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About a week or two after Snap DC came out, I cut my hair short. It hasn’t been this short since high school. Andrew has never even seen my hair short before. I’ve always had it long, way past my shoulders, almost to the middle of my back. But I felt like I needed a drastic change. I don’t know, I felt like I was a point in my life where I needed to shake things up a bit and cutting my hair was the answer.

What I didn’t expect is how much I would look like my mom in the process. OMG it’s kinda scary. This picture looks EXACTLY like her except her hair is even shorter than mine. Either way, I’m still undecided about it. I definietly will keep it for the summer but after that, I may just grow it out long again. What do you think?

This image was taken on our last day in Aruba. My friends Sue, Neena and I were walking around Oranjestad trying to get last minute gifts for people back home when we came across this amazing yellow wall. I think it’s the side of someone’s house. Whatever the case is, I love how vibrant the color is. The palm tree made for a nice frame as well. Now that I think of it, my mom’s favorite color is yellow. LOLOL.

So shoutout to Sue for creating a picture that’s meant for my mom.

Don’t forget, a week from today I’ll be cohosting a photo workshop with my friends, Geoff Livingston Photography and Focus on the Story International Photo Festival on night photography. We’ll be walking the National Mall and talking about long exposure, street photography at night and so much more! Its going to be a really fun event with a lot more photo instruction than the regular photowalks we’ve been doing this summer. Plus there will be 3 instructors instead of one. So if you’re interested, check out all the info here.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/1000th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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Somedays you get real lucky with sunrises. Somedays you don’t. This day I was EXTREMELY lucky.

I woke up a little bit earlier than I usually do and headed down to the US Capitol. Since it was kinda cold out, I decided to park on the street where I could keep my eye on the sunrise at all times but not actually have to get out of the car 🙂 I don’t remember what I was doing on my phone, probably on instagram or watching a youtube video or something when I noticed the sky change a little bit. I quickly jumped out of the car, grabbed my tripod out of the trunk and ran over to the reflecting pool. By the time I arrived, the sky had turned a crazy, vibrant color of pink. It was honestly one of the most exciting sunrises I had seen in a real long time. I grabbed a few shots and debated if I wanted to stay by the water or move closer to the Capitol Building itself. I noticed the water level was unusually high so I decided to stay by the water and take some images from right above. With it being so high and the weather being kind of windy, it was making the reflections dance a bit. I thought it was really cool.

But my favorite part of the whole morning was running into my friend, Erikson. He was on his way to work when the sunrise stopped him in his tracks. We watched the sunrise together and he even got this pretty cool behind the scenes shot of me. Click here if you want to check it out. It was so great just to sit and watch the sky with him. The color didn’t last long but it was so worth the early morning wake up call. I’m in love with how this image turned out <3

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/10th of a second at ISO 250 with my Sony A7Ii and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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This was definitely one of my favorite days of 2017! Obviously Washington DC is famous for it’s cherry blossoms in the spring time but this past season was sooo unique. We had a crazy warm winter which lead to a weird snow that we got in March. It was so unexpected and out of nowhere. Everybody was so confused by it, including the cherry blossoms! They had already started to bloom and all the weathermen in the area were saying how this year’s cherry blossoms weren’t going to be doing too well.

They were right and they were wrong. A lot of the trees still peaked but some trees were complete duds. The flowers themselves weren’t as vibrant as they usually are. Which was totally fine by me because I think that also mislead a lot of people and they all decided to just skip the blooms this year. It was purrrfect.

So this was taken on a particularly foggy morning where you could barely see 10ft in front of you. It was soooo awesome and so much fun to photograph. I was probably out for 4 hours or something like that just photographing the flowers. The best part was that there was barely anyone there! Usually this place would be packed. I was in a photographer’s dreamland.

My favorite part of this image is seeing the slight reflection in the tidal basin water. It’s crazy to think that just right behind that branch is the Washington Monument which is totally covered by the fog. I usually use it as a point of reference because it’s so tall but you couldn’t even see it with your naked eye. It was bananas. And I love bananas. LOL

The settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/40th of a second and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens.

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After our first snow of the season, I knew I had to wake up early the next morning and capture the sunrise. Somehow I knew it was going to be a good one. We had 2 days of really grey days so I knew the clouds were going to have to break up and bring in some of the sun light.

But this was not the image I intended to capture. I had every intention of shooting at the Tidal Basin. I thought it would be cool to see how the water did in the snow. Did it freeze over? or was there any snow still on the cherry blossom trees? I dunno. I wasn’t able to drive over there since all the roads around the National Mall was blocked off. I’m not sure why, but I’m thinking it was for some kind of parade or marathon. I’ve tried googling it and still can’t find the answer. Oh well.

So I drove over to the Capitol and figured it would be just as nice. I spent the morning just walking all around the Capitol grounds, blasting my music with no headphones. LOL it was awesome. There was hardly anyone around and it felt like I had the whole Capitol to myself. I felt so free to just walk anywhere I wanted to and was so happy when I stumbled onto this compass. I’ve noticed it before but never saw how reflective it is. I guess the melting snow made for great puddles in here. Love finding hidden gems like this. One thing I didn’t notice while taking this picture was the guy walking in front of the Capitol building. I love how he adds some scale to the whole thing. Yea, the US Capitol building is hugeeee.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/80th of a second ISO 160 with my Sony A7II 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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So do you remember how last week I was saying how I needed to bring my macro lens out when its raining? I did it! It rained again and my very first stop was to go back to the US Botanical Gardens. Even though it was already closed and I wasn’t able to go inside, I was still able to walk around the front entrance. There were a couple of succulent display and they were already beautiful as is. But my favorite part was how the water droplets didn’t go inside the succulents or get soaked up by them, they were just floating on top. It was so beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such well formed water droplets as I had on these succulents. This is why I needed my macro lens. There was no way I would have been able to capture all these little details with just my wide angle or even zoom.

But to be honest, I still haven’t fully switched to sony lenses. I was still using my 100mm canon lens with my metabones adaptor. It definietly slowed down the process as I was trying to make sure everything that I wanted to be in focus was sharp but I don’t know if that’s necessary a bad thing. I took my time and was happy with the outcome. I haven’t shot macro in so long and I’m happy to be dusting it off again. Soon enough I’ll get a macro sony lens. If you have any recommendations, let me know!

The settings for this image was F9 at 1/80th of a second and ISO 800 handheld. It was still cloudy from the storm and getting that close up was difficult. I had to bump up my ISO to make sure the exposure was fast enough.

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And we’re in the home stretch. Today we’ll be arriving in San Diego which is our final destination for our great American road trip and we’ll be spending the rest of the weekend here. I’m not going to lie, this has been the time of my life but it has also been exhausting. Driving across country is something that I never thought I’d do but I’ve learned so much from it. Next time I do this, I want to drive through the northern part of the country like South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming. Theres so much more to the country that I haven’t seen. Seeing it from the road is a great way to appreciate it all. Hopefully Andrew and Frankie will be able to join. That would be sooo much fun.

This image was taken on top of the parking garage at Union Station. Pro tip- Union Station itself is amazing to photograph. Interior, exterior, beautiful views it has it all. Then after you’re all done, you can go down to the restaurants and get an adult beverage. But seriously, this an amazing spot for sunset with an unique view of the Capitol. There aren’t many places where you can go on a rooftop or shoot from a very tall point of view in Washington DC. Especially now since the Washington Monument is closed for who knows how long. So for a great birds eye view of things, Union Station is one of the best places to go to.

My settings for this image was F6.3 at 1/10th of a second at ISO 160. I did not have my tripod with me at this time but I should of. The wall of the parking garage is pretty tall. Taller than what I’m used to, so shooting for me was a little difficult. The whole time I was standing on my tipy-toes but like Tim Gunn says, ‘I made it work‘ 🙂