A recent find, one of the best views of the Washington DC skyline is in Anacostia! Thanks again to my friend, Austin who came up with the idea of photowalking around the Anacostia neighborhood. I would have never thought to visit Anacostia, but now I won’t even hesitate to go back. The neighborhood has so much history and character, but it is also changing too. Judging by all the construction happening, it could be the next cool hangout spot. So if you’re planning on going, definietly check out Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church to see the best view of the city. It’s outstanding!
From the parking lot, you have an amazing view of the US Capitol, other buildings and then this unrivaled view of the Washington Monument. I think it’s so cool to have been able to capture it with Nationals Park in the foreground. Such a different perspective of the city that I’m totally not used to. I bet the July 4th fireworks would be an amazing show to watch from here.
So after the photowalk was officially over, I offered my friend, Larry a ride back to his car. I live close to a metro that he usually parks at so I asked him if he needed a ride but we had to make a few stops first. The first stop was to the church to capture this image. Luckily, Larry was kind enough to let me use his 100-400mm lens. Like I’ve said before, the compression on these ultra zoom lenses are amazing. I’m always so impressed by them and this would not have come out the same if it weren’t for it. Second stop was to District Donut for their seasonal donuts 🙂
My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/500th sec and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and Larry’s 100-400mm lens
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.
So after I photographed the Korean War Memorial for a bit, I walked over to the Reflecting Pool to check things out. Since we had snow the day before, I was really hoping for a little bit of fog. Lately, I’ve been loving the reflecting pool for this exact reason. I love the way the fog gets trapped around the trees of the pool so I wanted to make sure I was at the right place at the right time. Well, it didn’t happen.
But this happened! I love how simple this image is. I shot it with my 70-200mm at 200mm standing on the top of the steps that lead to the reflecting pool. I’m not sure if it’s easy to tell the location if you’re not familiar with the Washington DC area and that’s the reason why I like it so much. It looks like it could be almost anywhere. The reflection of the Washington Monument perfectly cuts the image in half and the two people standing there is absolutely perfect. I also love how compressed the image is and you can’t even see the stairs. It’s as if we’re on two totally different platforms and you have to leap down to get close to the water.
LOL I love how these past few posts turned into a chronological description of what I did in the span of 2 days. Not intentional but it will be very interesting to look back on.
PS speaking of looking back, 2018 is almost over! If you haven’t already, check out the 2019 Dynamic DC calendar. I LOVE the way it turned out this year. I don’t have many left so get them while they last. And can we talk about how much I love February’s image OMG <3
My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/1250th sec ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm ultra zoom lens.
Ok if you know me at all, you must be suprised. I’m surprised myself. There are SO many birds in this image and I am not the biggest fan of birds. To be more specific, birds are definietly my biggest fear. So that’s why I’m surprised I was even able to capture so many of them.
They aren’t the usual pigeons that you see on the mall either. They were these small black birds and they were all huddled up on the edge of the reflecting pool on the grass. So as people were walking by (mostly runners) they would all fly up in the air in unison, circle around the reflecting pool and then land back to where they were. The first time I witnessed it, I ducked behind my friend, Larry. After the second or third time it happened, I kinda figured out what was going on and patiently waited for it to happen again (still very close to Larry). Luckily, I already had my 70-200mm lens on so I was able to capture the moment quickly. When I looked back on the image I was so surprised that I was able to fill the entire frame with them. My favorite part is the slight glow on some of the birds wings.
Either way, I don’t think I’ll be turning into a bird photographer anytime soon 🙂 I’m lucky I was able to capture this.
And in case you missed it, I wrote a little camera review about my current camera, the A7II. I mention the lenses I use including the 70-200mm and why I love it so much. Click here if you’d like to take a look.
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.
