Columbus

There's something about riding to work on a subway that drains the life from a person - at least, this person.  It's not enough that getting up before the sun rises is somehow demoralizing (again, to this person), but, so too is joining the throngs of other commuters heading to the Red Line of the Metro Rail - notoriously slow, overcrowded, and filled with people who are happy to shove you aside so they can get in and out of the subway cars first.  I got out at Union Station, one of those mornings, to glance back at the building and, bammo!  Christopher Columbus bathed in the morning sunlight, flags flapping in the wind against the painted sky in the background. 

Taken with an iPhone 5s, this is one of those images that has little to do with the photographer shooting.  Any one of the drones coming out of the Metro that morning could have gotten this image.  This drone/photographer was aware enough to get it.

B-Side: The Blue Wing

The National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum has a few nooks and crannies that you can easily miss if you're not paying attention.  That little doorway at the end of the hall that appears to be a dead end, for example, opens up into this wing that lets  you into this room.  Three floors of marvelous marble pillars, and artwork around every corner like it were a library.  The natural light coming through the skylights cast a cool glow into the room.  The settings on the camera must have been for the wrong type of light source; but, no matter, I like the glow of both the blue and the warm yellow lights hanging down.

Taken with an iPhone 5s with the wrong settings, I wouldn't have found this room (and the massive courtyard in the middle of the building) if I didn't have a bit of explorer in me that wasn't afraid to keep looking until a security guard told me to stop.

B-Side: The Three Rings of Symmetry

I passed by this the other day noticing somewhere in the empty corridors of my mind at how odd it was that the coins tossed into this fountain - undoubtedly from 3, 2, and 1 floors above it - seemed to be evenly dispersed from the center of the fountain outward, in all directions.  Just a passing thought in my mind.  But 15 minutes or so after I left the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, it dawned on me that this could be a good photo if I could lean far enough over the 3rd floor balcony without falling off.  So, I returned today.

Taken with an iPhoto 5s, I learned that sometimes our subconscious sees the beauty before our conscious eye can.

The B-Side: Washington Monument

This is the only photo of the Washington Monument I've taken that I sort of like.  Everything else looks like every other tourist snapshot of the world's tallest stone structure.  I've taken particular interest in the Monument, lately, when I learned that the Ryukyu Kingdom donated a stone intended for the Monument.  Someone lost it along the way, and in 1989 the Ryukyu Society provided a new one that was installed at about the 310 foot level.

Taken with an iPhone 5s whilst straddling a bicycle, I am pleased with this.

The B-Side: Smithsonian Castle

Much like the underground stroll between the Galleries of Art, I didn't expect to find this gem of a room in the Smithsonian Castle.  I really thought this building was the Administrative offices for the Institution, with little more than an information kiosk and small gift shop inside.  But they do have some neat displays in here, worth taking a look at.  As for the image, I think the birds (stuffed) flying past the windows are a nice touch.

Taken with an iPhone 5s, I count it as a blessing, these days, to be able to pull out a phone and capture an image like this on the fly.

The B-Side: The Tunnel Between Art

On one side of this tunnel is the National Gallery of Art West Building, filled with works that are as uplifting as they are inspiring.  On the other side (behind the photographer) is the East Building, currently undergoing renovations.  The light show put on between the buildings, 1 floor underground seems to rise just enough to the level of amusing to qualify as art.

Taken with an iPhone 5s, the quality of the image is equal to the qualify art in the subject, earning it a firm place on the B-Side.

The B-Side: St. Mary Mother of God

I like how this image is lit, and the weird balance issues the reach of the branch causes as it creeps into the frame.  Not sure, to be honest, if it tilts the frame to the right, or balances the heft of the dark on the left.  Someone who understands these considerations better than me will have to chime in.  Either way, I like the image, even if it is a B-Sider.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens, I may have to come back in the Spring and get a companion photo with blossoms on the branch.

The B-Side: National Archives

It is hard to really capture on a camera how large buildings are in this town.  The National Archives is grand in scale, cavernous inside, and has an unmistakable presence on Pennsylvania Avenue.  Another B-Sider, worth a spot in a collaged frame on my wall, but not it's own frame.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens, I just don't know that I can do justice to the building that holds our nation's treasures.

The B-Side: Treasury

Sometimes (more often than I'd care to admit), I just can't seem to find the shot.  But I'll still grab a few images that are worthwhile.  Just not jaw dropping.  Hence, "The B-Side".  Ones that I like, but also those that I don't suspect anyone else will.  This is the Department of Treasury at 15th and F, NW.  If you want to see how quickly you can get a uniformed Secret Service to show up at your side (without actually doing anything threatening), pull out a tripod for your camera anywhere near the White House grounds.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens, I actually had to show the Secret Service guy the picks I was taking.  He wasn't impressed.

Willard Family Tree

This was an assignment.  My first one, in fact, as a photographer.  But it was an assignment from my mother, not a publisher.  Apparently, in my mother's line of ancestors there are the Willards.  The same family for whom this hotel is named.  My father, who is a bit of a genealogy nut, is in the process of confirming the family lore.  Either way, this is a funky building to shoot because it looks like it is three different buildings built really close together.  It wasn't until I actually walked around it looking for the best angle that I learned there is no good angle to shoot it and capture all of its architectural complexity.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens, this photo is good enough for my mother, so it's good enough for all of you who view this blog (which consists of my mother and probably no one else).

The National Cathedral

I was actually on the hunt for the Darth Vader "gargoyle" that was built into the Cathedral somewhere high up on the structure.  I never did find it with my telephoto, but did spend a lovely evening walking around the outside grounds of the National Cathedral, shooting images while listening to a choral presentation from the inside uplift me while I was about my task.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens, I found the process of scouting out a good angle as rewarding as it was to get a decent shot of a building that is surprisingly difficult for me to shoot.

The Challenges of Iwo Jima

Despite your urges to go see Iwo Jima at night, don't do it unless you go early in the morning.  The tour buses parading around the loop, dropping off throngs of senior citizens, disinterested high school students, and folks from the world around make it nearly impossible to get to the grounds, take a clean photo, and get out. Just below the frame of this photo are probably a couple of hundred students looking at everything around them except for the monument that not only honors the achievement at Iwo Jima, but also the Marine Corps in general.  But their annoying presence forced me to take a photo that doesn't look like every other Iwo Jima image that comes up on a Google search.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens, this photo could not have been pulled off without those annoying teens who brought to mind the words of the snooty Maitre D' in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "I weep for the future."

The Basement History Walked Through

I love this building.  I always have.  From the first day I walked into it I felt a sense of awe that hasn't worn off a bit.  Yes, the air conditioning is terrible in the summer, the heating is dodgy at best in the winter, and the windows are as drafty as a screen door.  But the bathrooms have marble stalls, the ceilings are high and stately, it is the closest to the Capitol Building of the three Senate Office Buildings (SOBs), and down this corridor walked five US Senators destined to become US Presidents: Warren G. Harding, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon.  The history is here in the red bricks, the waxed floors, and the old pipes.  The Russell Senate Office Building.  

Taken with an iPhone 5s, this image is not about the color, the framing, or even the emptiness of this usually bustling hallway.  It's about the history found in the otherwise unremarkable hallway that thousands of tourists now walk down with Senate interns on their way to the soulless Capitol Building Visitor's Center.  I hope the interns take a few minutes to talk about the mighty Russell.

Apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln

I try only to post one photo per shoot on this blog.  This photo is a landscaped version, and I had it up on my work computer's wallpaper.  Co-workers would stop and view it, I'd show them my portrait version as well, and they all liked this one much better.  They all (seasoned and hardened veterans of the Washington, DC scene) remarked at how different the monument looks when empty.  Indeed, none of them have ever seen this location empty; and I had made other late night treks to the monument with my camera, only to find the place packed by visitors as if it were noon-day.

Originally I chose the portrait-oriented version because I just couldn't get Lincoln's glow in this version to tone down enough to reveal the texture of the statue.  So, I just gave up and left it alone.  But, upon consideration, the glow seems to give Lincoln a god-like presence in the "temple" that bears his name.  Seems appropriate.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens on a lamentable tripod, my experience with this photo reminds me that sometimes it takes the perspective of others to help me see what was always there in front of me - a winner.

Lincoln's Glow

The occasional snow storm in DC allows a photographer to get some amazing shots of snow blown monuments...if said photographer knows what s/he's doing.  That is not the case with this photographer.  But, as is often the case in life, when one door closes, another opens if you pause for a moment and consider your options.  Blowing snow provided for a barren monument and a puddle on the floor.  Opportunity struck and I captured the image.  Lincoln with the thought bubble above his head, and a halo of light surrounding him.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens on a tripod that's beginning to fail me, I count the umpteenth snow storm this winter as a blessing.