Posts Tagged ‘color’

Cherry Blossom photo walk

©TimeLine Media - Infrared photo of Washington DC Cherry Blossoms in full bloom

The cherry blossoms in downtown Washington, D.C. are in full bloom! Unlike the changing leaves in the Autumn, the cherries never disappoint. They always come out with vibrant colors in a nice setting setup by the National Park Service. The only question is when exactly the blooms will pop. With the colder than normal weather this year, the peak bloom was delayed until this week.

Tidal Basin Walk

©TimeLine Media - Tidal Basin while cherries in full bloom
©TimeLine Media – Washington Monument and peak cherry blossom flowers

We had family and friends from out of town even make a special visit to see them. I decided to take my own photo walk this morning to get a look for myself. It is another beautiful year down at the Tidal Basin! This was my first time at the MLK Memorial too which is situated at a corner of the basin near the Lincoln Memorial, facing into basin. Since it was a weekday, I could not get to the basin very quickly with the morning traffic, so the light was not ideal. I tried my best to make some nice images with the sun higher in the sky. There were so many photographers around the basin this morning – making unique images is very tough, but  I am still working on some others, but here are my favorites so far – enjoy!

©TimeLine Media - Jefferson Memorial with cherries in full bloom
©TimeLine Media – Jefferson Memorial and cherry blossom flowers in full bloom
©TimeLine Media - Infrared photo of Washington DC Cherry Blossoms in full bloom
©TimeLine Media – Washington DC Cherry Blossoms in full bloom

This last image is one taken by my old Nikon D100 that I had converted for infrared capture by Lifepixel. I am definitely out of practice in capturing infrared images. The white balance and Photoshop conversion required to make these images view able would make a great blog post. I’m not even sure I did it correctly since it has been so long! I’ll definitely revisit these images and share more of them soon.

©TimeLine Media - Infrared photo of Washington DC Cherry Blossoms in full bloom
©TimeLine Media – Infrared photo of Washington DC Cherry Blossoms in full bloom

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

Sunday Break

Red-Dahlia-www.timelinedc.com

Has Spring finally arrived? We were out pulling weeds and getting the garden ready yesterday, so it sure feels very close! It has been a busy week, and today feels like a good day for a break from the usual Sunday. Happy Easter to all that celebrate, and thanks for stopping by the blog! I think I’ll try and make more photos today. Stay tuned to see if I come with anything good.

Red Dahlia from my uncle's garden ©TimeLine Media
Red Dahlia from my uncle’s garden ©TimeLine Media

For this post, I went back to find some recent spring blooms that I have come across. Although it is not usually recommended to crank color sliders in your post processing programs, I could not help it for these. Are they over cooked to you? Overall, red pops in digital images, so it is easy to go overboard with it. However, I could not help it with the dahlia image. Perhaps the bright yellow center is a nice contrast to the surrounding color.

For the daffodils in the flower arrangement, it was not as much the yellow that I boosted, but the blues and greens. This is usually avoided in photos with people as it destroys skin tones. However, I like how all the colors mix together in this frame. Don’t be afraid to push the color!

Flower arrangement given as an Easter Sunday gift ©TimeLine Media
Flower arrangement given as an Easter Sunday gift ©TimeLine Media

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

Dance – Studio photography

Alexandria, Virginia

These photos were from a dance company studio shoot at Union 206 studios in Alexandria, VA. This took place at their previous location in Old Town. The studio was set up with a white cyclorama wall that gives a lot of flexibility when photographing portraits, couples, or larger groups of people. The cyc wall makes a very clean background to shoot against much like shooting against paper or vinyl backgrounds. I found that shooting against this wall was very easy. In this case, there was no trampling on the background materials, no fear of the background falling. Additionally, the light was really even across the frame.

Dance – Studio Photography

Most of the photos were three light setups. In the photo below, I had one light overhead lighting just the background wall. In addition, 2 lights on either side of the dancer. This lighting is good for male subjects which highlights edges of the body. It brings out more detail and pops the subject out from the background. Looking at the image on the blog now, there is quite a falloff of light on the left of the frame. I should have seen that and adjusted either the background light or the position of the camera. Or I should not have been lazy and fixed it in Photoshop before posting!

Dance Studio photography - TimeLine Media - www.timelinedc.com


In this photo I experimented with some of the colored gels that were available at the studio. This was a one-light setup with a monolight covered with a blue gel. I pointed the light to fire on the background only, with a flag to minimize the spill of light onto the dancers. With the blue gel on the light, it probably would not have been flattering, and probably confusing for the viewer. The light is on the background only so it makes a nice silhouette for the dancers as they make some moves that become nice graphic shapes as the subject. If I get the chance to try this again, I would like to try another light in front without a gel, but with a grid, so that I could get a little light onto the dancer’s faces. It would be a different goal for the image, but would be a great promotional pieces for dancers looking for something different. Hope you enjoyed the images – if you have a need for similar images, let me know!

Dance Studio photography - TimeLine Media - www.timelinedc.com

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

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