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Thursday, June 10th, was a special day. I woke up early and went out to photograph the partial lunar eclipse happening at sunrise. It had been a while since I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to go take pictures so when my friends Mark and Andy invited me to go with them to the Air Force Memorial I couldn’t say no.

The first peak of the sun rising over the horizon.

The plan was to photograph the solar event as the sun was rising over the Washington DC skyline.

It was so cool to witness this particular sunrise. It was obviously very unique and just so happened to be my very first time photographing an eclipse. To be honest, I hadn’t done much research before waking up in the morning. I was just looking forward to seeing something cool.

My favorite part was seeing how bright this sun crescent got to be. It also sort of looks like cheese, or a Pacman in the sky.

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There were a handful of other photographers already at the memorial and others who were just there to watch the event. They were even prepared with solar glasses. I need to get a pair myself for next time I want to photograph an eclipse. A friend recommended these off of amazon.  Most of the time I was shooting on a tripod and through my camera’s LiveView so I didn’t have to look directly into the sun, but glancing up once in a while, I could tell that the sun was extremely powerful. A few people have asked and I did not shoot with a lens filter. I mostly exposed for the sun which made the foreground really dark and lightened everything up in Lightroom.

The eclipse was visible for about 20 minutes before it hid behind the clouds.  So we packed up our things and created a few shots of the Air Force Memorial before heading out. Overall it was a great morning out and well worth the early wake-up alarm. Can’t wait for the next one in 2024!

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Last week I found myself at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Usually when I wake up for sunrise, I don’t have a real plan of where I’m going to go. I just go where the wind takes me but on this particular day as soon as I parked my car, I knew exactly where I was going. It was around this time 6 years ago when I captured this image of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I’ve always wanted to go back when the wreaths are laid and I knew that this was my chance.

Unfortunately, I did not get the same light as I did 6 years ago but the wreaths were beautiful. You can’t help but feel thankful for all the names on this wall and their sacrifice. Then it led me to think about our current military and how some of them aren’t able to be home for the holidays. Even some our neighbors who have to work around the clock, just to serve like doctors, nurses, even postal workers. Thank you all so much.

In order to capture this image differently, I tried a new perspective. I basically placed my camera on the ground and wanted to get a nice line of wreaths in the shot. I like the way that it turned out but I can’t help staring at the reflections of the trees behind them on the wall. I love how they look so small and I think this is a real interesting point of view.

I’m not sure how long these wreaths stay at the memorial or even Arlington Cemetery. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to photograph them again in more light.

Thanks again to all those who serve and happy holidays to everyone.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 0.3 sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom

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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.

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Going through some of my older images, I found this one. Man it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the United States Air Force Memorial. I think the last time I was there was almost 2 years ago when my friend, Navin and I were out capturing some lightning images. In my opinion it’s one of the harder monuments in the Washington DC area to photograph. I think I find it is so hard to capture because there isn’t a lot of space surrounding it. It’s hard to maneuver  your camera and tripod around in order to get the entire monument in one frame. The only way to capture was to I walk outside of the memorial grounds and stand on the sidewalk at Columbia Pike to get it all in one image. Obviously you can photograph it while in the grounds but it’s very difficult without cutting anything off.

My favorite part of the image is the light that’s hitting the bare trees. I think it looks really cool and interesting, especially the one on the right. I think it looks like it is made out of metal or something, right? Don’t get me wrong though. I still think that the United States Air Force Memorial is one of the coolest places to go to photograph a big sky. I love the hill the sits right outside of it. It’s a great place to sit with your camera and see interesting views of the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument and the US Capitol. The best time of day to shoot this memorial is probably sunset.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 2.5 seconds and ISO 500 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 24-105mm. LOL that’s how you know this is an older image. I shot it with my Canon. Ahhh memories.

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I had so much fun this past Saturday walking around Arlington Cemetery. It was a super nice day, very cool with a little breeze. The perfect excuse to be outside and doing what you love. I remember visiting the cemetery last year towards the end of the color change and making a mental note to be back again. Glad that Jay, Manny, Joe (and his wife and daughter), and Eric were able to join me. They are some local Arcanum photographers who were awesome enough to meet up on this last minute photo adventure. Here’s a picture of us by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. For some reason I felt the need to leave the tripod in the shot. HAHA.

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