So after all the color burned off, I was walking back to my car when I noticed that the Martin Luther King Jr memorial was looking especially glow-y. I kind of have this habit of not putting my camera away right away but it’s for moments like this. I thought I was done shooting for the morning but realized that the sun had risen enough that it was casting it’s early morning light on the memorial making it an orange-yellow color. I love when that happens. I tried several different angles but loved this one when I walked to the side to find the Washington Monument and the Martin Luther King Jr memorial lineup with each other. I intentionally photographed this making it look like the two memorials were touching.
In other news, it’s only Tuesday and I’m already looking forward to the weekend. Andrew and I will be visiting New York for a quick birthday getaway. His birthday, not mine. It seems like we take trips to New York several times a year but this year has been so crazy that this is going to be my first time all year. I love that city and really looking forward to just walking around, taking pics and eating delicious food. If you have any NYC recommendations, let me know! We always try to do different things each trip so any tips would be extremely helpful.
Andrew did say that we can go to B&H though. I can’t wait. For some reason I’ve never been but I always had the impression that they aren’t open on the weekends. Since we usually just go for the weekends I never even bothered. Turns out they’re just not opened on Saturdays, so guess what we’re doing Sunday 🙂
My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/125th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm handheld.
I’ve lived in the area my whole life and been photographing the National Mall for over 8 years. I’ve pretty much been to every one of these places at least 20 times. So I compiled the top 7 best spots to make your trip to the Nation’s capital easier to navigate.
I’ve done all the research for you so you can just get out there and shoot. Here’s everything you need to know to capture a stunning sunrise in Washington DC:
How to Prepare for Sunrise
I love the alignment of where the sun rises among the monuments as opposed to where the sun sets from. It gives off this amazing warm glow on the memorials that’s hard to get at sunset. Plus there is this overwhelming feeling of peace and calm in a city that’s usually hustling and bustling during the day. At sunrise you’re more likely to get images with no one in them while at sunset it’s nearly impossible.
Don’t worry though even if no one else is around, park police have the memorials under constant surveillance which makes this one of the safest places to be in DC at night. If anything bad should happen, help will not be far away.
I typically try to arrive at my sunrise location about 30 minutes before the sun actually rises. That way you will see all the great predawn colors in the sky. Dress according to the weather and grab a coffee, you won’t regret it.
For the serious photographers out there, you may be wondering about tripods. For the most part they are not allowed. However if you’re photographing sunrise and there is no one else around, you could probably get away with it. I think the biggest concern is when the memorials are crowded and other people may trip over the legs. Out of all the times I’ve been out for sunrise (trust me it’s way more than I can count), I have been asked to put it away once while I was at the Lincoln Memorial. All other times other than sunrise at any of the memorials, it’s pretty much out of the question.
The United States Capitol is slightly different. Technically, it’s not the National Mall so the same rules don’t apply as they do at the memorials. There is way more security there and I’ve heard conflicting rules about tripods. The last time I spoke to a Capitol Policeman about it, he said they are allowed. However since then I’ve heard of photographer friends being asked to put it away. It seems like there is no right or wrong answer so I would just take your tripod if you want and just be respectful when photographing the grounds. The worst that will happen is that someone will ask you to put it away.
In my opinion, the Reflecting Pool is the ultimate sunrise location in Washington DC. It’s the most iconic and it is the place that I tell everyone they must go to if they have never been to the national mall and especially at sunrise. It’s the center of 4 great landmarks all within a central area. A one stop shop if you will.
Here’s something interesting. The other day I was having trouble sleeping so I started surfing the internet. One thing lead to another and I ran across this article from the Google blog. I’m a month late, but I thought this was interesting enough to share. Turns out google now can credit the creator of images in google image searches! This is such amazing news. I personally know that a lot of my images have been shared without proper credit on social media so I can only imagine where they have ended up.
Like, yes I did take that image of the Tidal Basin at sunrise. Thank you google for the image credit! LOL. This image was taken on the same day as this image and this image. Isn’t it amazing how much the sky can change in about 30 minutes? The image previously blogged were when I first arrived at the Tidal Basin however this one was taken when I was about to leave. The water level was still really high but the it was the cloud formations that really caught my eye at that time. By the time the sun came out, it turned all the clouds orange. An explosion of color like no other!
My camera settings for this image is F16 at 1/125th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.
Always on the hunt for new compositions around the National Mall, I found this one a while ago. However it was one of those things where I couldn’t get it right and wanted to try again until I came out with something I was happy with. Last week I was a bit early for sunrise so I thought I would take my time walking around Kutz bridge. It was about 6a (sunrise is close to 7:30a now!) so there were plenty of people driving around. I figured this was the perfect opportunity to try some cool long exposures.
I started off on top of the grail. You can’t tell but you can get some pretty cool reflections off of it from the tail lights as the cars drive past. The reflections were cool but I still wasn’t happy with the composition. That image will probably be one of those that I go back to and try again. So I decided to get down a little lower and actually put my camera on the ground to capture the light trails. This turned out so much better. I love how the grail is dividing the image in to two parts but the way that the clouds have formed and the angle of the car lights make it all look like everything is pointing to the center of the image. It is such a yin yang type photo with the dark shadows on the left and bright light from the street lamp on the right.
One of my favorite things about the Sony cameras is that you can tilt up your LCD screen so it’s much easier to see what your camera is seeing without having to bend all the way over.
It’s October and it still feels like it is summer in the Washington DC area. The average temperatures have been high 70s and I still find myself walking around in shorts but believe me I’m ok with it! Totally not the cool temps that I’m used to for this time of year but my favorite part about it is that we’ve been waking up to some amazing fog these past few days.
For me, fog is a little more difficult to capture than a beautiful sunrise. I have apps and things to help me figure out if the sunrise is going to be nice but fog seems to be more elusive. It just seems to pop out of nowhere and it’s a huge surprise. So obviously, the past few times that I woke up to try to capture it, it wasn’t there. But the days I decide to “sleep in” (sleeping-in to me is waking up at 6a), it shows up when I’m out for our morning walk with Frankie. Its ok though because I actually have quite a few images of fog from earlier this year and even from a few years back.
This particular image was taken on Christmas day in 2015. It’s an image that I had wanted to capture for a while. I love how the fog is covering the bottom half of the Jefferson Memorial but you can still see the reflection in the water. It just gives off this creepy, halloween vibe and I love it.
Hopefully these foggy mornings will stay for a while so I have more opportunities to capture it in a different ways. By the way, this image is in color. It was just THAT grey out with all that fog.
Thank you all so much for your amazing feedback on Snap DC. I think I check amazon almost everyday just to read the reviews. They make me so happy and I’m so glad everyone is getting so much value out of the book. If you haven’t already, sign up for Snap DC’s newsletter list. I just updated it so that you’ll receive a free photo itinerary for a 1, 3 or 5 day trip to Washington DC. It really is the perfect supplement to the book and it was so much fun to create.
Obviously, the Jefferson memorial and the tidal basin are in the book. Lately, the tidal basin has been my go to place to go shoot. I love the reflections but there’s always something interesting to photograph there. If you look close enough at this image, you can see the bus loads of people visiting the memorial. This was taken around sunset so the memorial is packed with tourists. In the book, I discuss my favorite places to photograph at the tidal basin including the spot where I was standing to take this image. Andrew and I were the only ones there and to be honest, I probably got the better image of the memorial than anyone who was that close to it.
So to find out all the knowledge I have accumulated throughout my years of photographing the Mall and surrounding areas of Washington DC and check out the book and don’t forget to download the itineraries! I’m pretty sure the most frequently asked question I get on social media is, “did I move to the Mall?” The answer is no, but it would be so much easier if I did 🙂
My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/250th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.
