Historic Post Office Headquarters

Sometimes cameras capture the darnedest things.  In this case, it caught an old building in an old light without having to fiddle with any adjustments or edits.  Look up, notice, pull the phone out of the pocket, and bammo!  Great shot of an old building.  Now the home of the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, I think we can all agree that regardless of how you feel about the former president, this is a great photo.

Shot with an iPhone 11, I'm quite pleased to put this photo on display to all 2 people who visit this photoblog.

 

Library of Congress, Jefferson Building

As best as I can, I try to make lighting adjustments to my photos that match what my mind's eye saw, not necessarily what the light sensors on the camera detected.  So I do make adjustments.  And when I make those adjustments, what was already there usually becomes much more evident.  In this case, there are several layers of depth that are visible simply by tracking the colors.  What is really cool in this image - something I didn't plan, but certainly did notice later - is that the pillars in the foreground seem to be serving as the foundation of the picture, and holding it up at the same time.  Framing!

Shot with an iPhone 8s Plus, I love this image for its complexity and beauty.  Also, this is the first photo I've posted on this blog where I did some proper photoshop work to get some (several) tourists out of the shot (there's the disclaimer for any real photographers out there who might stumble across this and see evidence of image manipulation...which you can see if you look really closely).

Jefferson

Going to the Jefferson Memorial to get a good image for me is a bit like going to the refrigerator repeatedly throughout the day hoping each time I'll find something enticing that I didn't notice the time before.  The troubles I have is when I'm at the monument, I'm sorta on an island occupied almost entirely by the deceptively large monument.  And if I want to shoot from across the Tidal Basin, I need a much better telephoto lens than what I've got.  But some weeks ago I took a portrait of a friend of mine at the monument and it really turned out well, so I know something up close can turn out well.

I shot this with my iPhone 8s Plus, then fiddled a bit with the basic color adjustments available on the phone's native software.  While a few people have wondered if the pillars were lit up with green lights, it was just the minor adjustments I made that brought out the four layers of coloring that I love so much about this image.  I also took the exact same image with my Canon SLR, and played with the colors on it as well; and was completely unsuccessful in coming up with anything as dynamic, yet "real" looking, as this one.

The Temple

It can be difficult photographing something that has been shot by everyone who sees it, and coming up with an image that is yet somehow still interesting.  It can also be difficult when the image you take lacks the pop that your naked eye sees.  But as I was pulling out of the parking lot of this magnificent building and glanced out of my driver's side window at this jaw dropping edifice dedicated to the worship of God, I saw the gleaming white marble against the deep cobalt blue of the sky.  I slowed down, put the car in park, got out, and took a shot.  The image in the view finder somehow lacked the pop that my eyes could see, but a little auto-enhance function in the software seemed to find what the default settings could not - the perfect image.

Shot with an iPhone 6s Plus, I'm usually not a fan of the "enhance" function as it seems to, more often than not, enhance the image away from what the naked eye actually sees.  In this case, the slightest of changes in lighting actually worked the way I hoped it would in revealing the Temple and sky as it really was.

Art Therapy

Hard manual labor is a nice contrast from the day-to-day swamp crawl that working in a bureaucracy can sometimes feel like.  As the day bled into the evening, though, I got cleaned up from heavy yard work, and rested at home from my labors feeling instantly confined and claustrophobic.  I had to get out.  So I got into my car and drove downtown toward the monuments - a place I hadn't spent much time around in recent months.  I found a parking lot, and armed only with a bottle of Dr. Pepper, started walking around toward Lincoln.  I'm always drawn to columns, and the Memorial's Doric columns call to me.  I didn't intend to shoot photographs while warding off whatever it as that afflicted my psyche that evening, but while walking along the side of the Memorial, I shot this one, and captured my first image of the columns that I feel worthy to post.

Shot with an iPhone 6s plus, this didn't quite settle the scattered things in my mind, but did leave me with something I can look back to with satisfaction in the otherwise lousy night.

Window

The Russell Senate Office Building is a wonderful building to start with.  I've already posted a few shots of it on this blog before.  Windows like this can only be found on the corner offices of the building on the 4th floor, most of them on the inside of someone's office.  However, this one, on the northeast corner, is gratefully available at the dead end of the hall.  I've gotta get one of these in my house sometime.  A large, proper, looking window.

Taken with an iPhone 6s Plus with a minor lighting tweet to fight back the backlighting, a little pos-processing can turn a real stinker into a wonderful shot. 

Portrait

A photographer friend of mine suggested that people needn't be afraid of taking "portrait" oriented images, suggesting that most folks miss good shots because the "landscape" orientation is the easiest to understand.  That seems to make sense.  To me, though, I decide between portrait and landscape based on my subject.  Take this staircase leading from the ground level to the first floor of the Supreme Court of the United States.  Portrait orientation seems to be the only way to shoot this.

Taken with an iPhone 5s, there's a dungeon-like feel to this shot, where the stairs up from the darkness to the Supreme Court courtroom lead to freedom and light.

Stairs of Symmetry

Left is the Russell Senate Office Building, Right is the Supreme Court Building.  There's a joke in here about the two equal branches of government (Congress and the Courts) being like a square peg and a round hole.  The Left is looking down, the Right is looking up.  When I build my own house, I'm going to have to get a staircase like one of these.

Both of these are taken with an iPhone 5s on separate occasions.

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."