Monday, September 6, 2010

A Photo Excursion


Jude and I have been taking some time to get to know one another this weekend. The "For Dummies" book for my camera was definitely a wise decision, as it provides some good insight to the manual settings on the camera that would have taken me ages of playing around with to figure out, perhaps never figuring them out at all. I'm hardly an expert, and there's still a lot to learn, but I've definitely had a good time so far this weekend, and am looking forward to another glorious day of it.

For my first photo expedition of the weekend, I kidnapped John after he got off of work on Saturday night and stole away to the monuments. The monuments at night are an incredibly fun, incredibly beautiful DC thing to do. They are a little quieter than during the day, though not completely silent certainly. The lighting is incredible. Finally, it gave me a chance to play with shutter speed and my flash, resulting in some interesting images.

John and I spent a fair amount of time traipsing around the World War II Memorial, which is really quite lovely and peaceful. I wish the water features had a little more light at night, which would have been beautiful. If you've never been, which I hadn't, I highly recommend it. Each column, as seen in the photos to the left, represent a state/American territory. There are two rows of these columns. In the center of each of these rows, there are four eagles lifting a wreath. Photographing these monuments at night gave me a chance to play with ISO sensitivity, as well. Apparently I had it set very low for some reason, so even with flash at first, I was still getting very dark photos. Finally, after taking tons of photos here, we made the 1/2 mile or so trek down along the reflecting pool to the Lincoln Memorial. I've always been entranced by the Lincoln Memorial. I remember going there as a small child and feeling so small in comparison to the statue of Lincoln. And, in returning as an adult, I still felt small (for obvious reasons, it's a huge statue). Even more than I enjoyed the memorial, I enjoyed the view of the Washington Monument and it's reflection.




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