christmas

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A little while ago I met up with my friend, Birch to check out the christmas wreaths at Union Station for sunrise. Although this isn’t the best sunrise spot, I thought it would be interesting to see all the holiday decorations and I love just visiting Union Station. Maybe because it’s so transit, the same reasons why I love airports so much. There’s just so much hustle and bustle going on that there’s never really a dull moment. Plus I love the Christmas wreaths they hang outside the station. With so much going on, people everywhere, cars honking horns,  the wreaths and their lights always bring a smile to my face.

So after walking around the inside and outside of the station, Birch and I decided to walk along side of the building to see if we could find anything interesting going on. I’ve always loved how all the red taxis line up on the side of the train station just waiting for passengers. I knew there had to be something interesting here, I just had to wait for it. Then this lady walked passed with her red hat. It was perfect. It even goes with the H&M sign on the side of the building. I figured this in itself was festive with the lights and red colors.

But of course, no visit is complete to Union Station now that Magnolia Bakery is open. I had to stop by and get some banana pudding before we left. If you haven’t already, you gotta try it. Andrew and I used to go all the time when we’re in New York, but now that it’s in Washington, we can enjoy it whenever 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/125th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

 

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One of the coolest things ever happened last week. I got to attend the National Christmas Tree Lighting. Living in the Washington DC area my whole life, I’ve always wanted to do something like this. The White House hosts some pretty cool events throughout the year and I’ve always admired them from the tv screen. Shout out to my friend, Albert for inviting me to the event. We had great seats and enjoyed all the singing, dancing and obviously the Christmas Tree lighting. My favorite part? Seeing Dean Cain in person. OMG I loved him in Lois and Clark when I was younger. Hottie hasn’t changed one bit 😉

The whole event was being recorded for the Hallmark Channel so it was really cool to witness all the behind the scene productions. One thing I learned, they’re really sensitive about people walking in front of the teleprompter. Long story but a quick tip: go to the bathroom before TV filming begins. HAHAHA. But I loved how there was so much emphasis on preserving all the national parks since it was filmed in President’s Park and remembering those who can’t be with us during the holiday season, specifically those serving our country. The Beach Boys were awesome and a group of young boys called, “Boys II Bowties” were the cutest. I had so much fun!

The Hallmark special airs tonight. So if you see me, LET ME KNOW! We had pretty good seats and I did see the camera pointed in my direction a couple of times. I’m wearing a light grey coat with a green sweater underneath LOL. How cool would it be to see me on TV? (next to Dean Cain)

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/30th of a second ISO 2500 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

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What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? Me, I check my emails, check my social media accounts, and the weather all while I’m still in bed. I feel like it kinda wakes me up before I actually have to get up. So when I saw that there was fog Christmas morning, I immediately got up.

I’m starting to really enjoy the fog. I dunno, it’s like you’re walking through this really warm cloud and who wouldn’t want to walk through a really warm cloud? This day was really different though. Not because it was Christmas but because it was SUPER foggy. I couldn’t even see the Washington Monument while I was driving into the city and that thing is huge!

After walking around for 30 minutes the fog slowly started lifting the monuments started coming into view. Love how unique this perspective turned out and grateful it turned out to be a white Christmas after all 🙂

new york, new york city, ice skating, bryant park, christmas, tree, long exposure, bright lights, ice skating, rink, winter, travel, visit, night,

Andrew and I spent a very cold but christmasy weekend in New York City. It was his birthday last week and thought it would be fun to have a little get away to celebrate. We did the usual touristy stuff like visiting Time Square and Rockefeller center but it was SOOO packed. So packed that it was hard to even walk. So sorry, no pictures from there. However, on our way to dinner we walked past Bryant Park. The Christmas Market caught my eye but it was the ice skating rink that I wanted to photograph. There was this cute couple with the guy helping his girl ice skate. It made for a sweet moment on the ice.