Hidden Gems

When photographing the monuments and public buildings in Washington, DC, we most often gravitate to the locations that are best known, such as the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. But there are many potential subjects that are less well known that offer opportunities for a strong image. The photo above is a case in point.

The Arlington Hemicycle is located in plain sight at the end of Memorial Drive, the main approach to Arlington National Cemetery. The site is accessible at any time of day and the security guards who occasionally pass by do not seem to mind the use of a tripod. The Hemicycle and Memorial Drive are actually key elements of the overall design of Arlington Memorial Bridge and were built as a single project, completed in 1932. The Bridge axis, angled southwesterly from the east west Mall axis, continues with Memorial Drive as it crosses the Boundary Channel Bridge to entrance of the Cemetery. There it terminates at the Arlington Hemicycle, originally intended as the ceremonial gateway to Arlington National Cemetery, with Arlington House rising as the focal point on the hill above. In 1997, the semicircular wall was adapted to incorporate the Women in Military Service Memorial. To get a sense of the overall design, go to the following link (http://wikimapia.org/4936837/Arlington-Memorial-Bridge), which includes an impressive aerial photograph of the entire site. Use your mouse to navigate the image.

I had found the structure a few days earlier when I was scouting possible shooting locations at the Cemetery. The image above shows the effects of the golden light of an early summer morning (taken last July). It actually is a combination of seven separate images “stitched” together using the Photomerge routine in Photoshop CS3. I set up the tripod in a low perspective to emphasize the reflections in the pool. I was there perhaps five minutes, taking a total of eleven images.

Technical data: I used a Nikon D-200 with an 18-200 mm lens, set at 18mm. The seven exposures were exposed at ISO 400 with slightly different apertures and shutter speeds. A typical exposure was f/9 at 1/250th second.
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Paris at Night

When photographing a subject that has been the subject of millions of previous efforts, it is advisable to try for a slightly different take than the usual fare. Otherwise, your resulting image may fail to attract the attention of jaded viewers.

I was in Paris last week and, like hundreds of others, decided to capture some night images of the Eiffel Tower. Most of my fellow shooters had no tripod, so that gave me a number of options not available to them. For Image 1, I positioned myself on the Ièna Bridge on the west side (Right Bank) of the River Seine. I set the camera for a long time exposure that would trace the taillights of vehicles traveling toward the Tower. This image was exposed at f/16 for 15 seconds. One of the advantages of such a long exposure is that pedestrians walking by tend to fade into a ghostly blur, an effect that heightens the sense of motion suggested by the traces of the vehicle lights.

The second image was taken about 150 yards from the first. There is a small carousel at the edge of the Place du Trocadero. Although a time exposure of an illuminated carousel is a common technique, with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, I couldn’t resist. This image was exposed at f/16 for 1.3 seconds. The starburst effect with the two street lamps is a side effect of using a small aperture such as f/16.

Both images were shot using a Nikon D-700, a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, and an ISO set at 200.

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Chasing the Moon

We all know that the moon rises in the east, and many photographers in the Washington DC area seek to capture an image of the full moon as it rises above the monuments on the National Mall. The most popular location is on a hill in Arlington Virginia, in front of the Netherlands Carillon, and if you go there on any clear night when a full moon is expected, you may see as many as 20 photographers lined up with their tripods. Most of the time they are disappointed because the moon rises in a different location every night and it rarely rises in perfect alignment with the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. But as the image above shows, there are times that it will.Native Americans, long before colonialists arrived in the US, were aware of the moon’s apparent random pattern and dubbed the moon “the Wandering Old Man.” But the moon’s behavior is not random. It follows a predictable 19-year cycle, called the Metonic cycle, which was independently discovered by the Greek astronomer Meton who was born about 432 B.C. Simply put, this means that a given location on the horizon from which a full moon rises will not be precisely repeated for another 19 years.
There are other requirements for a decent photograph of the full moon. Obviously, good weather conditions are desirable. In addition, it is best to be shooting about 15-20 minutes after sunset, when the color of the sky is a deep blue, a time often called “the magic hour.” Taken together, it becomes quickly apparent that such a. combination of factors is indeed a rare event.
The photograph above was taken on September 5th of this year, one night after the full moon. The photographers that night had done their homework in advance, which involves obtaining the data on the precise location of the moonrise on the horizon and the use of a compass to plot the proper shooting location. The full moon the previous night had risen a little too soon and little too far to the south.
There are a number of sources for data on the moon and other celestial bodies. I rely on the website of the US Naval Observatory (http://aa.usno.navy.mil). Look under the Data Services link for the application that provides the “Altitude and Azimuth of the Sun or Moon During One Day.” You can look at any day in the present, past, or future. For example, the next full moon will be on October 4th, 2009 and will break the horizon at 5:41 PM EST in the Washington DC area. The azimuth reading is the compass sighting that tells you where it will be, in this case about 75 degrees east on due north. This means that it will be well to the north of where it came up on September 5th (about 85 degrees).
The above image may be doubted as “real” by some skeptics, but no Photoshop trickery was used here. The size of the moon is due to the telephoto lens used for the shot. The color is due to the haze and the low angle on the horizon. Here are the technical data:
Camera: Nikon D-200 on a tripod with an Nikon lens.
Lens: AF-S Nikkor 18-200 mm 1:3.5-5.6 G ED.
Exposure: 0.8 sec at f/5.6, at ISO 200, lens extension at 170mm.
Adobe Camera Raw adjustments:
Opened in ProPhot RGB Color space; 16 bit; 2592 x 3872 pixels (native)
Color Temp: 5700 K
Tint: -6
Exposure: +45
Recovery: 0
Fill Light: 1
Blacks: 5
Brightness: +48
Contrast: +25
Clarity: +53
Vibrance: +37
Saturation: 0
Photoshop CS3 processing was a single curves adjustment layer with very minor adjustment to increase contrast, masking for trees, blend mode set at luminosity. Unsharp mask dependent on size of print.

To see more of my efforts to capture the moon, check out my website at www.photographybykent.com

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New Image Opportunities on Capitol Hill

The recent completion of the new U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on the east side of the building is providing numerous new photographic opportunities for local photographers. The underground Center has been open for several months and the final touches on the main plaza above ground are almost complete. Even though you cannot use a tripod without a permit, you still can find much to capture. And if you want a time without a lot of people in the scene, Sunday is the best day of the week. And if you can be there during a congressional recess period, so much the better.
This image was taken last Sunday, August 30th, around 8:45 AM. It actually is another example of the “photomerge” tool in Photoshop. It is four separate images, captured in quick sequence without a tripod and then combined during post-processing on my computer. Here are the steps I followed to assemble the image in Photoshop CS3:
1. Opened all four images in Adobe’s Camera Raw window.
2. Selected all four images so all four would undergo the same adjustments.
3. Opened all four images in Photoshop.
4. Navigated to File > Automate > Photomerge…
5. The Photomerge dialog box opened (See Figure 1 below).
6. Chose “Use Open Files,” checked “Auto” under Layout, checked “Blend images together” at the bottom, and clicked “OK.”
7. After a minute or so, the results are presented (see Figure 2 below).
8. Clicked on the Layer drop-down menu and chose “Flatten Image” to eliminate the unsed portions of the four files. This significantly cuts the file size.
9. Trimmed the rough edges (Crop tool), straightened the horizon (Ruler tool, then Image>Rotate image> arbitrary) and saved the file.

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