summer

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We spent 4 nights in Lake Tahoe, 2 nights were spent camping while the other 2 were in my sister-in-law’s sister’s cabin.  It was my first time going as an adult. I had been before when I was much younger. I don’t remember much about it except we went for a ski trip. To be honest I just remember sitting on bus coming home from skiing and being super hot in my snowsuit. That was pretty much it. So it was basically my first time visiting. And it was Andrew’s very first time visiting too!

Driving around the lake we were both so surprised how built on the area is. I guess I’m just used to Lake Anna where there’s not much around and you have to drive like 30 minutes to the nearest grocery store. As opposed to Lake Tahoe where there’s a Taco Bell right across the street!

On our last day in Tahoe, Andrew and I woke up around 4am to drive from North to South Tahoe. I wanted to catch the sunrise from Emerald Bay and I was really hoping the water was going to be that aqua blue that you see in the pictures on pinterest. Unfortunately I think it only turns that color in the afternoon time. Something about how the sun hits the water or something like that. Oh well, I still love how this turned out. Funny enough, everyday except the first day that we were in Tahoe was a cloudless sky. In the end, I think it worked for this image because it’s all about the simplicity and the contrasting colors. I also love the sailboats that are docked by the shore. So cute!

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/1000th of a second ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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A few weeks ago my cousin, Vincent gave me his old film camera. It came as a total surprise and I was really excited about it. It’s been forever since I shot with film but then I started getting all these questions in my head. Like, would I still remember how to use it? Where do I buy film? Where do you even get it developed? When would I even use it? Questions that I had never even thought about for at least 10 years.

In the past year or so, I’ve realized that film has kinda been making a come back. I see more and more people uploading film images onto their instagram and I never really thought anything of it. I’m not really into instagram fads so I never really considered it for myself but since I was gifted with a camera, I might as well as take advantage of it. We popped some fresh double “A” batteries in it and I opened the back to see if there was film in the camera. Oops, there was. Oh well, I figured a light leak here or there could be cool. HAHA.

I started taking pictures around their house just to test it out. After my first click, I lowered my camera to look at the back of it and immediately laughed. It was a habit that I had obviously created and never really realized. Even my nephew, Axl, asked to look at it after I took the picture. The 3 year old was confused about the fact that “it wasn’t that kind of camera”. LOL.

So I brought it peach picking with us and here are the results. Hope you enjoy.

Also, let me know if you’d be interested in seeing more film images. This was kinda fun and it definietly made me slow down and really think about what I was shooting. Considering the fact that I was limited to 24 frames (when I’m used to 1,000+), it was so different. OHHH and that film shutter sound 🙂

Its funny though. I got the roll of film developed and put onto a flashdrive. I pulled them up on my computer when I got home and the first thing that came out of Andrew’s mouth was “it looks like an instagram filter”. HAHAHA!

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We have been getting some crazy rain in the Washington DC area. The past week has been especially hard on Frankie who doesn’t like getting wet at all. He immediately wants to run back into the house at any signs of rain.

But with all this rain, I knew the Tidal Basin would not be doing so well. Even with a normal amount of rain it gets bad, but this has been exceptional. Earlier this week I decided to go check it out. To be honest, it wasn’t as bad as this day but it was still crazy to see. As soon as I walked up to this bench, I had an idea for a selfie. I wanted to sit on top of the bench to try to create a sort of pyramid between me and the two monuments. But it didn’t quite work out like I had planned.

Like I said before, I’ll be shooting with my Canon for the next few days. It’s been so long that I’ve even held it that I kinda forgot how to use it. So I set the camera up on a tripod and was hoping to set it on a 10 second timer to execute my vision. I didn’t think to bring my remote and I could only find the 2 second timer. I even tried googling it real quick but found no answers to where I could find a 10 second timer. So two second timer it was.

Man 2 seconds is FAST! Here are more attempts. I think it’s pretty funny but still would have rather have found the 10 second timer. What’s even better is that I have at least 10 more of these “images” on my memory card. After a while I just had to give up. LOL

Flooding at the Tidal Basin, washington dc, national mall, west potoamc park, washington monument, jefferson memorial, selfie, self timer, canon, sony, park bench, flooding, rain, weather, summer, parkour, water, sunrise, Flooding at the Tidal Basin, washington dc, national mall, west potoamc park, washington monument, jefferson memorial, selfie, self timer, canon, sony, park bench, flooding, rain, weather, summer, parkour, water, sunrise,

After a while I thought if I put my camera to the side then I could be a little closer and make it, but that didn’t work either. LOL. Oh well.

My camera settings for these images are F5.0 at 1/4th of a second ISO 400 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 17-40mm wide angle lens.

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It’s that time of year again! Sunflower season!

If you haven’t seen them already, I’ve made two vlogs in the years past from McKee Beshers in Poolesville, Maryland. They’re linked here and here.

But this season is a little different. This year I have my drone! Muahaha. I ended up taking more drone pics and video than I did with my Sony camera. I think I was just excited about having a really beautiful place to go and legally being able to fly. It’s funny though because I wasn’t the only one who had this idea. There was at least 3 other drones flying around. One guy commented that he has never seen so many drones in one place before. It’s all good though. They’re just so much fun to fly.

And they make for the best selfie sticks! Here’s another pic of me with my friends Sue and Birch. The sunflower squad. No, we didn’t actually call ourselves that but it would have been funny if we did. LOL.

Summer, Sunflower Fields, marlyand, mckee beshers, sunset, sunflowers, yellow, selfie, drone, mavic pro, dji, mosquitos, flowers,

If you don’t have a drone, make sure to bring a step stool. The flowers are over 7′ tall this year. Way better than it was last year. It’s pretty overwhelming to try to capture it all so I highly recommend trying to get on a higher level. And as always, don’t forget your bug spray! I accidentally brought bug bite relief as opposed to repellant and my ankles got torn apart. I hope those mosquitos enjoyed the extra cooling sensation. *waves fist in the air*

My camera settings for my alone selfie is F2.2 at 1/13th of a second ISO 978 (?) with my DJI Mavic Pro.

That question mark is in reference to the weird ISO number. I’ve never seen anything wasn’t a multiple of 100 on any other camera or film. Weird…

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It seems like everyday this summer has either been super hot and humid or super rainy, right? There hasn’t really been an in between in a while. This image was actually taken on one of those rainy days. It rained the night before and it rained right after this image was captured so I was really surprised when color actually came through the clouds during this sunrise. And as a side note super lucky that I left the Reflecting Pool right before it started pouring. The whole morning was really dark so I love the way the pink and purple hues brought out the contrast.

Now that I have my 70-200mm, I’ve been challenging myself to keep the lens on my camera without switching to one of my defaults.  It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds but I think it’s really interesting how subjects that I photograph all the time seem so different. I’ve always talked about getting really low or getting high could help make things look different. Well, getting a new lens can do the exact same thing. I captured this image at focal length 112mm.

Besides the color and the reflection, my favorite part about this image are the ducks. I always get so happy to see them, especially in the summer time. There seems to be new baby ducks all the time. Of course they could be the same ducks that I’m seeing over and over again, but they’re just so tiny that I can’t even imagine being more than a few weeks old.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/60th of a second and ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm. The reason the ISO is up so high is because this image was captured handheld.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

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Honesty hour…

Lately I’ve been thinking about my style of photography. I think I’m most known for sunrise at the Washington DC monuments, but I want to be more than just that. I want to become a more well rounded photographer that can photograph much more than empty, open spaces. I want expand and push my creativity. I’ve started to photograph more street, lifestyle, and portrait work but haven’t really said anything about. I haven’t really said anything about it because it’s not what I’m known for. And is it really even that good? I dunno, but I am enjoying it and when it comes down to it, that’s all that really matters, right?

So this is an example of the type of work that I’m leaning more towards. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my landscapes and sunrises but I’m expanding. This was taken memorial day weekend on the Old Rag trailhead in the Shenandoah Mountains. Typically I would have waited to bring out my camera until we got to the summit of the mountain and photographed the landscape but this time I wanted to capture the experience of what it was like to get to the top. This image is of my cousin, Mona, my sister-in-law, Audrey, Andrew and another hiker who just happened to be standing at the right spot at the right time. For me, it perfectly describes what it’s like. Cautious getting to the top while climbing over big ass boulders with amazing views along the way. My favorite part of the image is Mona’s body position and the way she’s getting around the rocks.

I have many more images that I took while on this hike. I’ve already sprinked a few here and there and theres more to come. So let me know what you think of these. I’d love to know!

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/1000th of a second and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.