Posts Tagged ‘Washington’

Cold DC Photos

Lincoln Memorial - HDR image at a cold sunrise - ©TimeLine Media

Washington, DC

No, I have not gone out in this crazy cold weather to take more photos at sunrise! There has been an itch in the back of my mind since I know that not too many people will be out there, and the skies have been really clear in the mornings. However, the logical side of my brain won saying not to risk it with this record cold out there. Also, I do not have the proper gear to get out there and make images without getting frost bite! But I did make some nice ones after the Korean War Memorial walk through that I posted about earlier. When I started to walk back towards the car from that area, I saw this right behind me:

Lincoln Memorial at sunrise -  ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial at sunrise – ©TimeLine Media

Cold Sunrise

I have already made so many images of the Lincoln Memorial, but this amazing monument that is colored pink in the breaking sunrise was too good to pass up. I did not go into the memorial, as this was not what was in the best light. With the sun very low on the horizon, the pink was hitting the structure that was built up higher first. I moved as quickly as I could into position without slipping on the frozen ground to make more photos.

Lincoln Memorial at sunrise -  ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial at sunrise – ©TimeLine Media

The images above are just about straight out of the camera using the Vivid camera calibration from my Nikon. This last image was from an HDR of 9 bracketed exposures. I did not go too crazy with the post-processing. I just wanted punch up a little of the saturation in the sky while keeping the detail and sharpness of the building. Trying to do this on a single exposure was too difficult to balance correctly without making the masking or selection look like a mess. The HDR processing was a much faster way to get where I wanted to go!

Lincoln Memorial - HDR image at a cold sunrise - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial – HDR image at a cold sunrise – ©TimeLine Media

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

Korean War Memorial

Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise - ©TimeLine Media

Washington, DC

Brrr. There is a new term that meteorologists have thrown out there in recent days, the Polar Vortex! It has turned our weather in this New Year especially cold, very quickly. Early on this occasion, I had second thoughts about an early morning shoot with the wind and very low temperatures. It took a pep talk to myself to get out of the car. Parking right on the banks of the Potomac River, the wind was the first to hit me. During the walk small flecks of snow that were kicked up in the wind were biting against the little bare skin I had exposed on my face. Immediately, I thought that I should have worn more than my scarf to protect my face!

I started walking quickly towards the monuments. Since there was snow on the ground, I had the objective to photograph the Korean War Memorial situated close to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a perfect morning if you were trying to get photos of the National Mall without any distractions in the background – there was no one out there! A crew of Park Rangers was just arriving on the monument to start spreading salt over the marble stairs and walkways. I was obviously envious of their winter gear. I walked over to the Memorial, and the snow-covered statues really added to the solemn, quiet feel to the monument.

Korean War Memorial at Sunrise - ©TimeLine Media
Korean War Memorial at Sunrise – ©TimeLine Media
Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise - ©TimeLine Media
Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise – ©TimeLine Media
Korean War Memorial at Sunrise - ©TimeLine Media
Korean War Memorial at Sunrise – ©TimeLine Media

Korean War Memorial

The statues depicting all the branches of the US military as they worked their way through some harsh terrain. There are 19 statues that are reflected in the large black granite wall next to their position making them look like a total 38 soldiers commemorating the 38 parallel. The granite wall was sandblasted with more images of soldiers on the surface.

Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise - ©TimeLine Media
Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise – ©TimeLine Media
Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise - ©TimeLine Media
Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise – ©TimeLine Media

As I exited the memorial, the sun was just starting to rise above the horizon. The bright orange color contrasted with the blue hues from the memorial that was still in shadow. In the cold, I moved as quickly as I could to compose and make the photos before the sun was too high in the sky, changing the look and mood from dramatic to flat. It only lasted a few minutes.

Korean War Memorial - Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise - ©TimeLine Media
Korean War Memorial – Washington, D.C. Memorial at Sunrise – ©TimeLine Media

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

Photo of the day – HDR Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial - HDR from HDR Efex Pro 2 - ©TimeLine Media

Below are photos of the Lincoln Memorial with some examples of how you can develop a photo in different ways. Firstly is just from one exposure with adjustments in Lightroom. In other words, a ‘normal’ processing from out of the camera.

Lincoln Memorial with only Lightroom adjustments - ©TimeLine Media
Memorial with only Lightroom adjustments – ©TimeLine Media

The other images were processed in HDR programs from 9 separate exposures. In summary, the images were bracketed at different exposures. Afterwards. these images were used as sources for HDR programs.

Memorial - HDR from Photomatix 5 - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial – HDR from Photomatix 5 – ©TimeLine Media

This shows not only the possibilities with processing images in one program, but the amount of information available in combining exposures really opens up a lot of options! The HDR processing started from photo realistic presets.

Memorial - HDR from HDR Efex Pro - ©TimeLine Media
Memorial – HDR from HDR Efex Pro – ©TimeLine Media

Many of the “artistic” or “surrealistic” presets were a little off the chart for me. Especially with a subjects like the Lincoln Memorial, going too far on the processing would have really taken away from the image. Let me know which of these came out the best. If you have any tips for processing HDR images, or post processing architecture or landscape images, let me know!

Lincoln Memorial - HDR from HDR Efex Pro 2 - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial – HDR from HDR Efex Pro 2 – ©TimeLine Media 

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

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