car trails

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We arrived at the rooftop about 30 minutes before sunset. It turned out to be an amazing sunset which I’ll share more images from later, but what I was really looking forward to was the night time views. I knew that once the city lit up a bit, the car trails were going to be so fun to capture. In particular, the ones leading straight to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. The road looks like it’s driving right into it.

I had never seen a view like this before. I only wish the other side of 395 going towards the city wasn’t blocked off so there can be red lights going on on the other side. Oh well.

But I purposely made my shutter time a little bit shorter. I envisioned little streaks of light rather than the long drag. Sometimes I think those lines can be distracting from the total image. I personally think these shorter lines are more interesting because you can see exactly how many cars are actually in the image without a lot of chaos. Just personal preference I guess.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 and 0.8 seconds with my Sony A7II and 100-400mm ultra zoom lens. Thanks again to my friend, Larry who let me borrow his lens for this shot. The compression is unreal at 400mm! This was shot at 376mm.

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Last week I got invited to go to Altaire’s rooftop. If you don’t know Altaire, it is a luxury apartment complex right off 395 in Crystal City.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia but I’ve always known it for the Pentagon and a few good restaurants. It has actually come up in conversation recently because Amazon has decided to build an office there. But other than that, I’ve never really spent that much time there.

So I was excited to get the invite. I was wondering what kind of views I could get from Crystal City since I’ve never actually photographed anything there. HOLY COW! My jaw dropped. The views are stunning. I’m pretty sure I’ll be sharing images from here for a while because I was literally like a kid in a candy store just snapping away. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in one of these apartments and waking up with a view like this. I don’t think I would ever leave my house. Either that or set up a tripod on my balcony and just time lapse it all day. LOL.

This image was taken just after sunset. I was waiting for the sun to go down so that I could get these car trails along the highway. I think it’s so interesting to look at all the different layers of this image and try to figure out where everything is located. For example, I think those purple lights in front of the US Capitol building is the Wharf, right?

Thanks again to the good people at Altaire for having Larry and I there. I had a B-L-A-S-T!

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 0.8 seconds and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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Always on the hunt for new compositions around the National Mall, I found this one a while ago. However it was one of those things where I couldn’t get it right and wanted to try again until I came out with something I was happy with. Last week I was a bit early for sunrise so I thought I would take my time walking around Kutz bridge. It was about 6a (sunrise is close to 7:30a now!) so there were plenty of people driving around. I figured this was the perfect opportunity to try some cool long exposures.

I started off on top of the grail. You can’t tell but you can get some pretty cool reflections off of it from the tail lights as the cars drive past. The reflections were cool but I still wasn’t happy with the composition. That image will probably be one of those that I go back to and try again. So I decided to get down a little lower and actually put my camera on the ground to capture the light trails. This turned out so much better. I love how the grail is dividing the image in to two parts but the way that the clouds have formed and the angle of the car lights make it all look like everything is pointing to the center of the image. It is such a yin yang type photo with the dark shadows on the left and bright light from the street lamp on the right.

One of my favorite things about the Sony cameras is that you can tilt up your LCD screen so it’s much easier to see what your camera is seeing without having to bend all the way over.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 6 seconds at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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This was totally an experiment but I really like the way it turned out. The car trails are so dynamic that I kinda wish that I captured it horizontally, instead of vertically. That way they would have taken up more space in the image but I had no idea how cool it was going to be.

I captured this on a Friday morning so luckily there were quite a few cars driving around at 5:30a. I saw a whole line of them waiting to turn so I propped my camera down and just waited for the green light. I didn’t spend much time trying to capture other exposures but this was definietly the best one. The key was to wait for them to turn and drive past you while standing in the median. But I think one of the coolest parts about this image is that you can see the red, yellow and green lights.

Looking at it again, I already have new ideas of how I could improve upon this image. That’s one of my favorite parts about daily blogging. It constantly pushes me to create new images and talk about them once they are complete. Even if I’m not totally happy with them, I see each of these posts as kind like a sketch book where I can go back and see some of my older images and improve. But OMG, googling my images from years ago, like 5 or even 7 years ago. My images have changed sooo much. It’s kind of funny (but also hurts my eyes in a way too LOL). So grateful to be growing and falling in love with my images over and over again.

My camera settings for this image is F18 at 25 seconds ISO 400 with my Canon 5D Mark II and my 17-40mm wide angle lens.

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Another one from this past weekend’s fog. I took this one around 6:15a while walking to the Lincoln Memorial. It was about 30-ish minutes before the sun was supposed to rise and I purposely parked my car in a spot that I usually don’t. The only reason why I did that was so I could walk to the memorial in a different direction that I usually do. I was sure I was going to see some different, interesting composition and I did! I love the way this one turned out. In order to capture it, I was standing in the middle of the road on a median but that early in the morning it didn’t really matter. There were no cars anywhere in sight. I probably stood there for a good 20 minutes waiting for some light trails or something but none showed up. I mean, it was Saturday morning at 6:15a. Where did everyone go?! LOL

I love how the fog plays with the street lights in this image. At first I was trying to shoot it at F22 so I could get some interesting starbursts coming out of them but it wasn’t really working out. I think the fog was spreading the light out too much in order to get anything. Maybe if you look at the center most one on the left hand side you can see it a little bit going on over there, but otherwise, they’re pretty much little balls of light.

Note to self: shoot this same spot on a really good sunset day and try to get some light trails in it too. That’d look so awesome. Hopefully there will be more cars at that time 🙂

The camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 2 seconds with ISO 200 and my Sony A7II with my 16-35mm wide angle lens shot on a tripod 🙂

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This was taken early morning on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. That’s a lot of cars, huh? I was pretty surprised by how many people were out so early in the morning, especially on a holiday weekend. They must have known it was going to be a good sunrise too 🙂 Why else would people wake up if they weren’t taking pictures, right?

Not sure what actually drew me to taking this image but I think it turned out pretty awesome. I love how the street lights are so evenly spaced with the Washington Monument. I also think it is really cool to see the car light trails on either side of the image and the glow of the lights on the railings. Is it crazy to say with so much movement going on in this image that it actually gives me some peace when I’m looking at it? I find the peace when I’m looking at the reflection of the monument in the water and the nearly clear sky. I love the orange glow that’s going on the right side of the image and I wonder if the cars passing by even notice it. I think it’s easy for people who live in this area to be sort of dismiss these views but I think they are spectacular. I love photographing this city!

My camera settings for this image is F/9 at 2.5 seconds and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens on my gitzo tripod.

As a side note, it is completely safe to capture this image. But I find it weird that I can feel the cars passing by as I’m standing on Kutz Memorial Bridge and that little bit of rumbling doesn’t effect the focus or sharpness of the image. Does anyone know why that’s the case?