Archive of ‘Photography’ category

Hogettes

Have a great weekend, everyone! Some sad news in the DC Area. Yes, no more football in Washington until next year, and no more Hogettes either! Some photos below are from a fund raising event at the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria in 2012. Guess it’s time to do something new this weekend. Make it a great one!

Hogettes photos - TimeLine Media

At this time, Ms. Virginia visited the animal shelter for their open house. While we were there, we made some photos of her with groups from the shelter, and other visitors that came by. The Hogettes were an unexpected surprise! While you may not know their history, you can see that they are characters. Whenever they show up at an event, they bring a lot of attention.

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On this occasion, the animal shelter was having an open house. In order to show off their finished renovations, they had many guests come by this morning. Being that it was an animal shelter, I went back to see some of the pets available for adoption. In short, I wanted to take all of them home with me! By all means, please stop by the AWLA off of Eisenhower Ave., in Alexandria if you want to send your support!

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Air Force Memorial – Arlington, VA

Photo project at the Air Force Memorial in Arlington

I forced myself on this Friday to get out of the house early while the sun was still low on the horizon to try to get some photos. Living in the Washington DC area gives you lots of opportunities to make images of memorials, monuments, that are familiar to everyone around the world. That makes it a challenge to make something new.

Having easy access to these sites, gives you an opportunity to get images that tourists, and visitors do not have. Waiting for the best light can be tough, but this was the best day I had in a while. I was hoping for clouds with a striking sunrise, just as everyone does, but this day was something different. Lots of cloud cover, with only the hint of a sunrise low on the horizon. It was not what I was planning, but I made the best of it. The Air Force Memorial rises up above Arlington, VA with a beautiful view of the Pentagon and Washington, DC. Going early in the morning also ensure not too many visitors to remove with software later!

Air Force Memorial - Arlington, VA - www.timelinedc.com

Post-processing with Nik HDR Efex Pro

While shooting, I reviewed the images on the back of the screen, and thought that these would benefit from HDR, or High Dynamic Range processing. In order to do this, I placed the camera on a tripod, and bracketed the exposures. The aperture was set at f/8.0 to get a large depth of field to see all the way to the Washington Monument. Then I took 8 different exposures from overexposed to underexposed around the meter reading in the camera.

When I got back to the computer, I loaded the photos into the Nik HDR Efex Pro plugin for Adobe Photoshop. In the first image, I was attempting to make adjustments to bring out a little drama in the clouds, but make the rest of the photo as close to how I saw the scene. The image below, I cropped out the horizon to emphasize the fact that this was a memorial to those that serve their country in the air. I processed the image as before, then converted it to black and white. This makes the tones in the monument match the tones in the clouds, but with a striking contrast from the organic clouds, and the man-made structure centered in the frame.

Air Force Memorial - Arlington, VA - www.timelinedc.com

 TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Arthur Murray – 100 years

Beginnings

In 2012, Arthur Murray dance studios celebrates their centennial as a company. Overall, the longevity has to be admired – only a privileged few have been around since then! Their studios and instructors introduce so many around the world to ballroom dance. In fact, this is where my wife and I discovered dancing. Still, we continue to go to the studio in Tysons Corner to stay in touch with the community.

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A Tango from the Silver Spring studio:

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A Quickstep from the Alexandria Studios:

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Centennial celebration

Over the year, there were themed parties and events which highlighted the changes and styles since the company’s inception. At the first event of the year, their Spring Freestyles, the staff of the DC Area studios came together. Prior to the event, they created a coordinated show featuring each of the studios. Entitled, “Dancing Through the Decades” it was an amazing showcase of all of these professionals. TimeLine Media was asked to video tape the performance which we were happy to do! I will see if I can get the entire video posted to the blog, as it was a great showcase of the talent of the dancers!

From the Ashburn, Virginia studio

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Ladies from the Maryland studios

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From the Chevy Chase, Maryland dance studio:

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Tysons Corner, Virginia studio:

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From the Gaithersburg, Maryland studio:

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One of my favorites from the show was the photos of Leisa & Joe Howard from the Columbia studio. I have so many amazing photos of these champion dancers doing showcases and professional competitions from the last few years, but this one was a nice moment –

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There was more production value put into this show than any I have seen in ballroom. The music seamlessly changed through all the decades represented, in addition to a video presentation that highlighted important points in Arthur Murray history.

Thanks again to Steve and Mark Theiss that have been very supportive of our photography, and allow us to partner with them to get some great images of their local events. Best of luck for the next century of dancing!

Arthur Murray DC ballroom dance photo

TimeLine Media – photo proofing site – http://proofs.timelinedc.com

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