reflecting pool commandant’s own

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If you subscribe to my newsletter then you would know that my latest obsession has been my new photo scanner.

What started off as my mom telling me to clean out my old room in my parents’ house now has turned into this side project of collecting old prints and scanning them. Currently, I’m almost done organizing my high school/college pictures and it’s so interesting to see the similarities of my photo work from then to now.

The image above was captured in Taiwan in 2004.

marine corp, sunset parade, lincoln memorial, national mall, reflecting pool commandant's own, united states marine, drum and bugle corps, marine corps silent drill platoon,

Sunset parade in Washington DC at the Lincoln Memorial by the Marine Barracks

This image was captured at the Lincoln Memorial in 2019. I hadn’t seen the image from Taiwan in over 10 years. I can’t believe the similarities!

It’s also so rewarding having all these images organized and in one place. I love the idea of cleaning out all these prints and making them digital just so I don’t have to worry about a lot of clutter. I’m much more inclined to look at these old images on my phone or computer rather than pulling out old photo albums and looking at them.

So if you haven’t already, you should definitely subscribe to my newsletter too. I try my best to share as much fresh content in the newsletters before I publish them to my blog or social media.

The image from 2019’s camera settings is F6.3 at 1/320th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens. I have no idea about the 2004 image.

All photos available for print and licensing >

Thanks to my friend, Birch who invited me to go with her to photograph the sunset parade at the Lincoln Memorial performed by the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. It was my first time attending and I didn’t really know what to expect. This year was the first year it was held on the National Mall. Previously they were at Iwo Jima because I imagine they have lots of room there, but I think the Lincoln Memorial was the perfect setting. I loved how the area between the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool was closed but you were still able to wander around and get shots from various places.

If you’re interested in checking it out, click here for the official website however make sure to check their Facebook before you actually go. Birch and I tried to go a few weeks ago and it got canceled a few hours earlier because of a storm and they announced it on their Facebook. I’d highly recommend it if you have some free time.

Going to the parade, I knew I wanted to concentrate mostly on the repetition and pattern. Looking at previous images, I loved how the red jackets popped off the screen. However, I found myself liking my images with black jackets more. For some reason it just all goes so nicely together. It just makes the scene look a little more minimal which I like.

I ended up taking a ton of images so expect to see more of these in the future 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/320th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.