sunrise

Living in the Washington DC area, the arrival of cherry blossom season means the beginning of spring, warmer weather, and one of my favorite times of year to go out to create images. I try to go as much as I can and early morning is always the best bet. There are fewer people and more available parking 🙂

This year’s cherry blossom season has come and gone and it felt like it went by in a blink of an eye. The weather in March was all over the place with nice warm days and cold snowy days so it was nice to see the flowers finally bloom. It felt like all the days that I went out to photograph were very cloudy. The silver lining to clouds meant that when the sun would peek through them, it created this beautiful glow on the flowers. This was the moment I was living for.

I have been photographing the cherry blossoms for almost 10 years now and each year is still very exciting. Obviously, I love photographing the typical scenes: cherry blossoms with the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, and just the flowers themselves.

I also like trying to photograph the images that tell the unique story of that year. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of going to the same location and photographing the flowers in the same way, but I tried my best to do things differently this year. That meant parking my car in a different location (other than Ohio Dr) standing a little further back in the grassy areas instead of the sidewalk, and basically, letting life unfold in front of me instead of rushing to find the shot.

The first morning I went out to the Tidal Basin had a bit of fog presunrise. As I was walking from my car to the trees, I couldn’t help but capture the way that it was glowing in the lights of the Washington Monument.

But I found the most fun just standing back and people watching. Since I was there in the early mornings, the light varied each day and as the time went on.

Another way that I tried to make this year different was by switching up my gear. My go-to lens is usually the 70-200mm telephoto lens. I just love the compression that I get from this lens but for some reason, was not feeling it this time around. I had my 50mm prime on for 90% of the time.

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Hi,

Long time no speak. Sorry about that and I hope it’s never this long again. My world got rocked at the end of August and just now finding the time to sit down and be thoughtful of my life in the past few months.

To sum things up, I had my baby almost 2 months premature. What started out as a regular visit to my doctors, ended up being a 10-day stay in the hospital and delivering at 33 weeks and 1 day. Little baby Tony spent 3 weeks in the NICU but we’re all doing great now. Bringing him home was the happiest but also one of the scariest days of my life. How am I responsible for this little baby?

In general, motherhood has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Everything in my life changed immediately and my priorities shifted massively. For the first two months, every week seemed like it brought a new challenge or something I was not aware of. Whether it’s questioning if he’s getting enough to eat, if he’s sleeping enough, or even if he’s sleeping too much? I was not prepared for how much I’d love this little boy but how much I’d worry about him all at the same time. My life turned into doomsday scrolling on google at 3 am all while looking at pictures of him on my phone missing him and crying about how much I loved him. The emotions after labor are nuts!

After a while, I started to feel like I was losing myself. I hadn’t picked up the camera in weeks and I missed being able to wander without having to worry about anything else.

Then one day I got a message that my friend, Andy was leaving DC. A group of people was getting together for one last sunrise with him. As soon as I read it, I knew I had to go. It was a clear sky but it still brought all kinds of drama with the sky column and fog. I’m grateful for this outing because it made me realize that it is still possible to go out to shoot, even with a baby. So from that point on, I told myself that I would try my best to go out at least once a week to shoot.

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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.

partial solar eclipse, solar eclipse 2021, sunrise, washington dc, virignia, arlington

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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It’s been a while since I’ve gone out for sunrise. No particular reason except summer makes it hard to wake up so early. So for a little extra motivation, I was looking back at some sunrises in DC this past year.

I always thought that winter has the best sunrises. There’s something about that cold air that really brings out the colors in the sky. And on this particular January morning, it did not disappoint! I met up with a small group of photographers and it was great to see some people who I hadn’t seen in more than a year.

At first, it just a cold morning. I didn’t think much would happen…

So I spent my time walking around the Lincoln Memorial, trying to find something interesting to photograph if the sky wasn’t going to do anything. To be honest, I didn’t even pull my camera out of my camera bag until I was already 3/4ths around the memorial. Then I started to notice more and more people starting to gather in the front.

The sky went from a cold grey to a warm orangey-pink. I was not expecting it at all but was so happy. Since I was there with photography friends, I knew I wanted to try to find a different angle. I figured most of them would be on the perimeter of the memorial, so I went inside. It was also a good idea because it was so cold and windy, the inside of the memorial provided some great shelter.

What first started off as an attempt to get a little warmer, ended up being a really good move. I love how the light is pouring into the memorial and seeing the silhouettes of all the early morning risers. Overall, looking back at these pictures makes me so happy and reminiscent. I hope to photograph a similar sunrise in the near future.

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In November 2020, I was out trying to photograph the full moon and unfortunately, clouds had a different idea. The moon was completely covered and I was just standing in the cold with my camera and 70-200mm on a tripod. I could have gone the next night when the sky would have been clear but I just was feeling so discouraged that I didn’t want to. This had been my 3rd month in a row where I wasn’t able to capture the moon. So I wanted to do something that would keep me motivated to go out and shoot.

Right then and there I came up with an idea that I should rent the biggest lens I can find. LOL.

So after discussing this idea with a few friends, I finally decided that I’d rent a 200-600mm lens. This would bring a whole new view to the city that I couldn’t even imagine. I rented it from lensrentals.com and I could not have been more excited that it actually came 3 days earlier than I had expected. So I had 10 days with the lens and I was pumped!

My first real test came on an afternoon at the Washington Monument. It is actually the same exact place where I came up with the idea to rent the lens so it’s funny that this was the first place that I want to go to test it out.

I was blown away!

The compression on the lens is CRAZY. These people were at least 20 feet away from me. The US Capitol is about a mile away from the Washington Monument. But if you asked me, it seriously looks like you could just reach out and touch the people.

It was on!

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At the end of every year, I like to sit down and look through all the images I’ve taken in the past year. It’s one of my favorite traditions because I reflect back on the year and most of the time, I have forgotten about some of the fun photo excursions I’ve been on. It’s also really nice to put all these images together in one place and view them as a collection.

We can all agree that 2020 was very unusual. Not only were there times where I felt uncomfortable going out to take pictures, but there were times where I just felt uninspired and a lot of judgment towards my own work. The judgment towards my work has always been there, however it was much more amplified this year. I tried my best to go out and shoot at least once a week but there have been at least a dozen photo walks that I’ve been on where NO ONE has seen the pictures from. I just wasn’t happy with them, so they are just sitting in my Lightroom catalog as we speak.

But that’s not to say that I lost my passion for photography. I feel like I am even more passionate about it than ever. When I wasn’t out shooting or doing the normal stuff I would typically be doing in a normal year, I was at home learning. I have never watched so many tutorial videos, read so many books, and slowed down to be really present while I’m out shooting. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been so hard with myself. I always felt like something could be better or different and I’m trying to use all that I’ve learned and apply it to my real-life shooting.

Typically I would have another blog post about my favorite travel images, but that obviously didn’t happen this year either… LOL. So here are my favorite images from 2020 🙂

January

washington dc, national mall, puddle, reflection, american flags, washington monument, sunrise, early morning, national parks, sylvan theater,

At the very beginning of the year, my friend Andy messaged a few of friends and started a little group called Sunday Sunrise. We were going to try to meet up every Sunday… for sunrise. LOL. Unfortunately, the group was only able to meet a few times in the beginning of the year, but while we were in the peak of meeting up, I created this one beautiful morning. I just love how the reflection turned out with that person walking towards the Washington Monument.

It’s interesting because this was the day that I realized that I take a majority of my images in a vertical orientation. A couple of years back, a friend of mine told me that magazines are always looking for vertical images because magazines are vertical. So ever since then, I’ve tried to challenge myself with the vertical orientation. And then Instagram started favoring the vertical orientation as well, so I’ve been creating pictures that way without even realizing it. This year, I’ve been making a conscious effort to take more horizontals to balance out the way that my imagines are seen.

February

US Capitol, sunrise, capitol dome, united states capitol, washington dc, puddle, Ulysses S Grant Memorial, reflecting pool, national mall, washington dc,

Another image with our Sunday Sunrise group. I don’t remember it raining or anything the day before, but there was this large puddle at the Grant Memorial. It was an awesome find because it gave such a different perspective of the US Capitol building. The beautiful sunrise colors was an added bonus!

March

It felt like spring came early this year and it was very much welcomed. I find that I’m always on the hunt to find new places to capture all the beautiful blooms in the city. I have been to the National Cathedral a few times for spring, but it was mostly to photograph the Saucer Magnolias that are at the park next to it. Never had I thought of walking the grounds and I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw these beautiful blooms.

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