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What’s crazy is that I’m still not even close to done with all my cherry blossom images from this year! We had great bloom and I tried to go out as often as I could. You would say that I went pretty hard! Out of the two weeks, I think I only missed two sunrises. Even if it was really grey and windy, I still went out to see what I could find.

This was captured at the National Gallery of Art. The same time I took this image. But at this point the sun had already come up so there was a little more light available. If you’re not familiar with the gallery, then it may be a little difficult to see what’s really going on. The blue part is just the side of the building. The orange/warm part is the inside of a corner of the building. It goes in a little bit and it has it’s own special uplighting which is causing the warmer tones. I love how the cherry blossom branch just unifies everything in this image.  I have a couple more variations of this image that I still need to play around with but if you’ve been following my blog then you’ll know I love the contrast between warm and cool tones that this image is bringing. It would be really neat to see this as a series. So many ideas, so little time! One day.

And the cherry blossom vlog is coming! It’s been taking me a while because I finally downloaded Final Cut Pro X. I figured it was time to upgrade my video workflow as well. Thanks to my friend, Andy for the extra push! I love how creative you can get with the videos but it’s just taking me a while because I literally have to google every single thing that I want to do. It will be worth it though. Just taking time… apologies.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/25th of a second at ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

 

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Here’s a crazy example of how foggy the Tidal Basin can actually get on any given winter morning. I mean come on! You can barely see anything in this image which I think makes it pretty cool. Its like you have to look really deep and kind of know what you’re looking at in order to make any sense of it. If I didn’t tell you, would you have even known? The most interesting part to me is that you can still see a slight hint of the Washington Monument’s reflection but I love the fact that you can see the rain drops in the water. Look at the bottom right hand corner. I love that trail of drops leading to the Monument. It must be something special if you can capture fog and rain all in the same image.

Here’s what it would usually look like if it weren’t foggy.

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at ISO 320 at 1/640th of a second with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle handheld. As far as editing, I didn’t do much. I upped the contrast a bit just so you can see the monuments a little bit better and that’s pretty much it! Full on color image of what it looked like that one special Sunday morning.

PS Sorry not sorry there have been so many fog pictures lately. I love shooting the fog and the mood it brings. But I feel like 2018 has been especially foggy for me for some reason. I’ve never had so many wonderful opportunities to shoot in the weather and I’m taking full advantage! I just hope we get more days like this during cherry blossom season like we did that one time last year. That was seriously one of the best days ever. This is probably a close second <3

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Hey Hey Hey! Guess what today is?! It’s my birthday! Virgo baby! I’d be lying if I said I was one of those people who don’t make a big deal out of their birthdays because I DO! I love my birthday. What other time do you get to publicly declare how awesome you are without getting weird looks? Plus theres birthday cake. And I love birthday cake. Especially on a Tuesday. With extra frosting. And ice cream on the side 🙂 Hopefully there will be some french fries today too.

I’m also really proud of the fact that today is Michael Jackson’s birthday as well. Birthday twins! RIP. Two creative geniuses born on the same day. HAHA JK about me being a creative genius. See, I can say stuff like that because today is my birthday 🙂

Anyways… I took this shot a couple of years ago after a summer storm in the DC area. It was a crazy evening because the storm ended right around sunset. I wasn’t expecting much because I thought the sunset wouldn’t have had time to shine through but then the rainbow popped up. We were there just in time. The glow from the sun and the clouds made this an even more incredible scene. I just love the red/orangey hues contrasted with the blue skies. I feel lucky that I was able to even witness it, let alone photograph it. I just remember being really, really happy when it was all over. Just a few minutes later the storm clouds kept rolling in and another storm was hit the Marine Corps Memorial . I got wet but it was totally worth it. Nothing makes me happier than to see colorful skies like this.

My camera settings for this image was F/22 at 1 second ISO 64 on a tripod.

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I made this picture last week in between creating this one and this one. There was about a 30 minute window from when the rainbow faded and when the sun was about to go down. At first I was thinking I should just go back to my car and sit in the air conditioning for a little while, then I stumbled upon some flowers and got all distracted. The flowers were right in front of the United States Botanical Gardens which is located very conveniently next to the US Capitol. At that time, it was already closed but it was nice being able to walk around the front area garden for a little while and capture some flowers and plants.

I was particularly drawn to this image. Straight out of the camera it had some beautiful tones that I knew I could bring out more in post processing. All I did was make the darks a little bit darker, I tried making the tips a little more yellow and put a little vignette around the image and called it a day. Pretty simple editing processes but I really like the result. I also love monotone green for some reason.  So if you’re interested in learning more about my post processing, you can check out this video tutorial here.

The water droplets add a little bit of extra texture that I enjoy as well. It was at this time that I decided that whenever it rains, I’m going to try to remember to bring my macro lens. It’s perfect for conditions like this and its been a while since I’ve actually used it. This particular image was taken with my 16-35mm wide angle. I envision a much more detailed image with the flowers and droplets in the future, just wait and see 🙂

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If you’re in the DC area, its definietly worth checking out Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in the summer time. It’s absolutely beautiful. There has to be hundreds of these pink lotus flowers in the ponds and the whole area is just filled with them. A photographer and nature lover’s dream. Although, I think the flowers may be all done for this year’s season. There’s always next year!

But the gardens are only open during certain hours and those hours are not at sunrise or sunset (the ideal time to shoot). It’s in the middle of the day, which is usually difficult to shoot. Most of the time, I’d try to find flowers that were blooming under some tree shade or something like that. This one was not. So I had to use my photoshop skills to really emphasize the mood I was feeling. I wanted all the concentration to be on the flower, to be in the spotlight. So I purposely made the surrounding areas darker than they are straight out of the camera. I also used luminosity masks to brighten the flower up a little more. Just doing those two alone really made the image pop a lot more and created some great contrast.

If you’re interested in learning more about my photoshop techniques, check out these video tutorials I created. This one is about luminosity masks. This one is about my complete photoshop workflow. Even if I’m not editing this particular image in the video tutorials, the same rules and principles apply. I will have to say that these videos are for those who are already comfortable with photoshop. You already have some basic skills and you just wanted to up your skill set a little more or just watch someone else’s workflow. If you had any questions or video suggestions, don’t be afraid to let me know!

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Looks like an almighty sword glowing in the sky, doesn’t it? This is my favorite part of always watching your back. The sunset action was happening in front of me at the Lincoln Memorial but a quick glance over my shoulder to the World War II memorial and I saw this! The sun was setting just at the right angle to change the white monument into gold. You can even see a little bit of the National Museum of African American History and Culture getting a bit of the sun sparkle too 🙂 It makes me smile to see the reflection in the reflecting pool water catch some of the sun’s glow.

My camera settings for this image is f5.6 at 8 seconds ISO 200. I really wanted a long exposure to blur out the fast moving clouds but also bring out the glow colors even more. To do this, I used my neutral density Ice Filter. I think I should be sponsored by them because I’m always talking about these filters and how amazing they are. *shoutout to Ice* Shooting with neutral density filters can be a little difficult if you’ve never used it before. My biggest tip would be to set your camera on manual focus, focus on your subject, and then put on the filter. Make sure you have the composition you want because once you put the filter on, it will be very difficult to see what you’re looking at. It gets super dark. If you leave your camera on auto focus, it will just keep on trying to focus on something and won’t allow you to take the picture. So remember just to keep your camera on manual and it will be all good. The neutral density filter also helped on making the edges super dark and contrasty which also helped in making the Washington Monument really pop out.