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As I mentioned in my last post, Andrew and I circled the Vessel as we were climbing up. I really liked doing this since you get such different views on almost every edge you’re standing on.

I know a lot of people may concentrate on photographing the interior and what that looks like, but I thought the outside of the Vessel looked really cool too. This was taken along the side that was closer to the Shops and Restaurants at Hudson Yards. Some chairs and a few tables had been put out. I’m not sure if it was for dining or letting people sit and relax a bit, but I loved the way the orange popped against the grey cement. This image sort of reminds me of a drone shot and I like looking at the different people and seeing how they are interacting with the space.

Now that I think of it, Andrew and I were sitting around here for a little bit before we entered the Vessel ourselves. So if someone took a similar shot of this while we were sitting there, you would have seen Andrew and I look at our phones for a place to eat dinner after we were done with the Vessel and eating the chocolates we bought on our walk over. LOL. Dessert before dinner, am I right? And then more dessert after dinner 🙂

My camera settings for this image are F5.6 at 1/25th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.

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After a weekend in New York, the newly constructed Vessel in Hudson Yards was a highlight of the entire trip.

This was my first visit to the Big Apple since it has been constructed and I knew that I had to visit. I have seen many images of the Vessel on instagram that I kind of had an idea what to expect but believe me when I say it’s much better in person than in the pictures. So if you haven’t been, I highly suggest booking a trip to New York now. You can click here to get free tickets.

But for some reason, I had the impression that some of these staircases were escalators. That was wrong. LOL. But if you take your time climbing each story at a time, it’s not so bad. Andrew and I circled the whole structure as we were climbing to the top which provided new views all along the way. Luckily we were able to get our tickets for around sunset so we stayed a little bit after the sun had gone down to see what the Vessel looked like at night. It’s pretty cool at blue hour if you asked me. Luckily, they regulate how many people come into the Vessel at one time but they won’t kick you out. You get to stay for as long as you would like.

My camera settings for this image are F5.6 at 1/5th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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It’s been a busy fall season already! But I’m enjoying every minute of it. I love just driving down around my neighborhood and seeing all the colorful trees. So I obviously had to take a quick run down to Shenandoah National Park to check out the foliage around there. It’s become a tradition that my friend Larry and I will make a trip down and photograph the sunrise along Skyline Drive. This year, our friend Brande came with us too. It was a beautiful morning with photo friends.

In general, the trees were looking a little green along the drive so I think we were a bit premature in going. Regardless, it was great to watch the sunrise over the mountains. There were even little pockets of fog along the mountain range that made it even more special. But I didn’t get the shot I was looking for. I was either hoping for a really foggy morning making images look extra moody and gloomy or very colorful trees lit up by the sunlight. So since we didn’t get either of those, I’m thinking another trip to Shenandoah is necessary. Hopefully sometime soon!

My camera settings for this image are F11 at 1/30th sec and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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So the reason why I recommend going to the sunset and night tour with John at the Presidents Heads is for two reasons. 1: You can’t beat the sunset light. It’s the second-best time of day to shoot plus the blue hour is perfect at this location. 2: The night photography is ah-mazing and they don’t hold anything back.

In order to do it all, John had some help from Jimmy Powell to pull out all his different lighting tricks. You should have seen it. He had a whole wagon full of different color flashlights, pixel sticks, steel wool, EVERYTHING. It was awesome. When the sun started to fall and everyone was done taking their blue hour images, we all stood together in a group with our tripods. John and Jimmy made sure everyone had a good understanding of nighttime exposure, everything was working with everyone’s tripods and discussing how to focus our images to make sure the presidents’ heads appear sharp in our images.

This was my first time ever photographing steel wool and it was exciting. If I remember correctly, Jimmy had steel wool shoved inside a kitchen whisk which was then attached to a piece of string and just twirled it around. If you’ve seen images like this before, you know it can be dramatic and in my opinion a lot to look at.

Here’s an example of steel wool being spun from behind President Jackson’s head.

So when I just created a shorter exposure for steel wool, I really liked how it came out. It’s so simple and it almost looks like the picture is still loading. LOL.

My camera settings for the “loading” image is F5.0 at 4 seconds and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

My camera settings for the wool spun behind President Jackson is F5 and 2 seconds and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

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After coming home from a long trip to Southern California, I knew one of the first places that I wanted to go back to take pictures was the Tidal Basin. I love it and have captured some of my favorite images from there. I personally feel like I’m back when I’m walking around the Tidal Basin and ducking my head under the low hanging cherry blossom tree branches. Luckily while we were gone, Washingtonians experienced a good amount of snow. I’m all for snow but I don’t like how it gets so messy while it melts. This time it worked to my advantage because it actually created some great puddles in places that there aren’t usually reflections.

The whole mood of this image perfectly describes what it was like being there. It was cold and kind of wet. I especially like how that little piece of ice in the foreground. But trying to get myself back on east coast was a bit of a challenge. I basically forced myself out of bed but once I was out, I was happy… and cold.

Also sorry for the last minute notice but if you’re around the Washington DC area this weekend and don’t have plans on Saturday, come out to the tidal basin for sunset. At 4:30p, I’ll be leading a free photowalk with DCTography starting at the Martin Luther King Jr memorial and then ending the walk at the Jefferson Memorial. It will be a great time and a great way to meet other photographers in the area. I’ll be talking about light and trying to capture it as we walk and the sun dips below the horizon. Hope to see you there 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/4th sec at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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It’s been a while since I’ve visited the Air Force Memorial in Arlington, VA. I think the last time I was there almost 2 years ago when I went with my friend, Navin to shoot lightning. I ended up with some pretty cool images like this one but I haven’t been back since. So last Monday I was checking the weather and it looked like it was going to be a pretty good sunset. I literally looked through Snap DC to see where I could go and decided on the Air Force Memorial. LOL I love that I have the resource now. I texted my friend, Birch and off we went.

As soon as I pulled up, I was shocked by how many people were there. I thought that by going to the Air Force Memorial, we would have avoided the summer crowd that’s at the National Mall. I was wrong. There was at least 2 bus loads of kids running around the memorial. It wasn’t too bad though because they all left within 10 minutes and then had another good 10 minutes in between before another bus load of kids came by. So I think that’s the secret. You have to wait for the waves of people to leave.

So while we were waiting, I thought a really close up image of the Air Force Memorial would be cool. I like the way that this one turned out. I love the symmetry and the blue sky definietly worked in my favor. It wasn’t a colorful sunset like I had expected, but I really would not have known that unless I got out there and tried so it was all worth it.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 160 with my A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.