The Munchkin's Notebook

This year I did a two portrait shoots using the cherry blossoms as a backdrop.  I did one shoot in the morning at the tidal basin and the other in the afternoon at a local park.  There were not as many cherry blossoms overall this year due to frost and cold temperatures near the peak bloom period.   I went down to the tidal basin early in the morning to meet LaReine Rousse Cosplay who was cosplaying Mikumo.  I did her shoot using my Canon 70D an 18 -200mm lens, a 430 EX-RT III flash mounted on my camera, and a bounce attachment for the flash.   It was a densely clouded early in the morning however; the clouds did break up later in the morning resulting in a sunny day.   We started near the Jefferson Memorial, worked our way around the tidal basin, and ended across the street in the offshoot of the main tidal basin area.  The challenge of shooting portraits at the tidal basin is being able to get clean pictures (limited to no distractio...

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 clou...