Skip to main content

Cherry Blossoms


Spring has finally arrived in Washington, DC with the blooming of the Cherry Blossoms.  The first day of peak bloom was April 10th this year which is a lot later then the past couple years when peak bloom was the last couple days of March and the first two days of April.  I went down to the tidal basin early in the morning (before 9:00 AM which is when the museums open and all the tour buses unload for the day) to beat the crowds. I glad I did because it wasn't tree to tree people (no walls) holding cameras, phones, or iPads trying to capture that perfect picture. Instead it was small photography groups, other early morning photographers and senior citizens walking their dogs; thus I could actually casually walk along the basin in peace. 

I shot the basin with an 18-200mm lens; while I had my macro lens I didn’t use it. I used a 100 ISO at an aperture set mostly to f8.0 or f9.0; I did bump it up to f16 and f20 for a few wide shots. My shutter speed varied depending on the light, since there were a significant number of shaded areas and I was shooting towards the sun on occasion.  I also brought a medium density graduated neutral density filter which I used to get the lovely tree and monument shot below.  I did post process the images in Lightroom.  You can see all the lovely images here. 




Labels:
Location: Tidal Basin, Washington, DC 20024, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cobwebs Everywhere

On October 7 th , I did a studio spooky session with Coralinx Cosplay .   The central theme of this shoot was a pretty goth girl who had a fondness for spiders and decorating with cobwebs, making it a perfect Halloween session.   Note: Cobwebs are defined as abandoned or old spiderwebs that have collected dust.   Many cobwebs are the result of comb-footed spider (i.e., black widows) that make irregularly shaped webs.   Spiderwebs are active structures built to catch prey.   (Source: Western Exterminator Company) For these sessions, I used: Photography Equipment Other Equipment Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Westcott FJ400 2 Phottix Strobes 2 strip boxes 2 rectangular soft boxes 2 c-stands 3 light stands Backdrop stand Black seamless 2 Westcott silicon gels Tether cable Laptop Laptop holder Sandbags A-clamps Spyder Color checker Fake cobwebs Table ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Katsucon 2025 Wrap - Up

Katsucon 2025 didn’t seem as crowded as 2024, but I still wasn’t feeling it.  Katsucon will always have a special place in my heart, but I think I’m just bored with it, from a creative perspective.   While I still love working with cosplayers the location itself no longer excites me and I’m tired of fighting the crowds.  If I return to Katsucon 2026 I think I’ll just set up a studio in my room and do studio sessions.  I can be a lot more creative with a studio session, and I get to use all my lights.  So now let's talk about photography.   For Katsucon I was shooting with my Canon R6 with an 24-105 Canon RF lens, and I had a fisheye lens on me as well, but we will discuss that later.  I had two speedlights, one on camera which acted as a trigger 90-percent of the time and one on a light stand which my husband would hold during shoots. This year I booked 11 cosplay sessions and shot 869 frames.  I shot a range of ISOs from ISO 100 to ISO 800...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spooky in the Morning

On October 5 th , I did an on-location spooky session with Rebecca at Claude Moore Park.   The theme was Victorian ghost; however, it is hard to be a ghost at 9:30 in the morning on a bright sunny day.   I did my best to get a spooky look. For these sessions, I used: Photography Equipment Other Equipment Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Cannon Speed lights 1 30-inch umbrella Light stand Assistant Smoke Genie The setup The set up was relatively easy.  I mounted a Canon speed light on a light stand with an umbrella.  My assistant then held the light in the appropriate spots as we made our way around the park to different locations. Camera Settings This session was held outdoors in bright morning sun and was intended to look spooky, so I tried to keep the images dark.  Thus, I used ISO 100, which is great for sunny conditions.  I wanted to maintain a soft background as much a...
Post a Comment
Read more