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Archive of ‘Travel’ category

Event, Family, Personal, Photography, Travel | 0 comment

Peak Blossoms – Washington DC Photography

Photographers at sunrise Washington, DC - ©TimeLine Media

Yes this blog post is very late today. I do have a good reason, though. The cherry blossom trees in Washington, DC are in peak bloom! Being a native northern Virginian, this has been an annual outing for my family for a VERY long time! The earliest photo that I have of my swaddled very well was less than a year after I was born. The crowds were a little less packed that the ones today, but there were already a flood of people walking the Tidal Basin with their best cameras in tow.

Nanay and GGB at the Cherry blossoms - ©TimeLine Media
Nanay and GGB at the Cherry blossoms – ©TimeLine Media

I am about the same age today as my mother was in the photo on the left. She still enjoys walking through the blooms, and taking lots of photos! It has never become cliché, and if anything, the event has become more popular than ever. It is inspiring to see so many photographers out there! And I don’t just mean at the peak times in the middle of the day. You have to carve out a spot even an hour before sunrise! That is another testament to digital technology making photography more accessible.

Photographers at sunrise Washington, DC - ©TimeLine Media
Photographers at sunrise Washington, DC – ©TimeLine Media

Yes it does look like there is a lot of competition for photographers out there – and there is. For me, though, this is something I would do whether or not this was my main profession. But knowing what people do for photos out there really pushes me to make even better photos! There are just as many visions for capturing images as there are people behind the camera. The tools may be similar, but they can be manipulated in an almost infinite number of ways!

Portrait at cherry blossoms peak - ©TimeLine Media
Portrait at cherry blossoms peak – ©TimeLine Media

Get out there this weekend before the blooms blow away! They are already starting to fall from the trees as of Friday evening. I have lots of editing to do with the many photos made over the passed few days. I’ll be sure to update the blog as I finish them. Happy Spring!

Self Portraits at cherry blossoms peak - ©TimeLine Media
Self Portraits at cherry blossoms peak – ©TimeLine Media

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Photography, Technology, Travel | 0 comment

Photo Spot Check – Tech Thursday

Air Force Memorial, Arlington, VA - ©TimeLine Media

Ever go through a series of photos to see a spot at the same place on every image? Digital cameras have made so many advancements in convenience, and accessibility to photographers. Just going around the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC to look at cherry blossoms, you can see the impact. I can remember going walking around the blooms when I was younger with many cameras around, but not nearly to the extent that there is today.

Shooting with film, however, did have some advantages. One of them was that the “sensor” was cleaned EVERY single time a photo was taken. The film was nicely protected in a hard plastic cartridge, fed through a tiny slit that wiped the sides of the film clean before it was placed in position to be exposed. After an exposure was made on the frame, it was moved out of the way as a new part of the film was moved into place – there was no reuse of the same section – unless you had a failure of your mechanical system, or were very advanced in your multiple-exposure plan for your image.

Arlington, Virginia

Air Force Memorial, Arlington, VA - ©TimeLine Media
Air Force Memorial, Arlington, VA – ©TimeLine Media

When taking landscape or other travel images where you are exposing large parts of clouds or open sky, digital cameras will show you spots where there is dust on your sensor. When shooting landscapes from a tripod, you have the luxury of using low ISO and a stopped-down aperture. Using these settings, it will be very evident where dust spots are on your sensor. When the using more open apertures, the dust will be too close to the sensor to be seen in your images. Regularly shooting at f/4 or below, you may not notice that you sensor even has any dust!

Air Force Memorial, Arlington, VA - ©TimeLine Media
Air Force Memorial, Arlington, VA – ©TimeLine Media

This image looked perfectly fine at the time I took it at the Air Force Memorial. When I brought it into Lightroom and took a look at the images at 100%, there were so many spots. Here is a screen shot of the image where each circle is a point from the “Spot Removal” tool. I have made them larger if you would like to download and see how bad this case was.

Spot Removal tool in Adobe Lightroom - ©TimeLine Media
Spot Removal tool in Adobe Lightroom – ©TimeLine Media
Close up of spots from sensor dust - ©TimeLine Media
Close up of spots from sensor dust – ©TimeLine Media

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

Photography, Technology, Travel | 0 comment

Air Force Memorial – Early Morning Photos

Air Force Memorial - single exposure - ©TimeLine Media

With announcements that the cherry blossoms are very close to peak bloom, I am anxious to go out to the Tidal Basin in downtown DC to make some springtime photos! Until I get out there, I am looking back on other recent photo walks around town. The images on this post was from a particularly COLD morning at the Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. I remember how numb my hands and face was after this shoot even though I was bundled up! At least one advantage is the cold keeps the crowds away, so I was mostly alone at the Memorial except for a group of school kids that quickly took some photos, then hurried back to their waiting motor coach.

Arlington, Virginia

From this high overlook, you have a panoramic view of the Pentagon, and Washington, DC below. This also brings the high winds which makes trying to keep the camera steady difficult. A tripod was definitely necessary this morning, and it allowed me to slow down and really position the camera right where it needed to be for these photos. With the tripod steadying the gear, I also took multiple varying exposure for making high dynamic range photos. Here is a comparison of a single exposure with the metered settings, and an HDR image of 7 combined images, 1 stop apart.

Air Force Memorial HDR - ©TimeLine Media
Air Force Memorial HDR – ©TimeLine Media
Air Force Memorial - single exposure - ©TimeLine Media
Air Force Memorial – single exposure – ©TimeLine Media

The edited single exposure is preferable to me. The dark part of the sky ends up in a different area in the HDR image, and I find it more pleasing in the single image. With HDR images, they bring out more of the shadow areas which did not come out as well in the HDR as a default. I could edit this more in Photoshop, but the single image was pleasing as it is, so I have decide to just keep that version instead of investing more time in the HDR file.

Air Force Memorial with sunburst - ©TimeLine Media
Air Force Memorial with sunburst – ©TimeLine Media

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

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