As usual I went down to the tidal basin to take photos of
the cherry blossoms; however, this year there were not as many as normal. Several of the cherry blossoms died due to
frost and cold temperature due to the odd weather patter we had this spring. In February we had a few days in the upper 60’s
and low 70’s, which caused the cherry blossoms to start to wake up, and start
the blooming process. Though, in March, we went back to winter weather
temperatures in the 30’s with some snow and ice, which damaged many of the
blooms. This resulted in a slightly less
fluffy pink tidal basin, and a shorter bloom period.
I went down to the tidal basin early in the morning of the
first day of peak bloom with my Canon 70D a 18 -200mm lens, a 60mm macro (which
I did not use), a Manfroto tripod, a 430 EX-RT III flash, and a bounce
attachment for the flash. It was a densely
clouded morning and only a scant amount of light from the sunrise was breaking
through the clouds, thus I used the flash with the bounce attachment to light
up the blossoms while metering for the monument. I was able to capture a few shots as the
light streamed through a break in the clouds, which lasted for about 5 minutes,
but could not capture the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows when the sun
just crests the horizon due to the clouds.
The clouds did break up later in
the morning but that was after the sun was sufficiently over the horizon and to
the point where it could start burning off the cloud layer. Even
though the conditions in the morning were less than ideal, I did manage to
capture a few acceptable shots, and use some Lightroom magic to improve the
final image.
As you can see in the image below, there are some dead blossoms,
as indicated by the brown. This image was at ISO 100, a focal length of 18mm,
using an aperture of f9, a 1/6s shutter speed, a flash to light the
blossoms. As you can see it was fairly cloudy,
and this was one a few moments when the sun was peeking through the clouds. I
did edit the image in light room to bring out the pinks a bit more and then
gave it more of a faded look.
This second image was taken a bit later in the morning. You can tell because the sun is poking
through the branches of the cherry tree and creating a reflection on the
water. I took this image at ISO 100, a focal length
of 18mm, using an aperture of f9, a 1/125s shutter speed, and direct flash to
light the tree branch. This image was
post-processed in light room by bringing up the clarity and then adjusting the highlights
and shadows to bring out the details in the tree branch without blowing out sun
reflection in the water. Then because I wanted to give it a warm sunrise feel,
I tinted the image an orange filter. Overall, I’m pleased with how this image
turned out.
While I did not walk away with as many images of the tidal
basin I usually do, the images I did captured allowed me to work on editing
skills to bring mood and feeling to images captured in lack luster conditions. You can see all the images here.
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