Parking garage and surrounding buildings around Tysons Corner Center
Tysons Corner Center
This summer was a celebration of 50 Years since the opening of Tysons Corner Center. In order to mark the occasion, the marketing team at the mall asked me to participate in an art project with Pindar Van Arman. To demonstrate the high – technology aspect of modern Tysons, Pindar programmed robots to paint photos of the Tysons area. With this in mind, the robots need a photograph as a base for the paintings, so I worked to get new images of the area. As a starting point, Pindar and I went to the Fairfax library image archive to find photos of the area from the 1960s that we could use as a reference. From these, we create new photos of the same areas, then the robots painted both for the project, Tysons Then and Now. I think it was a success, and you can still see the results hanging in the mall!
Bridge to WMATA train station at Tysons Corner CenterWMATA train arriving at the station adjacent to Tysons Corner CenterAfternoon view of the Plaza at Tysons Corner Center
I am finally getting around to posting about my trip to Philadelphia with my Fuji X100S. While I was accompanying my wife on a business trip, I had a chance to tour the city. While we had plenty of space, I did not want to bring my bulky camera setup with me. On this occasion, we took the train from DC, and not worrying about a large camera bag was very freeing!
In case you are unfamiliar, the Fuji X100S is a mirrorless camera. Without a doubt it is a much smaller package, but the performance is not compromised. Also the software built into the camera has some features that are not in other cameras I have used. For example, the Independence Hall above was stitched in-camera! Of course that could be done in post processing, but testing it here was impressive.
The picture styles of their JPGs particularly change the look. Since these are from the same company that makes Fuji film stocks, they named the styles in the same way. This last photo is a monochrome image out of the camera – lovely – just like the Acros film I remember from film-shooting days!
Last May, I went to downtown Washington, DC to get photos of the Washington Monument. We are updating a wall art collection in one room. For that reason, I thought about grouping photos of DC monuments would fit nicely.
Now that I had an idea of what I wanted to create, I set out to make the photos on a clear evening. This time of day is ideal for what I was looking for. I did not want a late evening, or nighttime shot, but the middle of the day would not have the dimension I was looking to have on the monument. When the sun gets lower in the horizon, the shadows will be a little less harsh overall.
For these photos, I used the 24mm PC-E F/3.5D tilt shift lens. This is one of the sharpest lenses I have in my bag. Secondly, the shift function of the lens helped to correct the ‘falling away’ look of the very tall Washington Monument. As can be seen in the comparison photos, the straightened version is more accurate, and a different perspective than from the ground vantage point that you see.
Once I had the settings of the camera dialed in, I moved around the base of the monument. Sometimes the placement of the trees at the bottom surrounding park was distracting. In another case, the construction cranes from a museum going up near the monument was distracting. Finally, I just decided to shoot, and remove the crane out of the print in software for my final selection. It was a successful exercise to gain experience with a lens, and to shoot for a specific purpose.
