Last year was the first time I noticed holiday decorations at Dulles International Airport. It’s pretty cool because they light up the huge windows in the front with red, blue and green lights alternating. They can be seen from the interior and exterior, but I really enjoyed the interior because they also added Christmas trees on top of the doors. It made me smile while I was walking through, even if I was just there to photograph the decor and I wasn’t even traveling. LOL.
And yes, I had saved this image for a year just so I could share it when it was holiday-appropriate.
My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/30th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.
Going through some images I took earlier in the year, I found this gem. I had no idea I captured the lightning because the exposure was actually pretty dark. I thought maybe a lightning strike hit behind the clouds or something but it was the bright light on the left-hand corner that caught my eye where I thought it could be something. So in Lightroom, I brought up the exposure and found the lightning strike! It was so exciting. Probably almost as exciting as capturing it, even though I didn’t know I had captured it at all.
It brought back all these memories of that evening. Obviously, I knew I captured this one and waiting out the rain on the west side of the Capitol was awesome because we didn’t actually get wet. But it’s always a good time storm chasing with friends. It makes the time go by so much faster.
My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/5th sec and ISO 2000 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm.
Since I was uncertain of my schedule in Taiwan, I left for the trip knowing I was going to spend most of my photo-taking time working on my street photography. In the past year or so, I’ve really fallen in love with street photography, especially while traveling. It so exciting trying to capture the shot. It’s hard to plan for since you don’t know what is going to be going on and when you get something cool, it makes it so much more thrilling.
So far, the biggest tip I can offer for street photography is always being prepared and don’t put your camera away. You don’t know where the shot is going to be and you want to be ready when it happens. I’ve noticed that I’ve also gotten into the habit of always turning off my camera after I take a shot. I really made an effort to leave my camera on because even in a second, the image you see on the street can be gone.
One thing you gotta know about Taiwan is that the cars rule the streets. Pedestrians need to look out for cars as opposed to the other way around in the States. So you always cross at crosswalks when it’s your turn. The cars get a pretty long time to drive along the road, in turn, pedestrians get a while to cross the street too. AND you get a countdown. The longest countdown I saw started at 90 seconds. So it gives you plenty of time to cross the street or take pictures of people crossing the street. LOL.
This image was taken while I was wandering the streets of Taipei. It was one of those 90-second countdowns but as you can see, I captured it at 20 seconds left for the cars to drive before the pedestrians can cross. What I love about this image is all the information you see. You see the people lined up, with the store signs in the background and on the very top you can see the count down to begin to cross. So much going on can be a little chaotic, but everytime I look at this image I see something different.
My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/800th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.
There have been so many beautiful highlights of 2019 and one of them was definitely the reopening of the Washington Monument this past September. Every time I walk or drive past it now, I’m just so excited there aren’t any fencing or barriers around it anymore. It’s like a whole new area of the National Mall opened up, ready to roam and explore.
The best is being able to go to the top. I haven’t been able to go since 2014, but even then it closed down a few months later. I would love to go back up during the different seasons, especially when it snows. I think the city looks so beautiful when it snows and being 555ft above ground must be a beautiful sight to see.
This image may not be as obvious, but it’s of Constitution Gardens, adjacent to the WWII memorial on the National Mall. Fortunately, I was able to get tickets during sunset so that warm glow was hitting all the trees at the right time. If you look a little further into the image, you can see the Kennedy Center and the Potomac River <3
My camera settings for this image are F4.5 at 1/60th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.
I still have a ton more images from Taiwan to share but taking a little break from them with some images I captured even before I left. I almost forgot that I spent a little time walking around the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts one cloudy afternoon in Mid-November.
It’s great how the Kennedy Center allows visitors even when there are no events or performances going on. You are free to roam the interior around the Hall of Nations or even the exterior on the rooftop terrace. It’s a great place to just sit and appreciate just how great Washington DC is. Everything is just so grand and awe-inspiring in this venue. Just thinking about all the people who have walked through the halls and how many performances have taken place here is amazing.
As I was walking around the outside of the building, I noticed this woman walking very fast. I have no idea where she was going, but she matched perfectly with the gold exterior and fall colors. She was just screaming to have her picture taken at this moment.
My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/640th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.
Less than 20 minutes before I had to leave for the airport to go back home, my friend Taz came out in this amazingly beautiful red dress. At first, we had plans of her trying to go into the ocean water and I would try to capture images from above with my drone, but with the short amount of time and how cold the water was in Destin, Florida, it just wasn’t going to work out. But it did allow me just enough time for me to capture this image.
Taz and her husband Fahim stood there as I was circling them with the drone and it seriously felt like I was photographing a dream. I only wish I had more time to get capture more images but one thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to capture this dress with the water. It was the perfect pop of color and the flowy dress was the perfect complement to the waves in the water.
In case you were wondering, Taz said she got this dress from Etsy.
My camera settings for this image are F2.2 at 1/4000th sec and ISO 100 with my DJI Mavic Pro.
