Creek Park. The first is of Boulder Bridge and the second is of the rapids just north of Rapids Bridge. I shot them both with a polarizer to get rid of glare from the water. I think they turned out great.
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Autumn is arguably the nicest season in the Mid-Atlantic region. The weather can be very pleasant, with the sun shining and the temperatures being neither too hot, nor too cold. It's a great time to be outside.
I took the photos of the path in the woods near Lake Laura in Basye, Virginia. The covered bridge is Meem's Bottom Covered Bridge, which is near Mount Jackson, Virginia.
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The autumnal equinox was on September 22 and it marked the beginning of fall for the Northern Hemisphere. It's a notable occasion for shooting cityscapes because, on the day of an equinox, the sun rises and sets along the path of the equator. When you have a street like H Street in Washington, D.C., which runs directly east and west, the sun rises and sets at the ends of the street. I think that makes for neat cityscapes.
I took these photos last week. We had clear skies, warm temperatures, and some haze from the large forest fires way over on the West Coast. It's amazing that the fires were so large that they affected the atmospheric conditions here on the East Coast.
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I took this photo of the Capitol after a recent rainstorm. The glass in the foreground is from one of the big skylights for the Capitol Visitor Center, which lies entirely underground. The puddles are from a recent rainstorm, which also produced the beautiful sky.
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A couple of weeks ago, we made the short drive to West Virginia for a socially-distant vacation. It was great to get out of DC for a while. I feared that all the rain we had been having in DC would follow us, but we were blessed with clear skies. I normally curse clear skies, since bright blue skies are boring in landscapes, but this time they presented an opportunity: astrophotography. Clear skies and the lower level of light pollution in West Virginia allowed me to shoot the Milky Way. I took several photos. The one above may be my favorite, but it’s tough to decide.
The following is a photo of the Milky Way over the cabin we stayed in. The only lights I left on in the cabin were very dim nightlights. The lights appear bright because I took a very long exposure (50 seconds) and even a little nightlight is much brighter than starlight.
Our visit also coincided with the peak for the Perseid meteor shower. Unfortunately, the clouds moved in while I was trying to shoot the meteors. Here's one that I caught while I was in Cacapon Resort State Park:
The night sky was not the only subject that I shot while we were in West Virginia. I took some landscapes as well. I like the following. It’s a photo of the Potomac River and Great Cacapon at dusk. I really like the color.
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My family and I recently stayed near Luray, which is a small Virginia town just outside of one of the main entrances to Shenandoah National Park. We had a great time hiking and I took lots of photos. The photo above and the following two photos are from the sunset on our first evening there. I shot them from the summit of Stony Man Mountain.
Those of you who follow my work closely know that I've shot many landscapes in Shenandoah and I normally shoot sunrises. Shooting a sunrise means that afterwards I can drive back home to D.C. and have the rest of my day to get things done and spend time with my family. Sunsets can be problematic, so staying in Luray was an opportunity. I think my sunset photos turned out great and I hope you agree.
I didn't just shoot sunsets while we were staying in Luray, I also shot a sunrise. I think the following turned out quite nicely as well.
The house we rented near Luray was actually on a dairy farm just outside of town. It was very scenic. Here's a view from the house:
There was plenty of excitement on the farm. My boys enjoyed seeing the cows and some rabbits hopping around. What we weren't expecting was a glider to make an emergency landing in a cornfield right next to the house. Fortunately, the pilot was okay and it seems the glider was not badly damaged:
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So, I got a new ultra-wide angle lens, the Fujinon XF8-16mmF2.8 R LM WR. I've been very excited to play with it. 8mm is extraordinarily wide on a crop-sensor camera like my Fuji X-T4. It allows me to take some photos that I simply couldn't take before. So, to try it out, I waited for a cloudy day and visited Rock Creek Park. For this photo above, I got up very early. I didn't see a soul on any of the trails when I got there. Because it was so dark, it was actually hard from the trail to see any good places to shoot from, but I did eventually find one. I mounted my camera on my tripod, set the lens to its widest setting, and mounted a polarizer on the lens using a Haida M15 filter holder. I needed the polarizer to reduce the glare on the water, especially on the lefthand side. I then set my exposure very low, so as not to blowout the sky, and there we have it!
Once the sun came up, I ventured up and down the river. I like this one (above) of Boulder Bridge. Again, I shot it with my tripod and polarizer. For the photo below, I used both the polarizer and a 6-stop neutral density filter so that I could use a slower shutter speed and get that nice soft look for the water. All-in-all, I think my visit to Rock Creek was a fun and successful excursion. I'm looking forward to playing with my new lens some more.
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Happy Mother's Day everyone!
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On May 2, the United States Air Force demonstration squadron (the Thunderbirds) and the United States Navy demonstration squadron (the Blue Angels) conducted a 20-minute joint flyover of Washington, D.C., as a salute to frontline COVID–19 responders. This was a very exciting event for me. We rarely get flyovers in Washington and it is very rare for the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds to fly together.
I had hoped that I might be able to get a photo of the planes flying in front of the Washington skyline, but it didn't work out from my vantage point. They were flying just a bit too high. However, they were close enough for me to get shots of the planes, which, for me, is exciting enough.
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The cherry blossoms are in bloom at the Tidal Basin here in Washington, D.C. We've all been self-quarantining at home, like much of the world, because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The bloom seemed like a good excuse to get out of the house and, at the time, we were merely being asked to practice social distancing (keeping a distance of at least 6 feet from others) rather than being asked to stay at home. Fortunately, landscape photography is a solitary endeavor.
In previous years, the cherry blossom bloom in Washington brought large crowds. While the biggest crowds usually formed in the afternoon, parking would start to become scarce at the Tidal Basin as early as 5 a.m. Photographers from all over would flock to the Tidal Basin to shoot the sunrise and the cherry trees, and you had to jockey for position to get your shot. This year was very different.
There were no crowds this time. While I did see other photographers and sightseers out there, it was easy to keep a distance of at least 6 feet. That was great for safety reasons, considering the pandemic, but it was also more pleasant and it opened up some more photographic opportunities. There is no way that, in any previous year, I would have been able to get these photos of the park benches without people sitting on and standing around them—well, that is, unless the weather were truly terrible, in which case I wouldn't be there either. The weather this year was quite nice, and that made for an overall pleasant experience.
Of course, that was my experience this year when I visited the Tidal Basin at a very early hour. I understand that within a couple of days of my visit to the Tidal Basin, the D.C. government shut down all the nearby parking and closed the two nearest Metro stations in order to discourage large crowds. I'm glad I made it when I did and that it was not crowded.
I hope you all enjoyed my photos. Stay safe!
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We've been having a snowless winter here in Washington, D.C., so we decided to make a short trip to the mountains of West Virginia to play in the snow. Unfortunately, the week before our trip, it was warm, it rained, and all the snow melted. Then, right before we got there, it got cold again. If it's going to be cold, shouldn't one at least be rewarded with some snow? Well, we did find a fun sled run with manmade snow and I did capture this photo of Blackwater Canyon and the Blackwater River. I think it turned out quite nicely, even if there wasn't any snow. I took the photo at dawn, when the temperature was about 17℉ (about -8℃). Brrrrrrrr.
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In January, I went out to California to visit some family. While I was out there, I had a chance to visit a few of the sites, most notably, the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. It was a beautiful day and the coastal redwoods were magnificent!
I also had an occasion to see the Golden Gate Bridge, possibly the most photographed bridge ever. It's a beautiful suspension bridge that spans the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide strait that connects the San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
The bridge is 4,200 feet long and 746 feet tall. That's really impressive. You actually have to stand pretty far back to see the entire thing. I got some great photos of it. I was blessed with beautiful skies and great weather.
I was also lucky to get this great shot of a cruise ship exiting the bay while a container ship was entering. I assume that the container ship was heading to the Port of Oakland, while the cruise ship was likely coming from the Port of San Francisco. The ships added a really nice sense of scale. The addition of a beautiful sunset capped off a really good visit to the Golden State.
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So I didn't manage to shoot the Capitol Christmas Tree this year. Things got a little hectic just before the holidays, but it's just as well, since the Reflecting Pool is under construction, along with part of the south wing of the Capitol. We also haven't had any snow yet, so I don't think I would have taken a particularly compelling photo even if I had tried. However, I did manage to find something else shortly after Christmas. On New Year's Day, I took my family hiking on Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. I'd never been to Sugarloaf before. Other than suffering from a bit of chilly weather, we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. I especially enjoyed the beautiful views of rural Maryland, including this one shown above. I will certainly visit Sugarloaf again.
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Fall came late this year and it seems to be leaving early. It has already started getting cold and cloudy. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet, so here's a nice sunny photo of fall foliage at the National Arboretum by the National Capitol Columns. It's too bad the season didn't last longer. At least we have some things to look forward to. Soon, it will be time for me to take my annual photo of the Capitol Christmas Tree.
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Autumn took a while to get here. We had had a lot of warm weather, which delayed the fall foliage. When it did arrive, it was beautiful as always. Autumn is possibly my favorite time of year (but ask me in late spring and I might say the same thing about spring). I try to take advantage of the weather and beautiful scenery to shoot landscapes. Here are a couple that I took of Blackwater Falls, West Virginia, from a recent trip out there with my family. (The name comes from the tannins in the water.)
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Recently, my family and I made a trip to the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island in Virginia. The wildlife refuge is known for the wild ponies that live on the island and is made famous by the beloved novel Misty of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry. I enjoyed reading the book to my kids and it was fun for all of us to see the ponies in real life. I was also happy to get some great photos of the ponies, including a foal.
The Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is also home to a lot of birds. I've never seen so many egrets all at once!
The wildlife isn't the only draw to Assateague. The scenery is beautiful. The following is a series from a sunrise that I shot.
I took the sunrise shots from a stretch of grassland between Chincoteague Island and Assateague Island. This area normally wouldn't be so full of water, but at the time there was a storm further out to sea, so we were experiencing both high tide and storm surge at the same time. Here's a photo of the road between the two islands—it's completely under water.
Besides the water flowing over the road, you can see the Assateague Lighthouse off in the distance. It's a beautiful old structure that's still in use by the Coast Guard. Here are a couple more photos of the lighthouse:
In case you were confused earlier when I mentioned Chincoteague Island: Chincoteague Island is located next to Assateague Island. The town of Chincoteague is located on Chincoteague Island and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and the ponies are located on Assateague Island. I don't know why the wildlife refuge, which is located on Assateague is named after Chincoteague.
Anyway, since it's almost Halloween, here's a photo that I took while I was on Chincoteague of the October full moon (also known as a "Hunter's Moon" or "Blood Moon"). I think the cloud cover makes it look a bit creepy and thematically appropriate. Happy Halloween!
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Summer officially ended with the autumnal equinox on September 22, but the heat continued to linger here in Washington. Just two days ago the high was 97℉!. When I got up this morning, it was 50℉. It's looking like autumn may be here for real. Farewell summer!
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Recently, I went hiking with my family at Huntley Meadows. It's a great place to see wildlife near Washington, D.C. However, since we were going in the late morning, I wasn't expecting to see much in the way of wildlife. Most of the animals are active early in the morning or late evening, especially when it's hot out, as it has been lately. So, I left my big telephoto lens at home and brought a small telephoto, just in case.
Sure enough, the clouds came out, the temperature dropped, and the animals came out in play. I was glad to have that smaller telephoto. It would have been nice to bring the bigger lens, but I think some of these turned out great. The first photo (above) is my favorite. The frogs seemed especially plentiful.
The birds were out as well. The first one below (off in the distance) is an egret. The next one is a green heron and the last is a great blue heron.
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Summer is an excellent time for insect photography. The butterfly in the above photo is a monarch. I think it looks quite lovely on that very large flower with the colorful background.
The following are some recent dragonfly photos. I am particularly fond of dragonflies; they eat mosquitos! They look cool too. Dragonflies are definitely my friends.
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Not far from Towanda, Pennsylvania, where I took the photos of the fireworks that I featured in my last blog post, I came across a really great vista overlooking the Susquehanna River and the Terry Township's rolling farmland.
I shot this photo from the top of a cliff about 500 feet above the river. I'm especially excited about the calm river and how it perfectly reflects the partly cloudy sky. I could hardly ask for better! Next time I'm up in the area, I'll have to make sure to return to the same spot. I'd love to see what it's like in the fall.
Incidentally, the location is not just beautiful, but also historic. A nearby sign, posted by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, says: "Warriors Path: A great Indian highway from Six Nations country, New York, to the Catawba country in the Carolinas. It made its way through the Allegheny Mountains by following the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys."
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For Independence Day this year, we traveled to stay with friends at their house by Lake Wesauking in Towanda, Pennsylvania. We had a great time swimming, sailing, and grilling. Being away from D.C., I figured we would miss the fireworks this year. However, I was surprised to see a brilliant show put on by the neighbors around the lake. It was a very impressive display!
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I recently had the opportunity to go on a tour of the dome of the Capitol. It was a great experience. We climbed more than 300 steps to a tiny balcony at the very top of the Capitol Rotunda. You can see the balcony in the following photo, along with a bit of the Apatheosis of Washington (the fresco overlooking the Rotunda).
Here's a view looking down on all the tourists in the Rotunda. You can sure feel some vertigo up there!
The Capitol actually has two domes. One is inside the other. When they built the north and south expansions of the Capitol, the previous dome looked out of proportion to the new larger building, so they added a larger dome over the smaller one. Here's a view from between the two domes. As you can see, while the domes appear to be made of stone, they're actually made of iron and painted white.
After climbing to the top of the interior dome, we climbed outside onto a small balcony at the top of the outer dome. The view was breathtaking.
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Recently, a neighbor asked if we would like to join his family on a trip out to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to watch NASA launch a rocket to resupply the International Space Station. Yes, we would! I had never seen a rocket launch before and everyone in the family was excited. It just so happened that the launch was during our kids' spring break and the launch was unusually scheduled for mid-afternoon (as opposed to late at night or very early in the morning). It was the perfect opportunity and it turned out to be a great experience!
The launch was part of a series of missions to resupply the International Space Station. In this case, NASA launched a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket with a Cygnus spacecraft that held supplies and materials for science experiments, including mousetronauts!
Needless to say, I took a lot of photos. Sadly, we were pretty far from the launch site. Looking at the map, I figure we were about 3½ miles away. I used my Fujifilm X-T2 with the Fujinon XF 100-400mm and a 1.4x teleconverter (840mm full-frame equivalent focal length), which in layman's terms means I zoomed in a lot. My framing was perfect and I had a great view.
Unfortunately, it was a warm day and the sun generated heat waves (heat shimmer) that wrecked any fine detail I might get from my photos. Heat waves bend light, which distorts an image. The effect is more pronounced the further you are from your target. In this case, I was very far from my target. The only way I could have avoided the effects of the heat waves (heat shimmer) would have been to get closer (not an option) or shoot at a different time of day (also not something I could control). Oh well, I had lots of fun and got some great photos of my kids and . . . I got to see a really cool event! We were lucky because launches have been canceled at the last minute for various reasons, including a plane flying into restricted airspace.
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I was back at the Tidal Basin on the 4th with my family and took this photo. The water level in the Tidal Basin was unusually high—just high enough to touch the bottoms of some of the low-hanging branches. A lack of wind made for a beautiful, mirror-like reflection in the water. I was able to capture this image by holding my camera very close to the water. I'm very happy with how it turned out.
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It's spring and here in Washington, D.C., that means cherry blossoms! It also means lots of tourists and terrible traffic jams. Fortunately, most people like to sleep in when they're on vacation. There are no crowds at 5:30 a.m. Early morning at the Tidal Basin during peak bloom is quiet and beautiful. Here are a few photos that I took on April 2.
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March 20 was the spring equinox. The equinox is the semiannual event in which the sun rises and sets along the equator. For a landscape photographer, this is significant because it means that the sun rises directly from the east and sets directly to the west. The National Mall, in Washington, D.C., runs east to west, which can make for some nice photos during the equinox. I shot this first photo (above) at dawn. The second photo (following) I shot right before sunrise. The third photo is the sunrise itself, with the sun peeking out from behind the Capitol and the Washington Monument. And finally, the fourth photo, is the Lincoln Memorial with the sunrise shining on Lincoln's face.
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Last week, I decided to head out and visit someplace new. So, I went to Kilgore Falls in the Falling Branch area of Rocks State Park in Maryland. I didn't know what to expect, but I hoped for something great, and it was. Rocks State Park is in the heart of rural, scenic Maryland. The trail to the waterfall was beautiful and tranquil and the waterfall was magnificent. I had fun taking this photo.
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It's snowing again today, so I thought I might share some more photos from our last big snowstorm, which happened a couple of weeks ago. Washington is always beautiful when it snows.
This next photo is interesting because I got photo bombed by one of the helicopters operated by Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1 "Nighthawks"). This helicopter squadron is known for transporting the President and the Vice President.
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Last Sunday night, we experienced an unusual lunar event. We had a total lunar eclipse of a full supermoon. It was absolutely gorgeous! I took this series of photos between 10:54 PM on Sunday and 1:33 AM on Monday. I was lucky that the sky was clear, but it was extremely cold. The temperature was 19º F with 21 mph winds gusting up to 40 mph.
The first two images in the series are of the Earth's penumbral shadow reaching across the moon and leading to the total lunar eclipse. After two images of the lunar eclipse are two images of the Earth's penumbral shadow receding from the moon. The moon turns red during a total lunar eclipse because the only light hitting the moon consists of rays of sunlight that are passing through the Earth's atmosphere, turning red in the same way that they do during a sunset. It is because of this red color that a total lunar eclipse is sometimes called a "blood moon".
A supermoon is a full moon or a new moon that nearly coincides with perigee—the closest that the moon comes to the Earth in its elliptic orbit—resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth. (Supermoon, Wikipedia (Jan. 27, 2019).) The fact that we had a full supermoon that coincided with a total lunar eclipse made this event extraordinary.
Each month's full moon has a name associated with it from folklore and past culture. According to National Geographic, January's full moon is known as the "Wolf Moon". American Indians and medieval Europeans named January's full moon after the howling wolves lamenting the midwinter paucity of food. Other names for January's full moon include "old moon" and "ice moon". Personally, I like "wolf moon".
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Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. It was also the first mostly clear day after a big snowstorm. So I went over to the Tidal Basin to shoot the sunrise and this photo of Martin Luther King Jr. looking very cold. I will share my sunrise photos soon, but figured posting this one now would be timely. I hope you all enjoy the long weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. day. I plan to use some of that time to reflect upon his legacy.
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Above is a photo of the 2018 Capitol Christmas Tree in front of the United States Capitol, here in Washington, D.C. This year, the tree came from the Willamette National Forest in Oregon. It was harvested on November 2 and traveled to Washington by truck.
Below is another photo I took of this year's Capitol Christmas Tree. I like this angle and the colors. Enjoy!
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Autumn is finally here. The trees around Washington, D.C., appeared to reach their peak color around Thanksgiving. This is highly unusually. Normally the trees would be completely bare by Thanksgiving. Better late than never! I shot these two photos of the Capitol framed in fall foliage the day after Thanksgiving.
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Congress was out of session in October to give members time to campaign for the November election. I took a few vacation days and used the opportunity to get out and shoot some fall foliage. Here, at the end of October, I drove out to Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland. Catoctin is a national park that is relatively close to D.C. It also happens to be where Camp David, the Presidential retreat, is located.
I didn't actually go anywhere near Camp David, which is off limits to park visitors anyway. I wanted to shoot the sunrise at Chimney Rock, which is in a different part of the park. As you can see, even though it was late October, many of the trees had yet to turn. Nature decided this year that autumn should begin a month later. Nevertheless, it was a very pretty sunrise and I think I captured some great colors.
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In mid-October, I made the trek over to Shenandoah very early in the morning. It was a beautiful morning. Well, all mornings in Shenandoah are beautiful, but this was an especially beautiful morning. The clouds were perfect and I got some really great color in the sky. I love such mornings. However, one thing was quite strange. In a normal year, all of the leaves would have turned by mid-October. This year, the trees were still very green. I attribute this to the oddly warm weather we'd been having.
After shooting the sunrise, I went for a hike on one of my favorite trails, viz. Whiteoak Canyon. I've shot Upper Whiteoak Falls before (spring and fall). This was my first time hiking further downstream and shooting Lower Whietoak Falls. It was very pretty.
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Last month, I headed down to Charlottesville, Virginia, with my family to visit Monticello, the home and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and the author of the Declaration of Independence. According to our tour guide, the plantation is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is recognized not for the historical significance of its former occupant, but for its architectural significance. Thomas Jefferson was an innovative architect and for his home at Monticello, he mixed various architectural styles and included many of his own innovations.
After visiting Monticello, we headed down to visit the University of Virginia. The school was founded by Thomas Jefferson and he designed some of the first buildings, including The Rotunda, which you can see in the following two photos.
According to Wikipedia, The Rotunda "was designed by Thomas Jefferson to represent the 'authority of nature and power of reason' and was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Construction began in 1822 and was completed shortly after Jefferson's death in 1826. The grounds of the new university were unique in that they surrounded a library housed in the Rotunda rather than a church, as was common at other universities in the English-speaking world. The Rotunda is seen as a lasting symbol of Jefferson's belief in the separation of church and education, as well as his lifelong dedication to both education and architecture."
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After stopping at Pinnacles Overlook, we drove to Skyland and hiked up Stony Man. Unfortunatley, by the time we got to the peak, low clouds moved in to obstruct our view. Here's a photo I took just before the clouds completely obstructed our view.
All was not lost (photographically). After departing the Stony Man parking area, we came across the Thorofare Mountain Overlook and got a great view of the clouds creeping over the Blue Ridge Mountains.
We had a fun time on the hike and the views with the clouds rolling in were wonderful. I hope you enjoyed my photos. I have some more coming from subsequent trips to Shenandoah and Catoctin. Stay tuned!
]]>I started out shooting some of the countryside. The area had been experiencing a tremendous amount of rain. With all of the heavy cloud cover, I didn't get to see any sunsets, but the grass was very green. I really liked this red barn that I found in the Wysox Township nearby. I took lots of photos. These are my favorite three.
I tried for another sunset on a second night, but the cloud cover was even heavier.
I really like this old barn I found in the Rome Township of Towanda. The ivy growing up the side of the barn in the following photo and the old red tractor next to the barn in the next photo are both picturesque.
Of course I couldn't visit Lake Wesauking without actually taking any pictures of the lake. As with my sunset attempts, the clouds blocked the sunrise, but I did nevertheless get some nice color. I really like the texture in the clouds reflected in the perfectly tranquil lake.
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Great Falls after a Summer RainThe fog burns off at Great Falls in Virginia. The Potomac River is swollen with a lot of recent rainfall.
We've been having a lot of rain lately. On Friday, it let up for a bit and I set out to see what Great Falls looked like. The Potomac was quite swollen. I took this shot shortly after the fog lifted. It was a beautiful morning.]]>
Dragonfly Ready to LaunchA dragonfly perched at the end of a blade of grass. Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens, Washington, D.C.
Earlier this year, I purchased the Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR Lens (yes, lens names are boring). It's a telephoto lens that extends to 400mm, which is quite long. This is a big, heavy lens I'd been wanting for quite some time. It has a good focal length for shooting wildlife, landscapes that feature the moon, flowers, and dragonflies. I'd played with the lens some after getting it, but until recently, I hadn't had a chance to take it out and really put it through its paces.
So when the weather turned nice and I had some free time, I took my new lens out to Kenilworth for the lotus bloom. I was a little anxious. Long telephotos are notoriously difficulty to use (they have a very shallow depth of field) and I wanted my first outing with the lens to be a success. Fortunately, it all turned out great and I am very pleased with the results. The conditions weren't great for shooting flowers (the sun was too intense) but it was perfect for dragonflies (they like the sun). I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this lens.
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Independence Day this year was miserably hot and humid, but the fireworks were fantastic! This year I sat on the steps of the Capitol and had a great view of the fireworks exploding over the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I normally try to post no more than two or three photos at a time, but I got very indecisive when writing this blog post. Which ones do you like best? I can't decide.
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I recently visited the National Gallery of Art, here in Washington, D.C. and really liked this 14½ -foot sculpture of a blue rooster ("Hahn/Cock" by Katharina Fritsch). When I was younger, I was a big fan of the classics and some of the early modern artists, such as the French impressionists. I never cared for abstract expressionism or contemporary art. But as I grow older, I find myself gravitating more towards the later modern artists and contemporary art, like this enormous blue rooster. It's the creativity that impresses and speaks to me the most.
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Next Monday is Memorial Day. I took the image above and the image below at the Marine Corps War Memorial (also known as the "Iwo Jima Memorial") back in March. I really like these images and I would have published them sooner, but I thought publishing them right before Memorial Day would be appropriate.
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Last Wednesday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I was at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial the day after and took the above photo. On the day of the anniversary, the National Council of Churches held an all day rally to combat systemic racism. They gathered in the morning at the Memorial and marched to the National Mall. I assume they left the wreaths at the Stone of Hope (in the photo above).
The anniversary coincidentally coincided with the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms. Normally huge crowds of tourists would be gathered at the memorial and around the Tidal Basin to admire the cherry blossoms. However, instead of encountering crowds on the morning after the anniversary, I found a quiet and solemn sunrise. It seemed appropriate.
I took some photos of the sunrise as well, but I wanted to publish my photos of the Memorial first. This next photo is of the Memorial two days later.
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In March, I love to shoot the monuments in Washington, D.C. The vernal equinox is in March, so the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west. The monuments also happen to be laid out mostly in a line from east to west. Here are two photos, one shortly before sunrise and one at sunrise, featuring the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and Arlington Memorial Bridge.
While I was out having fun shooting the sunrise, I noticed lots of robins out looking for worms. They sure look well fed!
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We didn't get a lot of snow from the bomb cyclone here in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, but we sure did get some cold temperatures. When I took this photo at Great Falls (about 30 min. outside Washington in Virginia), it was 10.9 °F or -7.0 °F, if you account for the 18.4 mph winds.]]>
Happy holidays everyone! I shot this yesterday. The 2017 Capitol Christmas Tree is an Engelmann Spruce from the Kootenai National Forest in Montana.]]>This one is of Blackwater Falls. Low clouds and light rain brought out some great color in the fall foliage around the falls.
In this one, you can see the low clouds creeping through Blackwater Canyon.
I've taken some photos of the Falls of Elakala before. It's a beautiful, tranquil spot. This time I figured I'd include the bridge over the falls.
I got up early to shoot the sunrise from Pendleton Overlook. My view of the sunrise ended up being obstructed, so I turned away and shot the other direction. In this one you can see the full moon is still out while the clouds start to light up with the first rays of the morning sun.
Lindy Point is one of my favorite places in Blackwater Falls State Park. My luck with the clouds seemed to hold. I like this one quite a bit, along with the following photo. After the sun dropped below the horizon, the clouds turned purple.
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Incidentally, it was a beautiful day at Huntley Meadows.
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The Photographer's Ephemeris says sunrise will be at 6:38 atop the mountain. We want to be there for dawn as well, which begins at 6:10. We should be there no later than 6:00, so we have a few minutes to setup for the shoot. And we'll have to hike to get there. The National Park Service says the hike is of moderate difficulty, but short—only a 1 hour hike, round trip. So, we should make sure to be at the trailhead by 5:30 at the latest. Apple Maps says it's a 2.5 hour drive, so we'd better leave by 3:00. Getting up at 2:30 should be fine, as long as we setup the coffee maker the night before (we'll need it) and pack the gear ahead of time.
So we head out at 3:00 in the morning. It's temping to go back to bed, but the coffee is helping. The drive is going great until we get into further out into the Piedmont region. It's still dark, fog is settling in, and there are lots of deer along the side of the road. We'll have to slow down a bit to stay safe. Keep your fingers crossed we make good time—we would feel really silly getting up at 2:30, drive out all this way, and then miss the sunrise!
Fortunately, we get there on time. There are almost no cars on the road and just one other car in the parking lot at the trailhead. So, we don our head lamps and set off. We'll have to hike at a brisk pace. It's not easy going though—much of the trail consists of a rock scramble and everything is harder in the dark. Here's an iPhone photo of the trail:
The trail isn't quite as bad as it seemed at first. We make it up just in time for dawn.
It's pretty atop the mountain, but a little chilly and a little windy. We'll have to experiment with our camera settings to compensate for the wind. It won't do to have all the foliage blurry. ... And then the sun comes up:
It's very pretty, but too bad there aren't any clouds. One of the special things about Bearfence is that from the peak you have a 360-degree view of Shenandoah. In fact, if we turn around, we can see that there are clouds coming in from the west.
Speaking of which, turning around is difficult. We're literally standing on a bunch of rocks at the top of the mountain. If we take a step backwards, we'll fall down the other side of the mountain. Oh and let's look at those clouds gain. Wow, they're moving fast!
And then:
Well, there goes our special 360-degree view of Shenandoah! I guess we might as well pack up and continue onto the second part of the trail and climb back down. We have more rock scramble ahead of us:
The trail is a bit ho-hum in the fog. We find a little lookout along the trail and stop to eat sandwiches. There's nothing to see but fog. After eating, we head out again. Further along the trail, there's a moment when the sun pushes its way through the fog and foliage. We'll have to get the camera back out for this!
That was a fun hike. We're back in the car now. It's getting close to mid-morning. We might as well drive north and start heading back. Mid-morning light usually makes for bad landscapes. But we got some good stuff and we might get back home in time for a late lunch.
On our drive north, we pass by some beautiful vistas. The patchy clouds are casting shadows on the forest below:
We stop at the visitor center at Big Meadows to fill the water bottles. The view from the visitor center looks great. The low clouds have followed us north.
We might as well walk on down into the meadow while we're here!
When we get down into the meadow, the clouds are starting to lift and the light is a little harsh, but it's still very pretty.
And then the clouds have lifted.
Well, I'd say that was a productive morning! We had a fun hike, got to see something new, and have a few great photos for our efforts. Let's head on home!
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The giant Victoria water-lilies bloom in August here in Washington, D.C. The leaves of the Victoria can grow up to almost 10 feet in diameter. They're very impressive.
Also in bloom in August is the blue lotus—also a beautiful sight:
I found both the Victoria and the blue lotus at Kenilworth. While I was there, a great blue heron stopped by to squawk hello:
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I decided I needed to hang some new photos in my boys' room. So, I asked my oldest son, who is now 4, what he would like. He said he wanted a Zamboni, an Italian streetcar, and an Amtrak diesel locomotive. I happen to have photos of all of those things.
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I took that shot at a bit before 6:00 AM. I took the following at 5:20 AM:
And I was home by lunchtime.
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Happy Independence Day everyone!
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Here's one last photo for you in my series from Italy: a scenic look at Rome from the Villa Borghese Gardens. Check out the whole Italy series in an album here.]]>
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I was in Rome in March, during the off season. Besides small crowds, there was one really nice advantage: I was there for the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox is when the plane of the Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun, which occurs twice each year, once in the fall and once in the spring. The significance for most people is that during the equinox, day and night are approximately the same duration. For a photographer, the significance is that the sun rises and sets almost directly east to west. The Forum stretches east to west, with Capitoline Hill at the western edge and the Colosseum at the eastern edge. I was therefore able to capture the following sunrise:
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Happy holidays, everyone! Here are my annual photos of the United States Capitol Christmas Tree. This year's tree is an 80-foot Engelmann Spruce from the Payette National Forest in Idaho.
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Here's another shot from a little earlier (dawn, before sunrise):
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Last week, I had a chance to visit Great Falls. I had a great time. The sunrise was beautiful and I got to see some wildlife. It was well worth putting up with the heat and humidity.
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This week, a corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) bloomed at the United States Botanic Garden. It's an enormous and rare flower that gets its name from the stench it emits. The flower that bloomed at the Botanic Garden this week was 7' 4"! It was also six years old this week when it bloomed for the first time. Some corpse flowers go decades between blooms and the blooms typically only last for 24–48 hours. I felt very fortunate to shoot this corpse flower. I had never seen a flower nearly so large. It was quite a sight to behold.
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It's interesting to see how they modified the photo from the original. Here's my photo, which I licensed to Capital Concerts for promotion of the concert:
Here is how the photo appears on Yahoo! TV:
I normally don't shoot by request, but for my three-year-old, I've made an exception and shot a series of Amtrak trains. I didn't know much about trains previously, but I learned quite a lot while shooting the series. So, I'll share the series along with a little bit of what I learned.
The following represents Amtrak's basic lineup of locomotives, starting with a GE P42DC, which is Amtrak's primary road diesel. It was introduced in 1996 and can travel up to 110 mph.
The P42DC features an extra low height, allowing it to travel through low-profile tunnels in the Northeast Corridor. It also features a single, monocoque carboy design, which makes the locomotive lighter, more aerodynamic, and more fuel efficient than previous Amtrak diesel locomotives. However, this design makes it more costly and time-consuming to maintain and repair.
Below is a Siemens ACS–64 (also known as the "Amtrak Cities Sprinter"). The ACS–64 is an electric locomotive operated by Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor. The first Amtrak ACS–64 entered service in February of 2014. It can accelerate 18 Amfleet cars to maximum speeds as high as 125 mph in the Northeast Corridor in a little more than 8 minutes.
The design of the ACS–64 is based on various platforms that Siemens sells in Europe and Asia and has significant structural changes to the design to comply with American crashworthiness requirements. The body is also a monocoque structure with integral frames and sidewalls. The ACS–64 has advanced safety systems and is more energy-efficient than the older Amtrak locomotives.
In the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak also operates Acela Express trainsets. (The term "trainset" refers to a group of rolling stock that are permanently or semi-permanently coupled.) Acela is Amtrak's flagship and high-speed rail service along the Northeast Corridor. Acela trainsets can attain speeds as high as 150 mph, making them the fastest trainsets in the Americas. Acela trainsets use tilting technology, which helps control lateral centrifugal forces, allowing the them to travel at higher speeds on the sharply curved Northeast Corridor without disturbing passengers.
Amtrak has some additional locomotives in service that are a bit less glamorous than the Acela trainsets. These locomotives are "switchers." A switcher is a locomotive used for assembling trains and moving railroad cars around. They aren't generally used for pulling cars between destinations. Above is a National Railway Equipment 2GS12BR diesel genset switcher.
So, I had some fun shooting these trains and I learned a lot more about Amtrak than I ever knew before. My son is also very happy with the photos, which is the most important thing.
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I have a couple of additional cherry blossom photos to share with everyone. I like this one (above) of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, framed by cherry blossoms. The following is a photo of a cherry tree at the Tidal Basin in bloom, but from a high vantage point. I like the mix of color and the unusual perspective.
Happy spring, everyone!
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In my last blog post, I featured a photo taken just before the cherry trees at the Tidal Basin had reached peak bloom. And here we are above, just two days later, with the cherry trees in full bloom. Of course, as you can see in the following, not quite all of the blossoms had opened, but enough were open for the National Park Service to consider the Tidal Basin in full bloom.
When I'm at the Tidal Basin, I mostly shoot scenic landscapes, but I do also like close-ups of the blossoms.
In another recent post, I presented a scenic photo of the Tidal Basin just before sunrise, when the Tidal Basin hadn't yet reached full bloom (March 22). Here's a similarly framed shot taken on March 24th, the first day of full bloom. What a difference two days can make!
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The cherry blossom bloom at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., can be magical. I look forward to it every year. Sometimes the weather is down-right awful—and those are some of the best times to visit. When I took the photo above, it was 36 degrees. That's hardly the kind of temperature that you would expect in the spring. But on a weekday morning, the frigid temperatures keep the crowds away and allow one to appreciate the the tranquil beauty of the time and place.]]>
Pink Rising Over WashingtonA gorgeaous pink sunrise at the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, just days before peak bloom for the cherry blossoms.
The cherry blossoms are coming! Actually, that was true when I took this photo on Tuesday, but it has taken me several days to process the photo. Peak bloom started on Thursday and they will all be gone soon. Don't worry if you missed the blossoms this year; I will be posting several photos over the next couple of weeks.]]>So, I decided to shoot local. Last week, I posted some images that I shot at the Tidal Basin shortly after Snowzilla, the great Washington snowstorm of 2016. But I really wanted to shoot some snow in a wilderness setting. Fortunately for me, we have a bit of wilderness right in the heart of Washington, namely Rock Creek Park.
Boulder Bridge with snowBoulder Bridge and Rock Creek in Washington, DC, covered in deep snow.
My first stop was to Boulder Bridge, one of the most iconic features of Rock Creek Park. It wasn't very easy getting there with all the snow, but it was worth it. The creek was mostly frozen over, which allowed me to get the shot above without getting swept away in the rapids. I think the amount of snow and the unusual vantage point make the photo unique and quite compelling.
I took this next photo of the creek from Rapids Bridge. The height gave me a nice perspective and you can see just how much snow we received.
Rock Creek with snowSnow and ice cover Rock Creek in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC.
I took lots of photos of the snow in Rock Creek Park, but I normally prefer only to post one or two at a time. However, I like this next one as well, so I'm posting a third. It's a classic shot of Boulder Bridge, but with snow and this time with a bit more blue sky.
With all this snow and ice, the creek looks a bit tame. However, in the parts I've been shooting, it's anything but tame. For a fun comparison, here are two photos I took of the creek a couple of years ago in the early fall:
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Sunstar over a frozen Tidal BasinThe Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, is frozen over after Snowzilla, one of the largest snowstorms in DC history. The shore is blanketed with snow and a woman sitting on a half buried park bench checks her phone while the setting sun forms a sunstar as it peeks through the bare branches of a cherry tree.
In my last blog entry, I wrote about how warm the weather was at Christmas. Just a month later things have really changed! On January 22 and 23, Washington was hit by a snowstorm dubbed "Snowzilla". The National Park Service measured 22 inches of snow at the White House and some of the northern suburbs received as much as 3 feet of snow!
Snow, cherry tree, and a sunstarThe sun sets on a snow covered Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. The sun peeks through the bare branches of a cherry tree, forming a sunstar.
Two feet of snow is quite a lot for a city like Washington, which normally doesn't ever receive more than a couple of inches of snow at a time. While many saw the storm as a big headache (it shut down the entire city for days), others saw it as an opportunity for sledding and snowball fights. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to shoot some landscapes.
All these images are from the Tidal Basin, one of my favorite places in Washington. The panoramas feature the Thomas Jefferson Memorial at sunset. I think they all turned out great and I had a lot of fun shooting them. I will follow-up soon with another blog post featuring some more images I shot just after the storm.
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Above is the 2015 Capitol Christmas Tree. It's a 74' Lutz spruce that came all the way from Church National Forest in Alaska.
Have a merry warm Christmas!
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Last weekend was the last weekend of Artomatic 2015. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to see my exhibit. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed all the feedback.
If you didn't get a chance to see my exhibit, I put together an online gallery of the photos I featured in the exhibit. See the gallery here.
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- Where: 8100 Corporate Drive, Hyattsville MD (right by the New Carrollton Metro Station).
- When: Saturday, November 14 from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M.
- Exhibit location: 3-062.
Artomatic is on! Opening night was Friday night and my exhibit looks great! It will run through December 12, so there's plenty of time to go out and see it. There are several hundred other artists exhibiting too, so it's quite a fun event. (For more information about schedule and location, see my previous blog post.)
If you're interested in purchasing one of the signed, framed prints in the exhibit, send me an e-mail. Otherwise, I made an online gallery of the exhibit, where standard prints, with and without framing, canvas gallery wraps, and metal prints are available for purchase.
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I am please to announce that Artomatic 2015 is finally here! After a 3 year hiatus, Artomatic is returning and once again, I will be exhibiting my work. I am putting together a really great exhibit this year and I can't wait to show it off. If you would like to see it in person, stop on by! My exhibit will be on display for six weeks, starting October 30. Here are all the details:
When?October 30 – December 12 Wednesdays & Thursdays Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Closed Mondays and Tuesdays |
Where?Address: Metro: My exhibit space: |
Artomatic 2015 will feature hundreds of visual, creative, and performing art. There will be several bars throughout the building. It's a great opportunity to grab a drink and check out some really amazing, eclectic, and in same cases down right bizarre art.
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Dawn on H StreetDawn on the H Street corridor in Washington, DC. Busses whiz by and clouds block what would have been a glorious sunrise on the autumnal equinox.
Last week I published some photos of a sunset at the Lincoln Memorial just a few days before the Autumnal Equinox. I had planned to shoot the sun setting just behind the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool. Since Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool face directly to the east, I had to time my shoot just before the Autumnal Equinox. Similarly, I planned to shoot a sunrise of the H Street corridor. Because H Street runs east and west, I had to shoot the sunrise on the day of the Autumnal Equinox.
Streetcars on H StreetSunrise on the H Street corridor in Washington, DC, during the autumnal equinox. Low clouds block the sun, providing soft, filtered light as commuters try to get to work. The new DC Streetcars are out for testing.
Unfortunately, the clouds didn't cooperate. Low lying clouds blocked the sunrise on the morning of the Autumnal Equinox. However, all was not lost. The clouds filtered the sunlight, casting a warm glow on the corridor. Moreover, the new DC Streetcars were out for testing, which was a fun treat and made for some nice photos.
The H Street corridor has seen a lot of change in the past few years and it's nice to see how things are improving. The change is quite evident in the following two photos. I shot the first photo last week and the second on January 10, 2012.
Not only is the DC Streetcar new, but several new large buildings have gone up and more are on the way. The H Street corridor is a vibrant and growing part of Washington.
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Supermoon Eclipse Under a Veil of CloudsOn September 27, 2015, North America was treated to a lunar eclipse with a supermoon. A supermoon is when the moon is at its closest point to the earth all year—meaning it appears 14% bigger and 30% brighter. The reddish color is characteristic of an autumnal full moon—frequently known as a "harvest moon" or a "hunter's moon".
On September 27, 2015, North America was treated to a lunar eclipse with a supermoon. A supermoon is when the moon is at its closest to the earth all year—meaning it appears 14% bigger and 30% brighter. The last time we experienced an eclipse of a supermoon was in 1982 and the next eclipse of a supermoon isn't supposed to occur until 2033. So, the supermoon eclipse sounded like it should be quite spectacular.
Unfortunately, Washington, DC, experienced significant cloud cover. Getting a good shot of the supermoon during the eclipse was almost impossible. To get this shot, I had to wait for a break in the quickly moving clouds and then take a quick shot before the clouds covered it back up again. This proved to be quite challenging.
Fortunately, I did get something, at least to document the occasion. The bottom right corner of the moon in the photo is where sunlight is reflecting off the moon. The rest of the moon is in a shadow created by the earth. The reddish color is characteristic of an autumnal full moon—frequently known as a "harvest moon" or a "hunter's moon".
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A while back, I decided I wanted to take some photos of the sun setting behind the Lincoln Memorial with the Reflecting Pool in front. But then I had to wait five months to take the photo. To get the shots I wanted, I needed the sun to set in just the right spot.
There are only two days each year when the sun sets directly to the west (the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool face east). On the Autumnal Equinox and the Vernal Equinox, the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west. Every other day, the sun rises and sets in a slightly different location—a bit to the north or south. This means you really have to plan ahead and be patient. The window of opportunity is very small. If it had been cloudy when I took this shot, I probably would have had to wait another six months.
I took these shots on Friday, a few days before the Autumnal Equinox, which is on Wednesday. I needed the sun to set slightly to the side of the Lincoln Memorial. With a little bit of luck and a lot of planning, I got what I wanted. I think the shots turned out great.
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The following isn't actually a Victoria water lily, but rather a winter hardy water lily. I shot it when I shot the Victoria water lilies. I like the strong contrast of the single white flower against all the dark green.
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And here's one from earlier in the morning. The clouds were much more cooperative before sunrise.
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My photo of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, was recently published in the spring issue of Long Weekends magazine. It's on page 42 and looks great. The caption reads: "Because of its breathtaking scenery, Harpers Ferry was once cited by art historians as the most 'painted town' in America." I took the photo last year after a challenging hike to the top of Maryland Heights.
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On May 8, 2015, the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, a diverse array of World War II aircraft flew over the skies of Washington, D.C., to honor the heroes who fought in World War II and those at home who produced the tanks, ships, and aircraft that enabled the United States and its Allies to achieve victory.
The flyover took place just after noon, so I was able to attend merely by running across the street to watch during my lunch break. I was able to get out on the west front terrace of the Capitol. There was quite a crowd.
The aircraft flew in 15 historically sequenced formations. Each formation represented a major battle of the War. Here are some of my favorites. (Click on the photos for more information.)
The following two photos are of North American AT-6/SNJs flying in the first formation, the "Trainer" formation. I've seen a lot of these in movies about World War II.
The second formation, the "Pearl Harbor" formation, included Curtiss P-40 Warhawks. These are the "Flying Tigers"! As a kid, I loved the tiger mouths that were painted on the noses of the fighters.
The B-17 Flying Fortress from the ninth formation, the "Big Week" formation, was really neat and I'm quite happy with the photo. If you look closely, you can see where all the gunners sat.
I'm particularly fond of the following photo and the one at the start of this post. (These are from the thirteenth "Iwo Jima" formation). The Corsairs are very fast airplanes and I was afraid the photos wouldn't turn out.
The following airplane is enormous. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress (in the fourteenth "Final Air Offensive" formation) is the same kind of airplane that dropped the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
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I love the color and how the sun is just peeking over the horizon. I also took the following just a bit earlier:
I think the purple skies are really great. I'm quite happy with both shots. However, I figured I could get another nice shot shortly after sunrise, so I visited the Tidal Basin and shot this:
The cherry blossoms should be here at the end of next week!
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It won't be much longer now until the cherry blossoms arrive!
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This Saturday, a print of my image Jefferson and the Cherry Tree (above) will be auctioned off at the 8th Annual Dancing After Dark, an event to benefit Children's National here in Washington, DC. I signed the print and it's beautifully framed by the generous folks at Frame of Mine. The event, which will include cocktails, desserts, and dancing, will be held at the Carnegie Library. For tickets and other information, visit the event website.
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This year for my annual holiday blog post, I took two photos. The first features the 2014 Capitol Christmas Tree in front of the Capitol. The dome of the Capitol is covered in scaffolding. It is currently undergoing a two-year restoration. The tree is a white spruce from the Chippewa National Forest in Cass Lake, Minnesota. It was harvested on October 29. The tree is decorated with thousands of ornaments, handcrafted by children and others from Minnesota. The second photo features the tree with the National Mall and the Washington Monument in the background.
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This one of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial doesn't feature much in the way of fall foliage, but I'm including it anyway because I took it shortly after the other two and it seems to me that I rarely find the place vacant of tourists.
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Here are a couple of lotuses I shot recently at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens (click on an image to enlarge):
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I've always been fond of the National Capitol Columns monument. In the following photo, the snow around the base of the 22 Corinthian columns really set off a nice contrast with the blue sky.
I spent some of my time at the Arboretum shooting the trees as well. I was particularly taken with this Crape-Myrtle in the Gotelli Dwarf and Slowing-Growing Conifer Collection. To me, it looks as though the tree is reaching out to embrace me.
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Here are a couple of landscapes that I shot the morning after the snowstorm. I shot them at Great Falls, Virginia, which is just a little ways up the Potomac River from Washington.
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The three memorial spires range from 201 feet (61 m) to 270 feet (82 m) high and appear to be soaring; its array of stainless steel arcs against the sky evoke the image of "contrails of the Air Force Thunderbirds as they peel back in a precision 'bomb burst' maneuver." Only three of the four contrails are depicted, at 120 degrees from each other, as the absent fourth suggests the missing man formation traditionally used at Air Force funeral fly-overs. (Wikipedia, United States Air Force Memorial (as of Jan. 6, 2014).)
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The second photo is a closer shot of the 2013 Capitol Christmas Tree in front of the Capitol. The 2013 Capitol Christmas Tree is an 88 foot tall Engelmann spruce from Colville National Forest in northeast Washington State. It is decorated with thousands of ornaments handcrafted by the children of Washington State.
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On November 11, I ventured over to the Jefferson Building to shoot the Main Reading Room. It was a fun excursion. I've always been very fond of libraries and the Library of Congress is a very special place. Here are a couple of my favorite shots of the Main Reading Room. I hope you like them as much as I do!
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I attended the opening reception last night and the exhibit looks great! Thanks to everyone who attended the reception. I appreciate your support.
]]>I put a lot of work into the printing and framing of the images in the exhibit and I can say they look fantastic! The images are printed on high-quality luster or cotton fiber fine-art paper using professional-grade pigment ink for superior image quality and long life. Prints are matted with acid-free paper and framed in matte black wooden frames with non-glare acrylic. Each print is also signed and available for purchase. If you are interested in purchasing one of the framed prints displayed in the exhibit, send me an e-mail to arrange for payment and delivery after the exhibit ends on January 24.
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The following are a couple of shots of Rock Creek that I took last weekend. You can see some nice reds and yellows popping out of the trees around the river. It was cloudy at the time, which makes for some great river photography.
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African lions roar and strut and act the apex carnivore, but they’re lucky to catch 25 percent of the prey they pursue. Great white sharks have 300 slashing teeth and that ominous soundtrack, and still nearly half their hunts fail. Dragonflies, by contrast, look dainty, glittery and fun, like a bubble bath or costume jewelry, and they’re often grouped with butterflies and ladybugs on the very short list of Insects People Like. Yet they are also voracious aerial predators, and new research suggests they may well be the most brutally effective hunters in the animal kingdom. When setting off to feed on other flying insects, dragonflies manage to snatch their targets in midair more than 95 percent of the time, often wolfishly consuming the fresh meat on the spur without bothering to alight. Angier, Natalie, "Nature's Drone, Pretty and Deadly", New York Times, September 9, 2013.
Perhaps the best part of all may be that dragonflies eat mosquitoes! Here are a couple of shots of dragonflies from a recent visit to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens—one of the last places in DC that I would expect to get bitten by a mosquito.
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I hope you like my new fireworks images. Let me know which crop you like best. Thanks!
Expanded crop version:
Closer crop version:
Here are two photos. I took the first just before the start of civil twilight and the second right at the start of civil twilight (dusk). I took the photos only 11 minutes apart and as you can see, in that 11 minutes, the light changed considerably.
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Here are a couple of the waterlilies. I think the colors turned out great. Flowers tend to look best on cloudy days and I used a polarizer to cut down on the glare. I'll try to get back to Kenilworth in a few weeks to see if I can get any of the lotuses.
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Here are five of my favorite images of the bear cubs. Want to see them bigger? Just click on an image.
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In the image above, you may notice the scaffolding covering the Washington Monument. It's currently undergoing repairs required due to significant damage that was caused by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that occurred back in August 2011.
The peak bloom is one of my favorite times in D.C. and I enjoyed showing my father around the Tidal Basin. It seemed appropriate to think about him and our fun times together by returning to the Tidal Basin.
I'm pleased at how these images turned out and I really wish that I could share them with my father. He had always been supportive of my photography and I think he would have liked these images.
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Last weekend I had an opportunity to shoot a panorama of the courtyard. The planters in the courtyard are particularly nice right now, as they're filled with fresh spring flowers. In the following panorama, you can also see wet footprints next to the water scrims. While I was shooting the panorama, children were running in and out of the water, having a really great time.
This image is a panorama of 295 stitched and blended images. It prints nicely in a large 1:3 aspect ratio.
We had a Calder when I was a student at MIT as well (see here). I really liked that one too, but it didn't also have a mobile. In fact, I think Mountains and Clouds is Calder's only sculpture with an accompanying mobile. It may be his only mobile that isn't colorful. (Example here.) He died before it was built, so no one knows if the mobile was supposed to be colorful.
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They say all great landscape photographers plan out their shots. They visit a location, they visualize the shot they want, and they study the weather, the seasons, and the trajectories of the sun and the moon. I do all of these things as well, but it seems that no matter how hard I try, things never turn out the way I plan. So, I plan, and when things don't turn out, I adapt.
Last Sunday, weather.com predicted partly cloudy conditions at Great Falls. The Photographer's Ephemeris told me where and how the sun would set in relation to the falls. I planned and visualized my shot. I gathered my gear and set out to capture a glorious sunset.
When I arrived at Great Falls, clouds were gathering. Conditions looked good, but when the sun started to set, the clouds blanketed the sky and a sunset failed to materialize—a definite disappointment. So, like a general who adapts upon engaging an enemy, I adapted to the changing weather conditions. I experimented by contrasting the texture of the water with the texture of the overcast sky. The result was definitely a success.
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Fortunately, Friday was different. It was a cold, beautiful day here in Washington. We had some great cumulus clouds floating over the city, and I was able to get off work a little early. So, I grabbed my camera and tripod and ran over to the National Arboretum. I was prepared to head out with all my gear at the last minute and I was rewarded with some great skies and late afternoon sun.
I hope you like my photos. If you do, please hit the like button, leave a comment, or tweet it to your friends!
Note: Most of these images were taken with the Nikon 70-200 f/4 combined with the Nikon TC-20E III teleconverter, handheld using VR.
I took this photo of the Washington Monument and the Tidal Basin just as Snowmageddon was subsiding. As you may recall, Snowmageddon was the nickname for the massive snowstorm that hit Washington, D.C., in February of 2010. During the 2009-2010 winter season, the Washington, D.C., metro region received 56.1" of snow, hugely surpassing the average of 15.2" for the region and breaking the 111-year record.
Anyway, my friend's comments got me thinking. I wondered if I could take a photo of the building that would make it look interesting. So, I gave it a shot:
Here's a slightly different angle with more interesting traffic light patterns:
What do you think?
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I took this photo of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial last weekend at the Tidal Basin here in Washington. A number of low-lying clouds are obscuring the sunrise, which is occurring directly behind the memorial. This is an unusual shot of the memorial because the sun normally rises well to the left (east) of the memorial, but because of the time of year, the sun rises further to the south than normal.
I particularly love this tree. When I took this shot, the sun was low and angled from behind, lighting up the canopy from underneath.
Meridian Hill Park is a structured urban park in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It's most striking feature is the Italian Renaissance-style terraced fountain in the lower half of the park. (Wikipedia, Meridian Hill Park (as of November 20, 2012).) The light was a bit harsh when I took this photo, but I thought it was really nice to see all these people out reading along the side of the fountain.
Recent history relating to the park is quite fascinating. Apparently, the park used to be quite dangerous: "In the 1970s and 80s, crime became widespread in the surrounding neighborhoods. Meridian Hill Park became a haven for drug dealing and was considered unsafe, especially at night. After renewed community interest in the surrounding area began occurring about 1990, a group of citizens formed 'Friends of Meridian Hill Park'. They organized volunteer nighttime patrols to combat crime, and lobbied the National Park Service to make improvements to the park. Since 2005 the Park Service has been working on a general restoration, repairing and replacing the unique concrete structures as necessary, and replacing key utility systems.". (Id.) I find the actions of the volunteers inspiring. Today, the park is quite beautiful and safe. 
Clearly, I was in the mood to shoot architecture. I couldn't resist shooting St. Augustine Catholic Church, which is just down the street. I got it just as a service was ending and I shot it with the red Mini in the intersection for a splash of color.
Do you like this set? Let me know what you think! Leave a comment or click the Facebook like button!
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I also shot this photo of the Georgetown skyline:
Taking both of these photos proved to be challenging. My camera and I were buffeted by high winds. I had to brace the camera and hang weights from my tripod in order to keep the camera steady enough for long exposures.
I ventured to the southwest corner of the building to capture the building in the late afternoon sun. In the following photo, I attempted to capture some of the grandiosity of the building along with this fabulous tree I found outside. I feel I was fortunate to get some great fall color.
I also stopped by the Tidal Basin to shoot an urban waterfall at the FDR Memorial. I really like the understated nature of the FDR Memorial. The trees and fountains evoke a feeling of calm and serenity. I tried to evoke some of the same in the following photo by keeping the composition simple and using backlighting. I really like the color and definition in the image.
On another note, as I was running around shooting at the National Museum of the American Indian, I encountered a group of Hawaiians decorating a rock. They saw me carrying around my large camera and tripod and motioned me over. They asked me to take a photo of the rock and asked if they could tell me its story. I happily obliged them.
Kane Po is the name of this 300-year-old lava stone. It is one of four Cardinal Direction Markers around the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. After a 20-year stay at the museum, Kane Po will return to its home in the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park near Hilo. Native Hawaiians consider it to be a living relative. The folks I spoke with had just finished decorating the rock. Each strand of rope circling the crown of the rock was delicately braided by hand from leaves. I was impressed by their love and respect for their ancestors and told them I would post a photo of the rock on my website. If you click on the photo above, it should take you to Flickr, where I posted a large version of the photo under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
While I was in West Virginia shooting waterfalls and sunsets in Blackwater Falls State Park, I heard about Bear Rocks Preserve. I was told it was a great location to shoot a sunrise. So, I did some Internet research and sure enough, the location looked like it was close and would make a great location for a sunrise shot.
Bear Rocks is a body of land owned by The Nature Conservancy. It lies high above Canaan Valley, in the Dolly Sods wilderness area. Looking at a map, Bear Rocks appears to be close to Blackwater Falls State Park. However, we found it surprisingly difficult to get there and very slow going. The road to Bear Rocks is treacherous, including miles of single lane roads in remote forest and miles of unpaved, dirt roads on a high plateau. Once you arrive at Bear Rocks, there are no amenities and no marked trails. Bear Rocks is true wilderness.
Visiting Bear Rocks was a real adventure for someone like me, who lives in a city. Fortunately, my car has all-wheel drive. My wife and I made two trips. We made the first trip in the afternoon to scout out the location and see what we were in for. The second trip, we drove before dawn, in the dark, so that we would arrive before daybreak.
Bear Rocks is surrounded by beautiful, red blueberry bushes. Unfortunately, thick cloud-cover made for dull, diffused lighting, which doesn't work well for shooting vegetation. So, while I didn't get any great shots of the blueberry bushes, I did get some nice sunrise shots. The cloud-cover left a small gap on the horizon, just large enough to let through a bit of sunlight.
It was a fun trip. We really enjoyed visiting Blackwater Falls and Bear Rocks. I hope to return some day.
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When planning my recent visit to Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia, my first goal was to get a great shot of Blackwater Falls (see my previous post "Autumn Waterfalls in West Virginia"). My second goal was to get a great shot at Lindy Point, which presents a beautiful vista of the southern portion of Blackwater Canyon. My wife and I hiked to Lindy Point for the sunset and encountered soft, warm light that accentuated the rocks and beautiful fall foliage.
We actually arrived at Lindy Point well before the sunset so I could scout out a good location for the shoot. I had hoped for some dramatic clouds and I received exactly what I had hoped for. Unfortunately, it didn't last. All the clouds left just after we arrived. I shot the following about an hour and a half before sunset:
The hike to Lindy Point is fairly easy and well worth it. We liked Lindy Point so much, we actually visited it twice during the same weekend.
My wife and I spent Columbus Day weekend in Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia. I'd seen some impressive photos of Blackwater Falls and hoped to capture the falls myself with some nice fall foliage. We arrived just after peak season, so there was still some great color. The summer drought eviscerated the falls, but recent rainstorms restored the falls to a portion of its usual glory.
It turns out that in autumn, Blackwater Falls State Park is a very popular destination for photographers. I met several photographers while I was there and learned about some other scenic locations. One of my favorites was the Falls of Elakala on Shays Run, which it turns out was only a short hike away from the lodge where we stayed.
The best color we found Columbus Day weekend was at Douglas Falls. It's only a short drive from Blackwater Falls, and while it is smaller and lesser known, Douglas Falls is arguably more beautiful. Located by an abandoned coal town called Douglas, the only way to get to the falls is by way of a rough dirt road and then a short but very steep hike. The bright red color of the rocks comes from years of pollution and acid drainage from the mines and coke ovens in the area.
Ironic that pollution can actually make something more beautiful. The following is a shot looking downstream from Douglas Falls. I love the green water, red rocks, and green and yellow foliage.
The weather over Columbus Day weekend was pretty rotten for the the most part, as it was cloudy and rainy. However, overcast skies can be good for river and waterfall photography because it reduces glare and specular highlights. So, in some respects, the bad weather was a blessing in disguise.
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Last weekend I decided to shoot an urban landscape. I've seen some nice shots of the Washington skyline from across the Potomac and figured I might get something nice from the Marine Corps War Memorial or the Netherlands Carillon in Arlington. The weather forecast predicted clear skies. (That was no shock for me; clouds hate me.) So, in the absence of clouds, I thought I might get something interesting by shooting during twilight.
Morning twilight is the period beginning at dawn and ending at sunrise. (Wikipedia, Twilight (as of October 3, 2012).) There are three different defined periods of twilight, the distinctions between which are significant for photographers because the nature and quality of the light changes significantly between dawn and sunrise.
The periods in sequence are astronomical twilight, nautical twilight, and civil twilight. Astronomical twilight (when the center of the sun is between 12° and 18° below the horizon) is quite dark, as most stars are still visible when away from urban light pollution. With nautical twilight (when the center of the sun is between 6° and 12° below the horizon), general outlines of ground objects may be distinguishable, but otherwise difficult to see. With civil twilight (when the center of the sun is between 6° below the horizon and dawn), objects are clearly distinguishable, but the sun is not yet visible above the horizon. (Id.)
I took the first photo precisely at civil dawn. The sky is a beautiful purple and the trees by the Potomac are mere outlines. Technically, I took the second photo five minutes after sunrise, but because buildings block the horizon, the effective sunrise in a city is a bit later. I shot the second photo just moments before the sun appeared. The sky is a beautiful orange color and detail is visible in the trees by the Potomac.
I'm pleased with the way my urban landscapes turned out, but I'm already planning to return for another try. I'd really like to get a sunrise with some clouds. I also want to try the landscapes with colder weather. Last weekend was relatively warm and very humid. The warm and humid air distorted the light and diminished the clarity of the images. I should be able to get something really good in late autumn or winter.
In 2008, Congress opened the Capitol Visitor Center to serve as a visitor center for both the Capitol and the city. The CVC is enormous. Fortunately, when Congress built the CVC, they had the presence of mind to put the entire thing underground so that it doesn't detract from the majesty of the Capitol itself. To make sure the CVC had enough light, the architects installed two massive skylights, which can be seen from the east side of the Capitol. It occurred to me that I might be able to take a nice photo of the Capitol dome reflected on one of the skylights.
I think the photo turned out quite nicely. I really like the color and all the diagonal lines give the image depth and interest. I took it during the magical blue hour (the term comes from the French expression l'heure bleue, which refers to the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness (Wikipedia, Blue hour (as of Sept. 22, 2012))).
Around the skylights are some marble slabs that normally hold water. When present, the water is flush with the glass. It produces a nice effect. Unfortunately, when I visited the Capitol last week to take these photos, all of the water had been removed. (I assume because of the drought.) I'll have to go back and reshoot these images when the water is present (and hopefully with more clouds too).
When I shoot the Capitol, I usually visit the west side, where you can find the famous reflecting pool. The west side also gets more light at sunset. Since I was on the east side at sunset for the reflections on the skylights, I thought I'd take the opportunity to play around and see what I could get. I took the following panorama:
I find producing a good panorama technically challenging and the results oddly appealing. I'm not sure what it is about a panorama that attracts me. It may be something about the perspective.
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If you've ever wondered why they're called the "Blue Ridge Mountains," here's a good answer:
I took this photo a few weeks ago in Shenandoah National Park. The bluish color comes from the trees, which release isoprene into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to the characteristic haze on the mountains and their distinctive color (Wikipedia, Blue Ridge Mountains (as of Sept. 10, 2012)).
When I took the photo above, I was up in Shenandoah with my wife to shoot the sunset. The weather forecast predicted partly cloudy conditions, which should have been perfect for a spectacular sunset. Unfortunately, we never once saw the sun.
We showed up early to eat dinner at Skyland. It started raining as soon as we entered the mountains. After dinner, the rain let up as we drove to Range View Overlook, but the clouds never let the sun shine through. Fortunately, the cloudy sky made for some interesting photography.
I read that Dark Hollow Falls in Shenandoah National Park is the most popular waterfall in the park. If that's true, I can see why. It's a small but beautiful and intimate waterfall.
I visited Dark Hollow Falls a couple of weeks ago and shot the above image. Some of you who read my blogs regularly may recognize the image. It is the same composition as the following image, which I shot in October:
For my visit to the waterfall a couple of weeks ago, I thought it might be nice to see how a summer photo would compare with an autumn photo of the same location and composition. The most striking difference is probably the color. The second most striking difference is probably the amount of water going over the waterfall. This summer, we were devastated by drought. I may have been lucky that there was any water at all going over the waterfall in August.
Another thing that struck me about the difference between the October and August images is that the tree branches that extend out in front of the upper portion of the waterfall are filled out with leaves, making it hard to see the upper portion of the waterfall from a vantage point downstream. The branches in the October image have no leaves, making it easier to see more of the waterfall. I do think the August image is lovely, but I think the October image is better overall.
While I was at Dark Hollow in August, I took the opportunity to play around with some different compositions. I rather like this one quite a bit:
Here, leaving out the small pool of water and the leaves in the bottom left calls more attention to the mossy rocks. To me, this image has more balance than the first image, though perhaps a bit less visual uniqueness provided by the single leaf floating in the pool of water.
In August, we had two full moons. By modern folklore, that makes the second full moon (above) a "blue moon" (the second full moon of a month). However, according to Wikipedia, a blue moon is actually the appearance of the third full moon in a season that has four full moons, instead of the usual three. (The moon isn't actually blue, as some friends of mine were disappointed to find out; magnificent nonetheless.)
There was a bit of hype about the moon, so I thought I'd try to shoot it. I got the moon rising next to the Smithsonian castle. I think it's a nice shot. I would have liked to get it rising over the Capitol, but the moon rose just a bit too far south.]]>
My wife and I recently visited Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island in Virginia. The biggest attractions for the wildlife refuge are the Chincoteague Ponies. The wild horses that live on the island were made famous by the book Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry, and later the movie of the same name. Assateague is also home to a number of bird species and the Assateague Light House.
During our visit, I really hoped to shoot some nice landscapes. Unfortunately, the weather refused to cooperate. We either had no clouds at all or the the sky was completely overcast—it even rained on our last day there. Nevertheless, I think I got some nice shots.
My first attempt at a sunrise was challenging. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky. So, I figured I'd stop by the beach and shoot something a bit more bare—a bit more abstract.
On our last day at Chincoteague, it rained. I got up early in hope that the sun would peek through the clouds. I was rewarded very briefly for my efforts.
I recently visited a friend and his family in Towanda, Pennsylvania. They have a beautiful house on Lake Wesauking. I wanted to take the opportunity to shoot a couple of sunrises and sunsets in the area. Knowing that I'm into photography, they offered to help out by showing me some nearby places in Towanda and Wysox that they thought would make for some good photos. What fabulous hosts! I had a great time and captured some really great sunrises and sunsets.
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I was surprised to find the meadow looking so green. We've been experiencing serious drought conditions. All the green grass in the photo might lead you to think otherwise, but the presence of the drought is obvious if you've ever visited Huntley Meadows under normal conditions. Most of what you see in the photo is normally underwater. On Thursday, I saw very few birds (no water means no fish to feed on), but I saw a lot of deer and the cloud formations made for a fabulous sunset, which is exactly what I was looking for.
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I normally associate flowers with spring. However, summer seems to be a great time to shoot freshwater flowers.
I recently returned to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. On my previous visit in June, the lotuses were just starting to bloom and the waterlilies hadn't yet appeared. Both the lotuses and the waterlilies are now in bloom.
While I returned to Kenilworth primarily to shoot the waterlilies, I also took the opportunity to shoot some more lotuses.
Most of the photos I've taken at Kenilworth that I really like are close-ups. The garden itself is very pretty, but I've struggled to get a good photo of the garden. The following is a photo of the garden itself. Notice that the lotuses are chest height, making it difficult to get a view of much more than what's right in front of you.
While I was at Kenilworth, I also shot some more dragonflies. With all the still water around, you would think that mosquitoes would be a major problem at the gardens. However, it turns out that dragonflies eat the mosquitoes. I used to think they just looked really cool. Now I have even more reason to love them!
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I've heard a lot of great things about Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. I've seen some really great wildlife photos from Blackwater. Since I'm not much of a wildlife photographer, Blackwater hasn't been high on my list of destinations. However, I visited Blackwater a couple of weeks ago and was pleased to discover that the refuge also presents some really nice landscape opportunities.
I took this photo at sunrise. It was no easy feat. Sunrise was at 5:47 that day. The refuge is about a 2 hour drive from DC, so I had to get up at 3:00 to get there at 5:30. Moreover, when I arrived, I discovered that the parking area on the peninsula was closed off due to construction of a new pier. The next nearest parking lot was half a mile away. So, I drove to the next lot and ran. The sunrise only lasts a few minutes and there's no way I was going to get up that early and drive that far just to miss the sunrise! So I ran the half mile in the muggy summer heat with a huge photography pack strapped to my back and carrying my tripod—while swarms of biting flies pecked at my face. It was not a fun experience!
Nevertheless, I arrived in time for the sunrise and the run, the heat, and the bugs were all worth it! I love the photo. I definitely plan to visit Blackwater again. Maybe next time, I'll go back in the fall when the sun rises a bit later and the flies are no longer hatching.
Incidentally, the sunrise looks great against a dark background. Click here to see the photo in a black lightbox.
Happy Independence Day, everyone! Every year, I look forward to seeing fireworks on July 4—especially now that I've figured out how to photograph them.
There are many online guides to shooting fireworks. They all tell you what settings to use on your camera. However, most of them don't talk much about composition. While fireworks can be awe-inspiring when viewed in person, they lose something when photographed. In my view, the photographer needs to add that something back. Simply pointing your camera up to the sky and shooting fireworks against a backdrop of the night sky just doesn't work for me. The best photos of fireworks include an interesting foreground or background that provides context and scale. For these photos, I used the Capitol to provide both context and scale.
Most of the great photos of fireworks that I've seen taken in Washington include popular landmarks. However, it seems that they have all been shot from the west of the Capitol and face east. If you go to the National Mall or across the Potomac River to the Iwo Jima Memorial on July 4, you will find huge crowds and many photographers with tripods. To the east of the Capitol, it is a completely different story. There you'll find just a few residents of the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
The biggest difficulty with shooting the fireworks from the east side of the Capitol is getting the proper angle. You need to be far enough away from the Capitol in order to line up the fireworks with the dome, but not too far or everything gets too small. The next biggest difficulty is finding an angle such that all the trees in the Capitol Hill neighborhood don't block your view—not an easy thing to do.
I hope you find my photos interesting and unique. If you have any questions or would like to provide me with any feedback, feel free to send me an e-mail or leave a comment.
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Several days later, almost half a million people are still without power here in the DC metro area. Stores and restaurants are closed. With traffic lights out of commission, the roads are a mess. The storm happened to hit at the same time as a massive heat wave. The city set up cooling stations for those without power.
I was fortunate. We didn't lose power, and I got the shot I wanted: ]]>
From May 18 through June 23, I exhibited 10 fine art prints of my images at Artomatic, a DC area arts festival. It was a wonderful experience. I had a lot of fun, met interesting artists and art lovers, and received a lot of great feedback. Thank you to everyone who purchased a print!
I still have a number of framed and unframed prints available for sale. If you're interested, send me an e-mail. I can arrange pickup or delivery of framed prints in the DC area or mail unframed prints outside the DC area. All photographs are printed at 13 x 19 inches using professional pigment inks on museum-grade cotton rag. The framed prints are signed and marked with the date the photo was shot.
How God's Eye Sees
To John Baggaley's Washington National Cathedral Presbytery
This is how God's eye sees
In its omniscient perspective
All light bends by degrees
Into the reflective
Vortex of His optical infusion
To unspool the all-connective
Vision of inclusion.
Brash, June 16, 2012
The lotuses weren't the only things worth seeing at Kenilworth last weekend. The dragonflies were quite active.
I'm not normally a fan of insect photography, but there's something very attractive about dragonflies.
Dragonflies are colorful, with delicate wings and large anthropomorphic green eyes. At times, they almost seem to be smiling at you.
If you're patient, dragonflies can be a bit easier to shoot than some other insects. While they do move quickly, they have a tendency to repeat themselves. If you see one perched, resting on a leaf, and it darts away just as you're about to get that perfect shot, stay put. There's a good chance that dragonfly will soon return to the exact same spot.
Summer is almost here and the lotuses and water lilies are starting to bloom at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens.
I visited Kenilworth last weekend. We're clearly early in the blooming season, as many of the flowers haven't bloomed yet. However, there are a few patches where you can find some really great color.
When shooting flowers, I like to get green backgrounds. The enormous leaves of the lotus work beautifully. The pink color pops nicely against the dark green.
I think it's usually best to take photos of flowers outdoors when it's cloudy. Bright sunlight can look really harsh, washing out the color and delicate details in flowers. Last weekend, it was very sunny, so I tried a few things to compensate. First, I went early in the morning when the sunlight wasn't as harsh. The angle of the light was also very low and I was able to use the sun as backlighting, making the flowers glow. In the photo above, the petals of the lotus appear translucent. I think it's a fun effect.
Frequently, when I'm shooting around water, I like to use a circular polarizer to eliminate glare, which I usually find unattractive. However, when you eliminate glare, you also get rid of reflections, and sometimes reflections can add a beautiful element to a photo.
The water in the lily ponds at Kenilworth are very muddy and muddy blacks and browns can create an unwelcome contrast with the lilies. In this photo, I turned my polarizer so that it would keep the reflections in the water. In doing so, I captured a reflection of the blue sky and the green reeds to fill in the space between the lily pads. I think the effect is quite nice. To me this photo looks like it could be the subject of a Monet painting. I like it quite a bit.
Artomatic is located at 1851 S. Bell Street, Crystal City, Virginia. Free parking is available in the area and the Crystal City Metro station is located across the street.
My exhibit is located on the 8th floor of Artomatic in location #352.
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I'm excited to announce that I will be showcasing my work at Artomatic, the DC area's biggest arts festival. Artomatic runs from May 18 – June 23 at 1851 S. Bell Street, Arlington, VA (near the Crystal City metro stop). It features 10 floors of art by more than 1,000 artists: visual art, music, performance, film, fashion, and more. Workshops, tours, seminars, and other events are held all month long.
My exhibit will include 10 fine art prints of my images, featuring waterfalls, streams, and sunrises from Yosemite National Park, Shenandoah National Park, Great Falls, Rock Creek Park, and other beautiful locations. You will be able to find my exhibit on the 8th floor in location 352.
I hope you can visit my exhibit at Artomatic and share in this exciting event.]]>
A week ago, I set out for South River Falls in Shenandoah National Park to shoot the sunrise and the falls. I think the sunrise turned out nicely.
Unfortunately, the waterfall was a bit disappointing. The trail only took me to an overlook. I didn't see any way to get to the base of the falls. I always find that waterfalls look more magnificent if seen from the base of the falls rather than the top.
Fortunately, my hike to the falls wasn't wasted. South River itself is quite beautiful. I found this spot a little ways up from the falls. I love the moss growing on the rocks.
After hiking around South River, I set out to Lewis Falls to see if I could get the shot I was looking for. Unfortunately, a big storm came rushing in. I got this shot of the storm from Skyline Drive. I think the storm looks quite ominous.
Last Monday, I got my hands on the new Nikon D800. I've been waiting to buy this camera for more than a year. It's an excellent camera, especially for landscape and studio photography. Unfortunately, the camera is currently sold out worldwide. I had been on a waiting list since February 7, with no expected delivery date, but my wonderful wife worked her shopping magic and was able to find one for me. It was serendipity that the very next day, the Senate was out of session and my office closed for the day to conduct major system upgrades. It also happened to be May Day and the trillium were still in bloom in GR Thompson WMA near Front Royal, Virginia. So, early Tuesday morning, I drove out to Thompson WMA to test out my new camera on the trillium.
There are millions of trillium in bloom every year in Thompson WMA. The flowers grow in a dense forest. It's a breathtaking sight, but hard to photograph. The dense forest can make for cluttered photos. So, I looked for open areas when I could, but ended up taking lots of close-ups.
Whenever I could, I tried to add context. In the following photo, I used the logs on either side of the trillium to create a natural frame. Recent rainfall helped make the colors pop.
We had an early spring this year, so by May 1, the trillium were near the end of their bloom cycle—which, as far as I can tell, lasts about a week. The flowers start off white and then turn purple at the end of the cycle. In Thompson, the mayapple frequently blooms at the same time as the trillium, but I missed them this year. In the following photo, much of the greenery is from mayapple—a few trillium can be spotted as well.
I had lots of fun shooting the trillium. The new camera was a joy to work with. I made a second outing last Friday, taking the day off work to shoot a waterfall and a sunrise in Shenandoah. I'll be posting those images later this week.
Twice each year, the public is invited to tour the gardens outside the White House. My wife and I were able to get tickets from a friend and take the tour last week. We enjoyed it tremendously. It was a beautiful day. The sun was a bit too harsh to photograph the flowers, but the cumulus clouds over the White House were a real blessing. I'm quite please with the following two photos (both taken handheld because tripods were not allowed):
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On Tuesday, NASA transferred the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center to its new resting home at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport. The shuttle made the trip on the back of a specially modified Boeing 747, and fortunately for me, the shuttle made a short detour around the Capitol.
The shuttle's fly-by was well publicized and many folks who worked in the area ventured out of their offices to witness the historic event. The National Mall and the Capitol were quite crowded.
The shuttle flew at an altitude of only 1,500 feet. That's very low! I envied the folks in the Post Office Pavilion (photo below). They would have had a great view! However, if you look closely at the photo, you can see folks in the tower looking the wrong way. The shuttle didn't make any sound and was moving quite quickly. I fear that some of them may have missed it. Wow, what a sight to miss!
The low altitude flight of the shuttle made for some interesting photos. Here's one in which it appears the shuttle is banking around the Smithsonian castle. The guy working on the crane must have had a really great day!
The organizers of the fly-by wouldn't release the flight path of the shuttle before the fly-by. They provided an approximate time and suggested various viewing locations throughout the city. However, they said that there were no guarantees that the shuttle would fly by any particular location, since even slight changes in weather might require last minute changes to the flight path. This made it very difficult to plan out good shots. I really just wanted to see the shuttle; getting a good photo would be a secondary priority. So, I gambled on the National Mall and I got lucky. The weather was beautiful and the shuttle flew right overhead. I had a really great day!
In my last post, I mentioned how I visited the Tidal Basin to shoot the cherry blossoms at sunrise. Well, I returned later on the same day to shoot the cherry blossoms in the late afternoon and at sunset. On my way to the Tidal Basin, I stopped by the Washington Monument. The following is my favorite photo from the afternoon:
As an aside, the girl reading under the cherry tree happened to be reading "Hunger Games".
On Thursday, I made my annual trip to the Tidal Basin to shoot the cherry blossoms. I arrived very early in the morning and was greeted by a blanket of fog.
The fog allowed me to get some interesting shots. I particularly like the following photo. The flat lighting from the fog allowed me to achieve an even exposure and to capture a sense of dreaminess.
The presence of the fog and the fact that the trees bloomed a week earlier than expected helped keep the number of tourists to a much lower level than usual. With fewer tourists around, I was able to take some photos without people in my shots.
The fog lingered until about mid-morning. I was able to take a couple of other shots that I think turned out well.
On President's Day, I went across the Potomac to take some photos of the Washington skyline at night. I think this one turned out nicely. It's a 10 second exposure. On the left you can see Arlington Memorial Bridge, which leads up to the Lincoln Memorial. To the right of the Lincoln Memorial is the Washington Monument and further to the right you can just make out the Capitol.
I took this photo Friday evening while standing in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. In the very center of the photo is the Capitol. On the left is the Pennsylvania North, the Newseum, and the Embassy of Canada. On the right is the Federal Trade Commission. Behind the trees on the right is a crane for ongoing construction at the National Gallery of Art.
I like night photos such as this one because, counterintuitively, there are some nice saturated colors. However, I also like this image for the perspective. The lines in the image converging on the Capitol remind me of a drawing technique I learned in school as a child. We were studying how Renaissance artists would create 3-dimensional images using a 2-dimensional medium (painting) by placing a dot in the center of a painting then drawing lines radiating outward from the dot. They would then draw structures and objects within the lines. The technique creates startlingly accurate perspective. I was quite taken with the technique. I liked the idea of using mathematics to draw beautiful pictures. (Wikipedia has a great article about perspective.)
One of the less frequented but very picturesque places in Washington, DC, is the National Arboretum. I'm quite taken with the Arboretum, having visited numerous times to take landscape photographs. My favorite feature may have to be a monument called the "National Capitol Columns".
The National Capitol Columns consists of 22 Corinthian columns submerged in 20 acres of open meadow, known as "Ellipse Meadow". The columns were originally built as part of the east portico of the Capitol in 1828, long before the Capitol dome as we know it today was completed in 1866. When it was completed, the dome was significantly larger than the dome the columns were designed for and it looked like the columns couldn't hold the new larger dome. In 1958, an addition to the east side of the Capitol was constructed as a remedy and the old columns were removed. In the 1980s, the old columns were transferred out of storage and placed in the National Arboretum. "National Capitol Columns." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 January 2012. Web. 18 November 2011.
I find the idea of Corinthian columns standing isolated in a large meadow quite striking. At first, I was quite surprised that I haven't seen many iconic photos of the columns. However, after trying to photograph the columns myself, I've found that it's harder than one would think. Just because something is pretty doesn't mean every photo of that thing will be pretty.
The best time to take a landscape photo is usually shortly before or after sunrise or sunset. That's when the lighting is most interesting. Taking landscape photos in the middle of the day can produce harsh shadows and bleached colors. Unfortunately, visiting hours at the Arboretum are between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., which precludes taking sunrise photos of the columns. It's only in the dead of winter than the sun sets close to 5 p.m. and that doesn't give a photographer much flexibility.
I've made numerous trips to the Arboretum to shoot the columns and been quite frustrated. Besides the hours, I've run into additional difficulties. Since it's winter and we have no snow, the meadow around the columns doesn't make for a very exciting background. That means instead of filling the frame with columns and meadow, I have to fill the frame with sky and columns. However, getting the right kind of sky requires some patience. Clear skies just won't do and my schedule doesn't allow me to go out shooting whenever I want. The weather isn't something you can plan for far enough in advance to schedule time off work, so getting that perfect shot is very hard. To get these shots, I had to watch the skies and bide my time, waiting for that perfect moment when both the sky was filled with broken clouds and I had the time to spare. I think here, my patience and persistence paid off.
We still have no snow here in Washington, DC. Because winter landscapes without snow can be a bit dull, I decided to try some urban night photography.
I took this photo of H Street in Washington from the top of a bridge that spans the railroad tracks that extend north from Union Station. The bridge connects the H Street neighborhood with the rest of the city and provides a nice view of the neighborhood. Using a six-second exposure, I was able to blur the lights of passing cars.
So far, it has been a snowless winter here in the DC metropolitan area. Fortunately, there are still plenty of good subjects, despite the uncooperative weather. I took the following photo at Great Falls, Virginia, at sunset. I placed the horizon lower than I normally would to emphasize the vastness of the sky and the swooping clouds.
I stuck around the falls until nightfall. The following is the result of a five minute exposure.
The scene is lit only by the moon. To me, the complete loss of detail in the water, caused by the long exposure, and the moonlit shadows gives the scene an eerie alien look.
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This year’s tree — a 65-foot Sierra white fir — is from California’s Stanislaus National Forest. It was harvested on November 5, and traveled 4,500 miles throughout California and across the country to Washington, D.C. It arrived at the U.S. Capitol arrive at the U.S. Capitol on November 28.
Architect of the Capitol staff have decorated the tree with 10,000 LED lights and nearly 3,000 ornaments, handcrafted by Californians to reflect this year’s theme, “California Shines,” highlighting the rich cultural and ecological diversity of the Golden State.]]>
Below: Leafless trees in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC.
Living in Washington, DC, I feel fortunate for many things, one of which is that I get to live near Shenandoah National Park. A couple of weekends ago, I got up early to shoot some fall landscapes and waterfalls. The park is particularly beautiful this time of year. Here are a couple of my favorites from that weekend:
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| Rose River Falls |
The next weekend, I made another trip out to Shenandoah to drive along Skyline Drive. Shenandoah was at peak that weekend and the leafers came from all over to see the foliage. The traffic was pretty bad, but considering the scenery was so beautiful, I hardly noticed.
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| Leafers |
Vernal Falls, Mist Trail, Yosemite, California. This is the last blog entry from my trip to Yosemite. It's fitting that I write about Vernal Falls, since the Mist Trail was my last hike. I couldn't leave Yosemite without hiking the falls. Growing up in Central California, my family and I made many visits to Yosemite. We always made sure to hike Vernal Falls, and it proved to be one of my favorites as a kid.
When I last set out on the Mist Trail, I intended to take a lot of photos close up to the falls. However, it's this photo, with the falls way off in the distance, that is my favorite. I like the look of the smooth water. It's calm and peaceful and I like the contrast with the rocks. To get the smooth water effect, I used a neutral density filter to get a 6 second exposure. I also spent a fair amount of time tinkering with curve adjustments in post processing. Straight out of the camera, the photo looked awful because the sun was just starting to rise behind the mountains and the entire river was in deep shadow.
I'm very happy with the photo. I just wish I had tried taking the same photo in landscape orientation as well. I guess I'll just have to go back.
High up at 8,600 feet in the Sierra Nevadas, Tuolumne Meadows is one of the more beautiful locations in Yosemite. The meadows are surrounded by peaks and domes. The Tuolumne River meanders through the center of the meadows.
We were blessed with beautiful weather and we had a wonderful time strolling through the meadows. I got some fun shots. I love the green trees and big blue skies. I'm told the wildflowers in late spring are fantastic. I would really love to go back.
I took this photo of Half Dome just after sunset at Glacier Point. It's a beautiful place to watch the sun set. The sun slowly falls below the rim of Yosemite Valley, casting a partial shadow on Half Dome. As it falls, a park ranger gives a talk about the valley before a crowd of tourists. It's a beautiful and fun experience.
I took many photos of Half Dome while the sun was setting, but it's this photo of Half Dome after sunset that I like most. I really like the pink and purple sky and I like that there's still enough light to get plenty of detail in the rocks and tress.
After visiting Glacier Point in Yosemite, my wife and I decided to hike to Taft Point. It's a less frequently visited location that is a couple of miles from Glacier Point Road. The main attraction at Taft Point is the vista of Yosemite Valley. There's an outcrop with a small railing where you can stand and safely enjoy the view.
While I was standing against the railing and enjoying the view, a woman approached and began waving at someone off in the distance. I later found out that she was waving at her husband. She was encouraging him to climb out onto a tiny outcrop above Yosemite Valley. He was clearly uncomfortable, seeing as he was crawling on his hands and knees, presumable afraid to stand up, and she had to keep encouraging him to crawl out farther.
While I appreciate that this woman and her husband gave me a great subject for these shots (she even asked her husband to wear a brightly colored shirt so he would show up in her photos), I would never go out there myself, nor would I ever ask my wife to go out there. In fact, while I was taking this photo, my wife was safely sitting under a shade tree about 30 yards away.
Taft Point is about 4,000 feet over Yosemite Valley. That's an awfully long way to fall. Very scary, but boy does it make for an interesting photo.
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I took these photos of Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls in August. Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls are usually nothing more than trickles of water in August, but last winter, Yosemite received roughly double the usual amount of snow, leaving a steady flow of water even in late summer. I felt very lucky.
For the first shot, I tried to put the falls in some context. I love the tall trees in Yosemite and I thought it would be fun to frame the falls between giant redwoods. I like the mix of primary colors, viz. red, green, and blue.
The following is a shot of just Lower Yosemite Falls. I took this shot from a closer vantage point. Being closer helped me eliminate some of the atmospheric haze that robs the previous photo of detail around the falls. I like the soothing colors and all the texture in the trees and rocks.
I took this photo of Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point. In the photo, North Dome is on the left and Half Dome (once commonly called "South Dome") is on the right.
High above the Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point provides one of the best vistas of the valley. It's a very popular destination—particularly to watch the sunset. Very few people go there to watch the sunrise. My guess is that it's because it's at least an hour drive from any accommodations and because the most interesting vista is facing into the sun instead of away from it. Most consumer cameras aren't capable of handling the sun shining right into the camera. Even with my nice camera, this photo took a considerable amount of effort and experimentation to tease out the detail and color. I think it looks good and I hope it's considered a unique shot of the valley.
In a later posting, I'll share the sunset photos I took from Glacier Point.
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In continuation of my series on Yosemite, here are a few photos from Yosemite Valley. I took the following photo in the morning from Sentinel Bridge. In the foreground is the Merced River and in the background is Half Dome.
One of the biggest attractions in Yosemite Valley is Cook's Meadow. During the late spring, the meadow is filled with wildflowers, but even in August, the meadow is beautiful. I think the beautify of the meadow lies in the juxtaposition of the flat wetlands with the giant peaks and tall trees that surround the meadow.
I've been trying for some time to create a photo with trees in the foreground and met with varying degrees of success. I think the following photo works. Behind the trees is the Merced River and then Cook's Meadow. The bright background behind the trees pulls you into the photo. When I see this photo, it makes me feel like I'm there and that I can just walk through the trees and into the meadow. It gives me a sense of place.
Yosemite Valley is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It's clear from the crowds and the traffic that I'm not the only one who knows this. Fortunately, most people aren't willing to get up at 4:20 a.m. while on vacation. So, if you're willing to get up early enough, you can have the valley all to yourself.
The following photo is of the Merced River with Upper Yosemite Falls in the background. I took the photo from Swinging Bridge, a very popular place for picnicking and swimming. When I was there at 7:30 a.m., I found only one other person. I like the photo. To me, it looks very calm and peaceful. I really like the reflection of the mountains in the water.
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Here's another sunrise shot of Yosemite Valley taken from Tunnel View. I took this photo just as the sun crested over the rim of the valley. The sunburst effect and lens flare add color and drama to an otherwise very nice photo, making it something special.
I created the sunburst effect by using a particularly small lens aperture and pointing my camera directly into the sun. The lens flare is a side effect caused by including the sun in the photo. Normally, lens flare is considered a flaw when it appears in a photo, but here, I intentionally left it in because I think it adds extra color and excitement. I particularly like how it streaks towards the bottom left-hand corner.
The following is another sunrise photo that I really like; I took it just 2 minutes before the sunburst:
While taken only 2 minutes apart, the photos are very different. The light was changing very quickly. I had only a few minutes to capture these images before the sun got too bright, making it impossible to take any photos while facing my camera directly into the sun.
I recently returned from a short vacation in California with my wife where we visited Yosemite. We had a great time and I got some great photos. My wife was very patient with my photography and I'm very grateful to her for that.
Above is one of my favorite photos from the trip. The view of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View is probably one of the most photographed images of Yosemite. It's a beautiful vista and it's hard to take a bad photo from that location. However, it's also deceptively hard to take a good photo.
One of the things that I've discovered about landscape photography is that skies are very frequently boring. A sure way to ruin a beautiful landscape photo is to fill it with solid blue sky. When the sky is solid blue, my usual solution is to frame the photo without any sky. However, this solution doesn't work with something like Yosemite Valley because much of the interest comes from the peaks surrounding the valley, and you can't capture the peaks without capturing some sky.
We were cursed with clear blue skies for most of our trip to Yosemite, so I had to get creative. In the shot above, you can see that I used the sun to create interest in the sky. When the sun rose just behind Half Dome, it shot of rays of light all over the rim of the valley. The rays of light add interest to an otherwise boring sky. I really like the effect.
Over the next few weeks, I'll share some more of my favorite photos. I'm still processing many of them.
18x3 high dynamic range images; 46.5 MP, 50 mm, f/8; blended with Nik HDR Efex Pro, stitched with Hugin, and retouched with Apple Aperture.
Lately, I've been interested in creating panoramas. I've been reading up on the subject and found a wonderful open source application called "Hugin" that can be used to create panoramas by stitching together photos. The latest release is quite powerful and despite the fact that it's free software, it's quite polished.
To test out the latest release of Hugin, I visited Washington National Cathedral. I've always loved cathedrals and the National Cathedral in particular. I also recently finished reading Ken Follett's great book The Pillars of the Earth, which has me even more excited about cathedrals. So, the National Cathedral was a perfect subject for my test.
My goal was to take a 360 degree panorama of the interior of the cathedral from the crossing (the point in a cathedral where the nave, transepts, and presbytery intersect). I think it worked:
To take this image, I placed my camera on a tripod and used a spirit level to ensure that the entire setup was perfectly level. I set the focal length to 24mm with an aperture of f/8. I took some test shots and then set my camera to full manual mode using the shutter speed taken from the test shot (to ensure even exposure across every image). Then I began shooting. After each image, I rotated the camera slightly to the right, making sure the next image would overlap with the previous image by at least 25 percent. After rotating an entire 360 degrees, I angled my camera upwards 45 degrees and repeated the process. (This took a long time because I had to wait patiently for people to move out of my shots.)
Each image that I took was actually a series of 3 shots--one evenly exposed, one under exposed, and one over exposed. In total, I took 117 shots. For each set of 3 shots, I later blended them together into one high-dynamic-range (HDR) image using tone mapping software called HDR Efex Pro. I did this because the lights and windows were too bright and the shadows were too dark otherwise. The act of blending the photos toned down the lights and brought out the details in the shadows.
This left me with 39 high dynamic range photos, which I stitched together in two rows using Hugin to form the image above. I think the result is quite spectacular. (The final image is massive, so I reduced the size for purposes of posting it online.)
While I liked the panorama from the crossing, I had been hoping to get an image that featured the sanctuary and the altar more prominently. So, I entered the presbytery and repeated the same process, except that this time, I used a 12mm focal length (very wide) and in Hugin I used a mercator projection instead of a cylindrical projection.
I think this one turned out spectacularly. In the center of the image is the sanctuary and on the far left and far right is the choir. Since it's a 360 degree image, I could have set the center of the image to be any point of my choosing. Here's the same panorama, but with the choir in the center and the sanctuary on the far left and right and a bit more of the ceiling cropped out:
I hope you will agree with me that my experiment was a success. I love the unique perspective that the panorama stitching software provides. However, generating the images was quite laborious. In taking the photos, I had to use manual camera settings and ensure that the the camera was perfectly level at all times. Moreover, between the two panoramas, I processed 201 images. Blending and stitching takes a lot of computer processing, so the entire process was very time consuming. However, I think it was worth it, and I look forward to more such experiments.
I love bird and wildlife photos and I think they're the best when they display some context. I took this photo last weekend at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in Washington, DC.
On its own, a photo of this great blue heron would be nice, but the lush greenery of the surrounding lotus plants makes the photo something special.
Photos of birds in flight can often be challenging because frequently you either end up aiming your camera up in the air and getting a photo of a bird with a boring pale blue background or you get a busy background that distracts from the image of the bird. I think I avoided both of those problems in the following image:
In this image, I used the largest aperture my lens was capable of achieving in order obtain a shallow depth of field and throw the background out of focus. I also panned the image slightly to assist in the blurring of the background. I think the green texture is interesting and pleasing, but blurred just enough not to be distracting.
The herons on Sunday morning were quite active. I captured the following great blue heron just after it caught a fish.
Besides the herons, I also had fun on Sunday taking photos of the pickerel.
The blur, or aesthetic quality of the blur, in a photo is called "bokeh". I think the bokeh in this image frames the pickerel nicely. While the background was actually very busy, I threw it way out of focus by using a long lens and positioning myself significantly closer to the flower than the background.
Last weekend, I really wanted to shoot waterfalls. Some of the best waterfalls in the mid-Atlantic region are located in Shenandoah National Park. So, I got up very early and headed out west to the park. Not long after entering the park and turning down the famous Skyline Drive, I came across this vista and beautiful sunrise. I immediately pulled over and grabbed my camera and tripod.
I love how the rising sun lights up the tops of the trees and highlights the foliage in the foreground. The broken clouds add interest to the sky and I like the sense of depth created by the faded mountains in the background. I created the streaks of sunlight by using a tiny aperture (f/22).
Energized by the sunrise, I headed over to Whiteoak Canyon to shoot Upper Whiteoak Canyon Falls. The hike through Whiteoak Canyon to the upper falls was 2.3 miles downhill (4.6 miles round trip). The return trip was much more difficult because it was all uphill. However, the hike was very much worth it.
When I finished the Whiteoak Canyon hike, it was still fairly early in the morning, so I decided to try another nearby waterfall hike. The Cedar Run Trail was noticeably shorter than the Whiteoak Canyon trail, but much more difficult. Like the Whiteoak Canyon trail, the Cedar Run hike was all downhill to the waterfall. While only 1.7 miles (3.6 round trip), it was 1,500 feet of elevation change in just 1.7 miles. The hike back was very difficult.
The Cedar Run trail was very beautiful, but I wasn't particularly impressed with the actual falls. Perhaps, my inspiration was waning as I got tired. 8.3 miles in one morning is a lot, particularly with significant elevation changes. A brief late morning rain shower didn't help either. However, on my return trip from the falls, I came across this surprise:
I've never seen an owl in the wild before. This one was significantly larger than I expected. It took my breath away. I dropped my bag and scrambled to grab my camera, swap lenses, and change all my camera settings (wildlife and landscapes require very different camera configurations). The owl didn't sit still for long. After flying from branch to branch, the owl swooped down to Cedar Run, caught the crayfish you see in the photo, and landed on a nearby branch for just a moment to check me out and fly off for good. I barely had enough time to take this shot. It was really nice to finish my trip to Shenandoah on a high note.
Last Sunday, Melissa attended a baby shower near Rock Creek Park. I gave her a ride to the shower and, despite the fact that it was a drizzling dreary day, I figured I'd use the opportunity to take a few photos of Rock Creek in Rock Creek Park.
And I'm really glad that I did. I love this photo. I love the color and the juxtaposition of hard and soft.
To get the shot, I had to climb out on a number of big (and some unfortunately not so big) slippery rocks to get into the middle of the river. The blur of the water comes from using a 2.5 second shutter speed and a tripod. The slow shutter speed was made possible by my use of a 6-stop neutral density filter. The lens reduced the amount of light going through my lens by a factor of 2^6 = 64. That's really dark. In fact, it was so dark looking through the lens, I had trouble focusing the camera.
Sunday was also a good day, despite the rain, to see the azaleas, which were just starting to bloom along Rock Creek. I love the wild azaleas around Washington, DC. They're called "pinxter azaleas" or "Pinxterflowers" (Rhododendron periclymenoides). They aren't your garden variety azaleas (literally!) because the shrubs lose their leaves during the winter and most landscapers prefer a plant that retains its leaves. The species name comes from the Latin for "naked-flower", since the flowers of the plant often appear before its leaves are fully expanded.
Every year around May 1, millions of wildflowers of the species Trillium grandiflorum bloom in G. Richard Thompson Wildlife Management Area in Virginia. I visited Thompson WMA last year to shoot the trillium. On Friday, I drove back out there to shoot them again.
I arrived just as the sun was rising. The very first rays of light streamed up my path and lit up the trillium in the following photo. The light lasted only a matter of seconds, but I think I got it just in time. I used an ultra-wide angle lens in order to get in close to the flower and capture some of the surrounding context.
The flowers and the trees in Thompson WMA on Friday seemed to be in a disagreement about whether we were in the midst of spring. The trillium were in full bloom, but the trees were barely budding leaves. Last year, the full trees created a green cover, blocking my view of the sky. Since the trees didn't completely block out the sky this time, I decided to use the opportunity to turn my camera upwards and shoot the tops of the trees with a showing of sky in the background. I love the color and perspective in the following photo:
On the other side of Thompson WMA from the trillium parking lot, near Thompson Lake, I found this pastoral view:
I decided to take a chance at a high-dynamic-range panorama. The image consists of 15 images: 5 high-dynamic-range images stitched together using Autopano, each of which is a high-dynamic-range image consisting of 3 separate images blended together using Nik HDR Efex Pro. It took several attempts to get this final image. The wind was blowing and the movement of the clouds kept shifting the light around. I like this image for the interesting lighting, the color, and the layers created by the hills.
The dogwoods are in bloom here in the District and when I went to the park, I was hoping that I would see a bunch of them along Rock Creek. I would have liked to get a shot of a dogwood in bloom leaning out over some rapids. Unfortunately, I didn't find very many dogwoods. But I did find this one growing next to the creek. Since the tree wasn't actually leaning out over the water, I had to get a bit creative. To get the shot, I stood up very high on top of Boulder Bridge and use a telephoto lens. I think it turned out nicely. The setting sun provided some nice accents to the flowers and leaves.
While I was there, I also took a photo of Boulder Bridge. It is one of the most iconic structures in Rock Creek Park. (I'll definitely have to try this one again in the fall.)
When I took this photo, the highlights in the trees were too bright and all washed out. Likewise, the shadows around the bridge were too dark. So, I took three photos, one with the trees exposed correctly, but everything else too dark, one with the shadows exposed correctly, but everything else too bright, and one balance in between. Later, I used some software to merge (or blend) the photos into a single composite, which you see above.
This blending technique is called High Dynamic Range (HDR) processing. The idea is HDR processing will allow you to take photos of very high contrast scenes that can't otherwise be taken with a normal camera. The most popular software for HDR processing is Photomatix. I've played with the software and I find that it's very easy to exaggerate the HDR effect and very difficult to achieve natural or subtle results.
My experience with Photomatix and with viewing a lot of really terrible HDR images online had turned me off to HDR processing. However, a couple of things have caused me to reconsider. I recently read an article by landscape photographer Tom Till about the virtues of HDR processing and some of his HDR images are quite amazing. I also read about a new HDR processing plugin for Aperture called Nik HDR Efex Pro that promises to give more natural and subtle results than Photomatix. So, I downloaded a demo of Nik HDR Efex Pro and figured I'd try it out on some of the images I took last Thursday. So far, from my experimentation, the reputation of the Nik plugin is well deserved.
Without using any HDR software, the sky in the photo above was washed out, without any detail, and the creek was way too dark. I used the Nik plugin to generate this image and I think the results are nice. It's not obvious that HDR was used to generate the image and the effect is subtle. The new software is promising. I'll definitely have to experiment more with HDR in the future.]]>
The weekend before last I set out for Cedarville State Forest in southern Maryland. A short drive from Washington, D.C., Cedarville is where the headwaters of the Zekiah Swamp are located.
The last time I visited Cedarville was in late April and it had rained all night and the morning before I arrived. I loved the flowers and lush vegetation that I found in the swamp. Having grown up in the desert-like conditions of the Sanjuaquin Valley in California, I find swamps foreign and fascinating. (I absolutely love the work of Ronnie Gaubert.)
This visit to Cedarville was in early April and it seems that spring hadn't yet arrived. There were no flowers to be found and the ferns were only just beginning to peek out from underneath a floor of leaves.
Despite the lack of greenery, there were some interesting photographic opportunities to be had. This stream made for some interesting photos. I tried to make things more dynamic with a low wide-angle shot and framing the image with tree leaning out into the water. The color of the water is particularly striking because I used a polarizer to eliminate the glare, making it possible to see straight through to the bottom.
In 1912, the City of Tokyo donated more than 3,000 cherry trees to Washington, D.C. Many of the cherry trees were planted around the Tidal Basin and every year they blossom in late March or early April, turning the Tidal Basin into a beautiful photographic opportunity. The peak bloom only lasts for about a week, so the window of opportunity for shooting the blossoms is quite small, particularly if the weather doesn't cooperate.
I shot this image at sunrise this morning at the Tidal Basin. It was a bitterly cold day, which is why you see very few people in the photo. Normally, when the sun is out, the sidewalk would be packed with walkers, joggers, and scores of photographers and their tripods. The weather forecast for the rest of the week is rain and snow, so I may have had perfect timing. The exact date of the peak bloom also happened to be today.
I like this image because of the varied color, the interest generated by the directional light from the rising sun on the left, and the movement created in the image by the line of the sidewalk leading up to the tree and then by the curve of the branches leading back around the image to the bottom left again.
Unlike Friday, the sun set on Saturday before the moon rose. The weather was also perfect. The biggest challenge was going to be one of composition. I would have liked to get a shot of the Capitol framed by the moon.
Using The Photographer's Ephemeris, I charted out the path the moon would take. From the perspective of standing on the National Mall, it would rise to the southeast of the Capitol and follow a path moving to the northwest. The moon would look its largest while closest to the horizon and the Capitol would look smaller relative to the moon the further I stood from the Capitol. So, ideally I would stand far away from the Capitol to the northwest.
Unfortunately, the line of sight from the northwest was blocked by buildings and trees. If I got closer, the Capitol would dwarf the moon and block it until it rose way above the horizon. I thought I might get the shot if I stood on the northern edge of the Mall near 4th Street. Apparently, many other photographers had the same thought, including a nice Associated Press photographer I chatted with while waiting for the moon to rise.
Flexibility saved the day. The shot from the Mall never materialized. Thinking quickly, I decided to frame another object with the moon—one that was significantly smaller than the Capitol and one that would be high enough that I could get the right angle. So, I shot the Statue of Freedom from northwestern parking lot of the Capitol. I think it turned out quite nicely.
Also of note, while I was waiting for the sun to set and the moon to rise, I took this shot of the Washington Monument. I'm very happy with this image. Can you see the airplane in the bottom left-hand corner headed towards Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport?
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The shot would have been very good if the sun weren't still up and there hadn't been so much atmospheric haze. It would have been even better if the moon were close to the horizon, where an optical illusion would have made it look enormous. However, the sun was so bright that when the moon was on the horizon, it was impossible even to see the moon, not alone photograph it.
Fortunately, later in the evening, I was able to get some fine shots of the moon. I'm quite happy with the way this one turned out:
For some time now, I've been wanting to get some good shots of Great Falls in a wintry setting. So, when it snowed here a couple of weeks ago, I figured that I should take advantage of the opportunity. Because the snowstorm hit during the middle of the week, I was initially inclined to wait until the weekend, but I was afraid that the snow would melt before I could get to the falls. So, I got up early and drove out to the falls before sunrise. I figured that if I was fast enough, I'd be able to get out there, shoot the falls, and then drive back into town and get to work before the office opened. I was rewarded with the following:
I like the color and texture of the water. It looks very cold and I find the blurred movement of the water quite striking.
I took this image at 7:43 a.m. using a 12mm focal length and an extremely small aperture of f/25. I also used a Nikon circular polarizer II stacked on a Hoya Pro1Digital 0.6 neutral density filter. This was necessary to get a super slow shutter speed, which I needed to obtain that smooth blur effect with the water. With this image, I was able to achieve a 2 second exposure. While I think it looks fairly nice, I do think it would have looked a bit better if I had been able to get a 3 or 4 second exposure and thereby blurred even more of the water's movement.
Shortly after 8:00 a.m., the sun broke through some low-lying clouds and projected some nice light on the cliffs. I took the following at 8:14 a.m.:
The light was too intense to obtain a shutter speed of more than a second, even with stacked filters and a super small aperture. So, for this image, I used a more reasonable aperture of f/11. With the neutral density filter and without the polarizer, I obtained a shutter speed of 1/40s.
While the water isn't as striking in this second photo, I like the early morning light on the rocks. The light is much less flat, giving the rocks more character. Also, this second image is significantly sharper than the first because it doesn't suffer from diffraction, which on my camera, affects images taken with apertures smaller than f/11.
While most of the images I shot were taken with the same composition as the first two photos, using wide angles and such, I decided to experiment with some longer focal lengths. I think the following turned out nicely, though not as well as the first two:
On another note, while we didn't get more than a few inches of snow the previous night, the storm caused quite a few problems for the D.C. region. The snow was very wet and heavy. All of the Federal offices opened late because of the snow, including my own, and many homes lost power and heat. The drive at 6 a.m. out to the falls was somewhat treacherous. Many roads were closed and unplowed. Of the roads that were open, I had to be careful and navigate around abandoned cars and fallen trees. I was very grateful to have all-wheel drive.
The following is a photo of Old Dominion Drive, the road in Virginia leading to and from Great Falls Park. I took this on my way out of the Park, driving just behind two snowplows. If you think the road looks bad in the image, just imagine what it might have been like at 3 hours earlier, before any snowplows had touched the street.
Here's a fun note about the following photo of the statute of President Garfield. You can also find him in the above photo; he's the statute immediately to the left of the doorway. There was very little space between the statue and the wall.
I think this version turned out nicely. If you compare it with the previous version, which I took with the Nikon 12-24, one of the first things that you may notice is that there's less of a problem with parallax or keystoning. This is because the Nikon 10-24 is noticeably wider and I was able to point my camera perfectly level with the ground and achieve the same composition. With the previous photo, I had to point the lens slightly towards the ground in order to capture the front-most potted tree. While the two lenses have only a 2mm difference in minimum focal lengths, the difference in angle of view afforded by 12mm (99°) and 10mm (109°) is quite dramatic in practice.
While processing the two photos, my impression was that the Nikon 12-24 was a bit sharper and contrastier than the Nikon 10-24, but the lighting was brighter when I took the first photo and the smaller angle of view afforded by the 12-24 brings the image in closer, revealing more detail, so it's really hard to compare. On the other hand, the difference in the angle of view was quite dramatic, with the advantage to the 10-24, so I'm happy I made the exchange. I'm looking forward to using the Nikon 10-24 to shoot landscapes this spring.
I've often admired this work of art. It reminds me some of the Big Sail, another Calder sculpture located at my alma mater MIT, so perhaps it also makes me feel a bit nostalgic.
Alexander Calder designed Mountains and Clouds specifically for the Hart Building, which opened in 1982. Unfortunately, Calder died before the building and the sculpture could be completed. The sculpture was built from his designs, but it was painted black because it's unclear what color he would have liked it painted. Most of his mobiles are painted in bright colors.
Another interesting fact about Mountains and Clouds is that it is the only installation by Calder in which he combined both a free-standing sculpture and a mobile.
Incidentally, from a photographic sense, I haven't been able to photograph the sculpture until now because I didn't have any lenses that were wide enough to capture the entire thing. As a Christmas present, I obtained a new ultra-wide angle lens, a Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED. I figured the best way to test it out would be to visit the Senate and take a photo of my favorite sculpture.
In the photo, you will notice there is some keystone (parallax) issues. This is because I wasn't able to frame the photo without pointing my camera slightly downwards. I really wanted the top of the front-most potted tree in the photo.
I'm happy with the performance of the Nikkor 12-24mm, but I'm probably going to return it to get the Nikkor 10-24. The 10-24 is wider and probably a bit better for landscape photography; it will probably suite me better.]]>
We’re having a white Christmas here in Washington, DC. It snowed last Thursday. While nothing like the major blizzard that we had shortly before Christmas last year, I wanted to take advantage of this snowfall as well. I really like the photos of the Capitol that I got last year, but none of them depict the Capitol Christmas Tree lit up brightly. So, on Friday, I managed to get out of the office to shoot the Capitol Christmas Tree.
The annual Capitol Christmas Tree is a tradition that started in 1964. This year, the tree is a 67-foot Englemann spruce brought all the way from Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest. It is decorated with approximately 5,000 ornaments crafted by the people from across the State of Wyoming that reflect the theme of this year’s tree: “Wyoming: Forever West”. (Yes, I actually did some research before I took the photo—although primarily because I wanted to find out what time they turn the lights on and off, which incidentally is dusk till 11pm.) The tree is lit up with approximately 8,000 to 10,000 LED lights, which have an extremely long life span and are environmentally friendly.
Fall in Virginia and around DC is very beautiful, but the window of opportunity to shoot autumn landscapes is very short. I’ve been trying to think about how best to take advantage of that window and so naturally I’ve turned to some of the locations that I’ve already shot. One of my favorite locations in the area is Great Falls, Virginia.
A couple of weeks ago, I got up early and drove out to the park to shoot the falls at sunrise. For the following photo, I stood on the railing of an overlook to get just the right angle. Notice the blurred waterfall and the kayakers.
I shot using a 16mm focal length (24mm equivalent on a traditional 32mm camera) using an aperture of f/11. The small aperture and the use of a circular polarizer allowed me to get a slow shutter speed of 1/6 second, which created the silky look of the falls.
Last week I got up at 2:00 am and drove to Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. This was my 3rd trip to Old Rag Mountain. I went a few weeks ago to scout out locations for this shoot. My goal for this shoot was to capture the fall colors at sunrise, which is why I had to set out so early. I begin climbing the mountain at 4:15 am in the dark. It was a brutal climb.
Getting up at that insane hour and the strenuous climb were well worth it. I caught this beautiful sunrise.
Exposure was very challenging. Using auto settings I either blew out the sky, giving me great detail in the rocks but a washed out sky, or I captured the highlights around the sun but lost all the details in the rocks. However, here I used spot metering (a few degrees to the right of the sun) and then used the highlight and shadow recovery tools in Aperture. I’m very happy with the results.
The obvious place to take photos at Old Rag is from the peak. However, the place I picked was about 2/3 up to the peak. I think the location I found had better color and a nicer vista.
I really love the color and composition of the following photo.
I would have liked to get the farm to stand out a bit more. I tried hiking another half hour or so to the peak, hoping the higher angle would bring out the farm better, but it just didn’t work out. One of the problems with this kind of landscape photography is that once you make a decision, you can’t go back on it easily. By the time I got to the peak and turned around to get back to my original location, the sun would have risen too much and the lighting would have changed.
Unfortunately, since the sky is so large, a mere 1 degree can make a really big difference. When I went to the Washington Monument on Sept 24, we still had a harvest moon and it was gorgeous, but it rose over a bunch of trees—nowhere near the Capitol.
Nonetheless, another night out on the Mall at sunset is never wasted. I got some great shots from the Washington Monument of the Lincoln Memorial.
I used a telephoto lens to take this shot. A telephoto lens compresses things, reducing the apparent distance between objects. Here you can see Arlington, Virginia, which looks like it’s right behind the Lincoln Memorial rather than being completely on the other side of the Potomac River. You can also see that the very long Reflecting Pool looks very short.
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| Sunset over the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington, VA |
I love the purple in the following two photos. I suppose that I have a special affinity for evening shots. I love how at night, the lighting can be quite dramatic.
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| Lincoln Memorial and Arlington, VA, at dusk |
The lights at the bottom of the following photo are from the World War II Memorial.
Besides the Lincoln Memorial, I had a great view of the Capitol from the Washington Monument. The white tents are for the National Book Festival that took place the following weekend.
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| The Capitol at dusk with preparations for the National Book Festival |
I think you can only get these deep blue skies at dusk. I really like it.
I would really like to visit Old Rag in October when the leaves have changed. I should be able to get some wonderful early morning panorama shots of the fall foliage. However, when shooting landscapes at sunrise, there isn’t any time to wonder around looking for good vistas, the light changes too quickly to waste time. So, last weekend I figured that it would be good to visit Old Rag and scout out all the good vistas and make note of the timing of my ascent. This way, I’ll be prepared when I visit again in October.
So, last weekend I got up at 3:30 am and departed at 4:00 am for Sperryville, Virginia. I arrived at the lower parking lot for Old Rag at 6:00. Dawn was at 6:30 and sunrise was at 7:00. Since the peak is only part-way into the 8.5 mile trail loop, I figured that I might hike fast and get to the peak by sunrise.
Armed with a headlamp I picked up at REI, I set out hiking by myself in the dark. And boy was the hike tough! To get to the peak, you have to hike over the Ridge Trail, a 3 mile rock scramble! I’m in decent physical condition, but even so, I found the trail difficult. Not only is the rock scramble 3 miles long, but it includes 2,200 feet of elevation gain. That’s like climbing the stairs to the top floor of a 220 story skyscraper! And if that isn’t hard enough, I was carrying a lot of photography gear, including my enormous Gitzo series 3 tripod.
In the photo below, you can see 3 peaks off in the distance. The furthest peak is the peak of Old Rag Mountain. I was already winded when I took this photo and the trail looked daunting.
Well, I missed the sunrise. The trail took way too long and was much too challenging for me to hike in a mere 1 hour. Instead, it took me 3 hours to get to peak. I arrived at 9 am. I think I could have made it in closer to 2 hours, but when I realized that I wasn’t going to make it in time for the sunrise, I made a few stops to take photos along the way. And I’m glad that I did. I really love this photo of mist rising over Shenandoah—I took it about a third of the way into the rock scramble.
When I got to the peak of the mountain, I was greeted with an incredible sight—and I don’t mean the vista, which was also incredible.
A group of 10 or 15 students from Old Dominion University carried a pink leather love-seat to the top of the mountain and perched it on top of a boulder to watch the sunrise.
The pink couch was completely out of place. I might as well have seen a pink elephant. I was stunned when I saw it. Actually, I was out of breath from the hike. And these kids carried a couch up the side of the mountain!
They started hiking at 4 am in the dark—and I thought I started early! They were hoping to catch the sunrise as well, but barely missed it. I chatted with them for a while. I was so impressed by their feat. And they were very friendly, offering me an opportunity to sit on the couch for a while, but I declined. (You might guess why by looking at the photos.) However, what was most impressive to me wasn’t that they were able to carry the couch up the mountain, but that they actually carried it back down with them!
Last weekend’s hike was fun and very challenging. However, next time when I go in October, I will have to get up even earlier. While the sun will rise a bit later, I now know that 3:30 am just isn’t going to cut it. And yes, landscape photography is hard . . . really hard.
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| Moon rising over the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. |
Yesterday, on the day before the vernal equinox, I met up with the DC Social Flickr group to photograph the harvest moon. We met up at the Lincoln Memorial. Our intent was to capture the harvest moon rising above the Capitol and the Washington Monument.
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| Moon rising over the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. |
This was my first time meeting up with the DC Social Flickr group. I really enjoyed meeting everyone. However, the photography was a bit disappointing. Clouds covered the horizon, preventing us from getting any photos of the moon over the Capitol until it rose fairly high in the sky.
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| Partially obscured moon rising over the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. |
I had really high hopes for the night. I’ve seen some really dramatic photos of harvest moons in DC. But alas, the weather was not cooperating.
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| Washington Monument reflected in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. |
I do like the photos that I got yesterday. However, they just aren’t what I was trying for. Perhaps I’ll make another trip out onto the Mall later this week. However, the window of opportunity is short. There are only two harvest moons each year. The next one is in March.]]>
Last week, I made a couple of trips to Huntley Meadows Park, an unexpected 1,425 acres of forest, meadows, and wetlands in the middle of suburban Alexandria, Virginia.
On my first visit, I was fascinated with the dragonflies.
Huntley Meadows is most famous for its wildlife--primarily birds. The ducks (or are these geese?) were my closest targets. The proximity was important because the longest lens I own is only 300mm--the minimum focal length for birding is largely considered to be 400mm.
But a relatively short lens wasn’t my only difficulty. The sun was setting behind cloud cover, resulting in heavy glare on the water. I tried using a polarizer to fight the glare, but the polarizer only exasperated my third problem, viz. that the light was fading and my telephoto lens isn’t very fast (doesn’t have a very large aperture). The polarizer couldn’t eliminate all the glare and only cut down on the amount of light I was collecting. So, I tried to make the best of it by accepting the glare and going for a high-key look.
Here’s my attempt to add a little color.
Besides ducks (or geese), Huntley Meadows also features herons. This guy looked great, but I couldn’t get close. I had to crop quite a bit on this one.
On my second visit, I caught the sunset without cloud cover and this time the egrets decided to cooperate.
Of course, that’s just relative. Without a long lens, there’s no way I would have been able to get close without wading into the water. So I tried to get creative again. This time, I decided to focus on the light and the empty area of the water around the birds.
I hope you like my photos. Feel free to check them out on Flickr and send me an email or leave a comment below.
Edit (9/3/2010):
Let’s throw in a nice photo of a butterfly just for good measure.
At first, I figured I’d have to reschedule. However, I wasn’t dissuaded. I figured that the rain might make for some unique photos and I wasn’t disappointed. The waterlilies were stunning.
I was also impressed with the lotus flowers.
Besides the flowers, I found a number of birds. I was able to get fairly close to this heron.
While it was a pretty hike, the highlight was seeing deer. Bambi was very shy.
Allison had a beautiful vintage dress.
The ceremony took place at Allison’s parents’ place on the St. Lawrence River. Because the wedding took place in the afternoon and the sky was clear, the lighting was harsh. However, I was able to compensate by overriding my camera’s exposure settings and doing some careful post-processing. I think I ended up with some good results.
Allison made her own hair piece out of a brooch that Melissa gave to her and some feathers.
For their first dance, Allison and Dustin performed a dance routine that they created while taking a ballroom dancing class.
Here’s a photo of Allison dancing with her father.
Later in the afternoon, the sun began to set and a slight breeze picked up. The weather was very comfortable.
The St. Lawrence River is a major shipping channel. During the wedding, large ships occasionally sailed on by.
We were blessed with a beautiful sunset and I did my best to capture the color.
The following day, we went on a boat ride around the islands in the St. Lawrence river. I really like this photo of Chris.
I made sure to get to Crabtree Falls right at sunrise. I wanted to shoot it with good lighting. It was important to me that not only should I avoid harsh lighting, but I wanted to get slow shutter speeds so that I could get the soft look of the falls. I was rewarded with the following:
Notice how soft the water looks? That one is my favorite, but I also like the following:
Both of those images have nice strong foreground elements. The following is a simpler composition with no real foreground element, but the water looks dramatic:
Besides the lighting, there were three other great benefits of getting to the falls early. First, it was much cooler. That part of Virginia was experiencing a heat wave that weekend. It was 95 by mid-afternoon, but very comfortable at 8 in the morning. Second, there were fewer bugs flying around. But perhaps most importantly, I avoided the huge crowds:
On Sunday, I visited the National Zoo here in Washington, D.C. I’ve been to the zoo before, but I wasn’t thrilled with my previous results. This time, however, I was equipped with a better camera, a better lens, more experience, and some basic knowledge about the zoo. The key is to go early before the tourists arrive and while the animals are active.
I also decided that this time I would focus on my favorite animals, the great cats. Fortunately both Luke and Shera, the African lions, were out and about.
Naba, the other lioness, was away. She gave birth to the Zoo’s first cub in 20 years. That’s very exciting news.
The following are two photos of Shera. She’s quite a magnificent creature.
However, she was taking it pretty easy. I love how content she looks in the following. And I love the green bokeh in these photos.
But of course, lions are famous for napping. Occasionally, Luke would yawn. It proved very difficult to take this picture. He doesn’t exactly let you know he’s going to yawn before he does it, and if you’re not paying attention, you miss the shot. The background on this one is regrettable, but otherwise a good shot in my opinion.
The lions aren’t the only animals on great cat island. Here’s a shot of Guntur, the male Sumatran tiger.
Guntur’s father Rokan is in a separate pen. Rokan is 19. That’s extremely old for a tiger. In the wild they rarely live past 12. He looks very scary in this photo.
I got a shot of Rokan yawning as well.
On my way out of the zoo, I stopped by the cheetah conservation station to see if I could get some interesting photos of Tumai, the zoo’s resident cheetah. They pulled her into a new pen where they had setup a chasing target. I didn’t realize what was happening at first, so I wasn’t prepared. For a split second, Tumai decided she wanted to play and chased the target around the pen. But only seconds later, she decided she didn’t want to have anything to do with it and waited by the door to her normal pen. This was the best shot I could get, as clearly my reactions aren’t as fast as a cheetah.
The last hike of the Photo Trekking class was in GR Thompson State Wildlife Management Area, Virginia. The place is normally reserved for hunting, Monday through Saturday, but on Sundays, it’s open to hikers. The place is probably best known for its trillium bloom, which is likely the largest bloom of large-flowered trillium in the United States.
In early May, there are millions of trillium in bloom in Thompson WMA.
Trillium aren’t the only wildflowers that bloom in Thompson WMA. The lady’s slippers are quite popular with hikers.
I particularly liked the mayapples. I got this photo when the clouds broke just enough to give me a little sun.
The wildflower I photographed most was the purple geranium. I really like this one. If you look closely, you can see evidence of a recent rainfall.
I got this one with some dramatic lighting. You can also see a new flower about to bloom.
There was a lot to see everywhere I looked. I had some fun trying to get this millipede. It was pretty hard, as the little guy was moving fast.
As you might have guessed from the selection of photos I’ve displayed so far that I did a lot of close-up photography. Well, I also tried some landscape shots as well, but it was hard to nail the composition.
I think this one turned out reasonably well, but the trillium don’t pop out at the viewer as much as I think they should.
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On Sunday, my photo trekking group ventured to Cedarville State Forest near Brandywine, Maryland. It’s a little known place, but it was gorgeous! We almost didn’t go. It had rained all night and the weather forecast was for thunderstorms in the morning and throughout the day. Many of the hikers bailed, but those of us who persevered were quite rewarded!
Cedarville is a forest with some swamps and bogs. Because it had just rained, everything was lush and green. All of the leaves were dripping with the rain.
After what must have been an hour of hiking and shooting . . . and mostly shooting . . . I think we only traveled perhaps 100 yards. Barbara laughed that we were the easily amused group.
One of the first things that we saw that really fascinated me was a tree partially eaten by what I imagine must have been a very large beaver.
There was a lot to see in the swamp. I almost missed this frog:
I particularly liked the swamp. For a short while there was a mist rising from the water. I tried to capture what I saw in the following:
The light kept changing quickly. The following photos were taken only moments apart:
I love the color green and I like water. I really liked this ivy covered bridge. Could we fit more green in a single picture?
Cedarville might have been my favorite hike so far. I really enjoyed it.
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On the 18th, my photo trekking class went to Carderock in Great Falls National Park, Maryland. The previous weekend, we visited Great Falls in the early morning. For the trek on the 18th, we went hiking in the late afternoon and evening to see how things would look with sunset lighting.
While I got some great photos this trip, the lighting was pretty disappointing. The lighting was harsh in the afternoon. I would have thought the following photo would have turned out very nicely. I love the turtles climbing onto the log with the ducks. However, it seems the sun was just too harsh.
The light wasn’t much better later on either. We didn’t get a sunset because a blanket of clouds rolled in and blocked out the sun. However, not all was lost. Things worked out a bit better in the shade and with some selectivity, I could get nice shots. I really like the following turtle photo and the photo of the turtle at the top of the page.
I wasn’t inspired to take any landscape photos this trip. So, I put away my wide-angle lens and pulled out my Nikon 70-300 VR telephoto lens. I used the telephoto to zoom in on details. I really like how the light falls on the leaves and flowers in the following:
There were a lot of purple phlox in bloom:
I’m not a flower expert, so I don’t know what this is, but I love the yellow set against the dark green:
It was a beautiful hike. There were flowers in bloom everywhere I looked.
The most exciting moment of the hike, for me, was this dragonfly that I photographed at the end of the trail.
It was a very challenging shot to take. To get the shot, I used my Nikon 70-300 VR lens at 300mm on a tripod. I stood as close to the dragonfly as I could get. (The lens has a minimum focus distance of 5 feet.) Then, to get the entire dragonfly in focus, I stopped down the lens to f/16. For metering, I selected spot metering.
]]>Last weekend I went to Great Falls for my photo trekking class. While I had been to Great Falls before in the summer and in the winter on the Virginia side, this was my first time visiting the Maryland side.
We started off by hiking up a ridge. I found an opening in the trees and was greeted with a beautiful view of the other side of the river. The morning light was magical.
Much of the hike at first was in the shade. So, I focused on lines and perspective. Then, I ventured off the path and into the woods. I really like the morning light coming through the canopy of leaves.
This one feels almost religious to me. I set the white balance using a gray card--about 9600K. The yellow is actually pretty accurate.
Having only been on the Virginia side of the river, I completely missed the C&O canal. The still water in the canal created a mirror-like reflection of the trees. I loved it. I took this image from down low at 16mm with my camera aimed a bit downwards.
Later we went to some of the smaller waterfalls. It was really bright. Even stopped down and with a polarizer, I could not get a slow shutter speed. However, it may have worked out better this way. I like the water in the bottom right of the frame.
After the waterfalls, we hiked the Billy Goat A trail. It’s a fun hike. Almost the entire hike is a rock scramble. Every year, dozens of people fall. I hope you can tell from the photo why.
As it turns out, someone did get hurt while I was on the trail. We ran into a few members of the fire department who were carrying medical gear. They were searching for a fallen woman. Not long after, a Park Police helicopter showed up. It came down above the ridge line and came very close to me. I was able to take these photos with a mere 85mm lens.
I was glad to hear from another hiker that they found the woman. It sounded like she broke her leg or something but would otherwise be okay.
Last weekend was the peak for cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin. On Sunday, I road my bike to the Tidal Basin to photograph the blossoms as the sun rose. I did the same thing last year.
Last year, I took a lot of photos of the Tidal Basin ringed by cherry trees in bloom. While the Tidal Basin itself is an obvious subject, it’s actually a bit hard to get interesting photos of the Tidal Basin. It can actually be hard to see the blossoms when you focus on the water because the blossoms are so small and at a distance lack definition. I tried to do a bit of the same this year but with some added creativity:
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| Cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin at dawn. |
The photos I really liked the most last year focused more on the trees than the Tidal Basin. Here’s one with of a tree catching some of the morning light hanging over the water.
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| Cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin at dawn. |
But this year, I made an extra effort to focus on the blossoms themselves. I think the bokeh (pleasing out of focus background) on this one is really nice.
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| Close-up of cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin at dawn. |
Another thing I tried was turning around and looking away from the tidal basin. I found a pleasing canopy of cherry blossoms:
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| Cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin early in the morning. |
Pointing my camera up also gave me some fun results:
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| Cherry blossoms in morning light. |
One added benefit of focusing on details is that you can avoid the crowds--and there are big crowds at the Tidal Basin for the National Cherry Blossom Festival--though it also helps to go really early in the morning as I did.
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| Photographers and tourists admiring the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin at dawn. |
Sometimes it’s nice to get people in the photo. In this one, the presence of the girl in orange make things feel very relaxed and serene, but I could do without that photographer way off in the background.
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| Bicyclist relaxing under a canopy of cherry blossoms. |
I walked all around the Tidal Basin and came to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. While not a photo of cherry blossoms, I could not resist taking this photo:
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| Statue of Thomas Jefferson at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. |
The columns right outside struck me as particularly interesting. I tried playing with the shadows that they created and some depth of field. Notice how the columns look like they are different widths?
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| Pillars casting shadows in morning light at the Jefferson Memorial. |
On Sunday, I went to Catoctin Mountain Park with my Photo Trekking class. It seems we used up all of our good weather last weekend at St. Mary’s Watershed. Sunday was cold and dreary with a forecast for rain. The following picture of Chimney Rock isn’t very nice, but I think it conveys the dreariness:
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| A dreary day at Chimney Rock: 40 degrees with a forecast for rain. |
Even though it was early morning, when the light is normally really good, the clouds made the light flat and boring. Spring hadn’t hit Catoctin yet either, so we missed the greenery. No greenery and bad lighting made for quite a challenge. But the challenge wasn’t unsurmountable. If you look carefully, there’s lots of color to be had, just not the colors you might expect.
In the following photo, also taken at Chimney Rock, you can see lots of reds and browns. I cut out the sky because it would be bright, boring, and overwhelming. Instead, I focused on texture and depth of field. The rocks share some color with the trees.
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| Spring clearly hasn't come to Chimney Rock yet, but despite the lack of green, there's lots of color to be found. |
I tried to take the opportunity to play with composition. I really like the following photo, but it could have been better. I was too lazy to use my tripod on this one, which I now really regret. To get the image sharp without a tripod, I needed a fast shutter speed. Unfortunately, I needed to use a small aperture in order to obtain good depth of field--getting both ends of the tree in focus. This meant I had to use a high ISO setting, which reduced the dynamic range I was able to capture with my camera.
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| Rocks inside a hollowed out tree. |
I also took the following photo hand-held. I don’t think this one was hurt quite as much by the higher ISO setting. I like the three dimensional look created by different layers of trees in the foreground and background. I also like the squiggly lines. Including just a bit of sky seemed to add interest and make the image look less flat.
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| Squiggly trees reaching for the sky. |
After hiking around for a bit, we went to Cunningham Falls. I really like waterfalls, like just about everyone, so I was excited to go to the tallest waterfall in the Washington, DC, area.
Cunningham Falls has a viewing area on which people can stand and watch the falls. Unfortunately, there are trees and such that obstruct the view a bit. To get a good shot of the falls, I had to climb the railing and get closer. I’m glad that I did. I like this image:
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| Cunningham Falls. |
Here’s another one taken from even closer. I tried to frame the image so that the water would flow from the top-right corner to the bottom-left corner, thereby creating movement and interest. To get the silkiness of the water, I stopped down the aperture and used a polarizer to get a slow shutter speed.
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| Cunningham Falls. |
At the end of the hike, I walked with the instructor, Barbara Southworth. As we walked, I thought mostly of going home. All the trees looked the same to me. However, it was clear that things looked different to Ms. Southworth. She pointed out a small beech tree and said she’d like to take a picture of it. I hadn’t even noticed the tree, but as soon as she pointed it out, I knew immediately why she wanted to take a photo of it.
The small beech tree stood all alone, surrounded by much taller trees. The beech tree had bright golden white leaves that stood out in stark contrast from its surroundings. Behind the beech tree was a moss covered log with mushrooms growing on it and further back was a huge vine growing up a tall tree.
We stopped to take the photo and here is what I got:
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| A lone bright beech tree in a dark forest. |
positioned the tree in the frame 1/3 from the right. I like the end of the fallen tree behind it, so I positioned it 1/3 from the left. A diagonal log in the foreground gives an impression of movement. For the background, I was careful not to get any sky in the photo.
I think my photo turned out nicely, but you can barely see the vine snaking up the tree behind the beech tree. In a sense, my photo really is lacking because the vine is wasted and almost distracting. This was most obvious when I saw how Barbara framed her photo.
In the following photo, the vine is barely visible behind and to the left of the beech tree. (In this photo, I’m standing a bit to the left from where I stood in the previous photo.) Imagine how the photo would look if I had stood even further to the left. Barbara was able to frame the photo so that the vine snaking up the tree was exactly 1/3 from the left of the frame, while the beech tree was exactly 1/3 from the right of the frame. This made the image of the vine and the beech tree very distinct from each other and gave her photo a wonderful sense of balance.
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| A lone bright beech tree in a dark forest. |
As I progress as a photographer, I’m becoming more and more comfortable with the workings of my camera and the technicalities of photographer. I’m also becoming more and more aware of the importance of composition.]]>
I signed up for a class called “Photo Trekking”. It’s a 6-week nature photography course that involves hiking in scenic spots near Washington, DC. The course is being taught by the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program and the instructor is Barbara Southworth, a photographer who specializes in place-based and landscape imagery.
Our first hike was at St. Mary’s Watershed. We met up at 7:00 am to watch the sun rise and then set out on the 7.1 mile hike.
My first photo was of the sunrise. It was absolutely spectacular! We were blessed with patchy clouds and a perfectly still lake.
Generally, you only get a mirror-like lake when the air is perfectly calm. This calm ends once the sun rises and heats the air. The heated air moves across the water and causes ripples, which destroys the effect. I did my best to take advantage of the time--it doesn’t last long.
My first couple of photos were taken from a jetty in the middle of the lake. I took the following from a small inlet not too far away. The light had a very warm feel and I made sure to keep that in my prost-processing.
There were a number of fishermen who decided to get an early start on the lake as well. I figured it would be nice to get a shot with one of their boats--I think it adds a little depth and interest to the photo. To take the following photo, I abandoned my wide-angle lens and pulled out my telephoto. You can see that a slight breeze is picking up and disturbing the water.
The dam for the watershed runs north and south. With my back to the sun and shooting at a downward angle, I was able to take this shot of some grass. The blue behind the grass isn’t sky but water reflecting the sky.
On Saturday, February 6, 2010, Washington, D.C., got hit with Snowmageddon, the second major storm of the 2009-2010 winter season. I had thought that the Christmas storm was bad. (Just before Christmas, the Snowpocalypse dumped 16 inches of snow on the metro region.) But on February 6, Snowmageddon slammed us with another 18 inches of snow. Some areas near DC got as much as 33 inches in one day! And just when we thought things were already absurd (remember we only had one storm last year and all the snow melted by the afternoon), Snoverkill hit the region only 5 days later, dropping another 10 inches of snow on us.
Snowmageddon began Friday night and continued Saturday morning and throughout the day. With this much snow and the historic nature of the storm (just Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon together pushed the District past its record snowfall for one season, which was set way back in 1898), I just had to go out and take some photos. I began taking photos of the Hill around and near Eastern Market.
The District couldn’t handle the snow. Businesses, bars, and restaurants all shut down.
Most of the streets were uncleared. It was impossible to drive anywhere. Sidewalks were piled high with snow. People resorted to walking in the middle of the street. Some took to skis.
And despite the freezing temperatures and continued snowfall, many DC residents decided it was time to play. A huge snowball fight erupted on the Mall.
The storm turned the Mall into a winter wonderland.
The Constitution Garden Pond looked particularly beautiful.
I took many photos of the Mall on Saturday, but after wondering around the Hill and the Mall for 5 hours in a snowstorm, I got cold, tired, and hungry. So, I set out for home. As I walked home, the storm subsided and the sun began to set. I then encountered some of my best photo opportunities of the day.
Here are two of my favorites of the Washington Monument and the Tidal Basin.
I found this view of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum stunning.
With the exception of the few photos I took on my way home at the end of the day, most of my photos from Saturday were solid white, with a white sky over a white landscape. The bleakness of the photos provide some drama, demonstrating the severity of the storm. However, it would have been nice to get some more color.
On Monday, the snow still blanketed the District, but the Sky was blue and the sun was shinning. I decided to see if I could get some good sunset pictures of the Capitol. So, once again, I set out in the cold to stand knee deep in snow for a couple hours as I watched the sun slowly set over the district. And I’m glad I did. Here’s one of the Capitol at dusk:
On December 19, 2009, a large storm dumped 14 inches of snow on Washington, DC. This storm was nicknamed the "Snowpocalypse" and was the first of 3 major blizzards to hit Washington, DC, during the winter of 2009-2010. (The other 2 storms are known as "Snowmageddon" and "Snoverkill".)
At about 1:30 in the morning and again at dawn, I set out in the Snowpocalypse to photograph the Capitol. I shot most of the photos at a wide angle with my Nikon D90 and 16-85mm VR. Because my camera isn’t weather proof, I kept it wrapped in a shower cap. I removed the shower cap just briefly to reveal the lens. Unfortunately, the snow was coming down pretty hard and the wind blew the snow into my lens. As a result, you can see flare on some of the photos.
You may notice that in some of the photos you can see lights on in the Capitol. The Senate was in session all night long. The Democrats were hoping to pass the Senate version of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act before Christmas.
