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Posts Tagged ‘Potomac River’

Personal, Photography, Travel | 2 Comments

Jones Point Park

©TimeLine Media - DC South Boundary Stone

We have had a nice string of “chamber-of-commerce” days in the Washington, DC area. The weather really makes it easy to get out and make photos around town. On this day, we were interested in exploring a park that had been recently renovated after the completion of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge construction. Jones Point Park is located at the Virginia side of the bridge, and has plenty of areas for recreation from courts, bike and walking trails. The Potomac River also borders the park which provides nice views of the National Harbor, the District, and the plane traffic from Reagan National Airport. The park also sports lots of unique historical markers being so close to Old Town Alexandria, and Washington, DC.

Alexandria, Virginia

©TimeLine Media - Underneath Woodrow Wilson Bridge from Jones Point Park
©TimeLine Media – Underneath Woodrow Wilson Bridge from Jones Point Park

From a previous post, you can see some of the background on the DC Boundary Stones. These stones are the oldest federal monuments which marked out the perfect square that cut Washington, DC out of land from both Maryland and Virginia. The first stone laid in the project was at the southern corner at Jones Point. Today, the stone is protected behind a sea wall right by the shore, adjacent to the Jones Point Lighthouse.

From here, there are lines and other markers that show the original borders. In the middle 1840s, the Virginia land that was part of DC was given back to the Commonwealth. Walking the park now, they have lines marking where the old border used to be showing DC, Maryland and Virginia. Even though you cannot directly view the boundary stone, they do have a nice see-through marker above the stone so you can look down on the stone.

©TimeLine Media - DC South Boundary Stone
©TimeLine Media – DC South Boundary Stone

So here comes the FUN part! You can see how close the shore is to the stone. The ground on the other side of the fence was very soggy, and not very stable to stand. I did not feel like breaking my ankle to get a photo of the stone in the wall, so how did I get this photo?

©TimeLine Media - DC South Boundary Stone
©TimeLine Media – DC South Boundary Stone

Please send your guesses to the TimeLine Media Facebook page, or to the comments section below. The first person to correctly guess how I was able to take this photo, I will send you a coupon for $50 of prints or digital downloads from the proofing site! I will post the answer in an upcoming blog post. Good luck!

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

Personal, Photography, Travel | 0 comment

Photos by the Occoquan Bay

©TImeLine Media - long exposure pier

It has been a while since I did a personal photo assignment. The weather has been very cloudy and stormy. This is a great time for photos especially in the summer months. The best time to make landscape photos is either early in the morning around sunrise, and early in the evening around sunset. Summer months in US makes this very difficult unless you get up really early before the sun! Well, this was not my day for getting up early, so the light was already strong.

Occoquan River Shores

The setting is a pier that stretches out into the Occoquan Bay in northern Virginia. Since the time was not optimal time for the best photos, I used a Neutral Density (ND) filter to help me out. This filter is like putting sunglasses onto the front of your lens. It blocks all the light coming into the lens which darkens the exposure. Some people consider this one of the only filters you need in the age of digital photography. The effect that this filter creates cannot be done in Photoshop very well.

I am sure there are some digital wizards that can use blurs and effects to make moving water smooth while keeping static elements sharp. This is what I was going for in trying to get out to the river on a cloudy, rainy morning. I was hoping that it would be darker out, but I still had to go to extreme on the camera to get an exposure over one second long. The settings for this first photo are 10 seconds at f/32, ISO 50.

©TImeLine Media - long exposure pier
©TImeLine Media – long exposure pier

Long Exposure Photography

The water is starting to smooth out at 10 seconds, but I think I would need it to be at least 20 seconds before it becomes really silky smooth. Again, coming out earlier in the morning would make the overall frame darker, and I could have made the exposure time longer. The light is also very flat since the sun is high in the overcast sky making the overall light in the scene very even.

This would have been perfect for a portrait, but a little boring for the landscape alone. I varied the position of the camera for the second with similar results. I made the pier more of the base for the photo without seeing as much of the water. Unfortunately, the clouds were also not as compelling as they could be, so this also falls a bit flat for me. In a return trip, I hope to come in better light, and maybe I will get lucky with more dramatic clouds. I’ll post here if I get something inspiring!

©TImeLine Media - long exposure pier
©TImeLine Media – long exposure pier

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