Monthly Archives: June 2012

Korean War Memorial

The Korean War Memorial opened around the time I lived in DC in the 90s.  I thought it was really cool when I first saw it and I still think it is an impressive monument.  It is particularly good to see in the rain since the outfits the soldiers are wearing in the sculpture are big ponchos and, on a dull and wet day, the image of the guys out on patrol is particularly evocative.

It was sunny this time so the effect wasn’t quite the same but the sculptures are still very impressive.  I had not remembered the water features around the memorial as much as the sculptures so this was a bit of a discovery for me.  The number of visitors was very high so it was hard to get the alone feeling that seems appropriate for the whole place but it is still a very interesting place to visit.

It was not long after Memorial Day when we were there so there were a lot of flowers around the memorial and many personal messages that people had placed.  This always adds a personal feel to any memorial.

US Capitol

The US Capitol topped and tailed our trip to DC.  We came into Union Station when we entered the city and so the Capitol is just a short walk away.  Chris went and shot some images there while I was in my meeting so I bypassed it when I was trying to catch up with him.  This ended up working in my favor.

On our return leg, the weather had improved from the cloudy skies we had started out with and, more importantly, the sun was starting to go down so the light was getting a lot more friendly.  Also, a third upside was that there weren’t too many people around any more.  Therefore, while we were a bit bushed and also keeping an eye on the time of our train back to the airport, we stopped off and grabbed a few shots of the Capitol before heading home.

Congratulations Sara

This piece is a shout out to my niece, Sara.  Sara has just graduated from high school and we got to head across to Syracuse to see her graduate and to help celebrate.

Now she is off to college at Northwestern.  Maybe we will see more of her when she is living just up the street but somehow I suspect she will be finding plenty of other things to do.  I hope so – that’s what college is all about!

Lincoln Memorial

Continuing the Washington tour, we headed to the Lincoln Memorial.  This one isn’t an unfamiliar subject and there is only so much you can do that is new.  I was also a little constrained by the time of day we were there but enough of the excuses.  I still got a few shots of the memorial as we looked around.  It is an impressive structure and very popular.  Consequently, there are a lot of people there at almost any time of day.

With so many people there, you are not often going to get the chance to have the scene clear of people so you make the best of it.  I figured I would go as wide as possible in order to make the people less prominent in the shots.  Whether this really worked or not, I am not sure.  I also decided to do a panorama inside the building to try and get the wide shot without the distortion the fish-eye can bring.

That didn’t stop me playing with the fish as well.  It certainly provides a different look at some things but the large amount of vertical references really shows the distortion.  Still, it was worth a try.

MLK Memorial in DC

The next few posts will all be related.  My nephew, Chris, was staying with us recently and, while he was here, I needed to travel to Washington DC for a meeting.  Since Chris had never seen Washington and my meeting would not take up the whole day, I took him along so he could see a bit more of what the country has to offer a visitor.  It was only one day but Washington is nice and compact when you are looking at some of the more obvious tourist attractions provided you are ready to walk.

It was an early start and a long day out but we covered a lot of things.  Today I shall start with one that was new to me as well.  The Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorial is a relatively new addition to the collection of monuments around the Mall area in Washington.  I had heard about it and was interested to see how it looked.  I was not alone as there were plenty of people walking across to find it.

A number of features were of interest to me.  There is a quote from Dr King on one of the stones which says “Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”  I am not familiar with the full quote and its context but the entrance to the memorial is a large rock from which a central section has been extracted.  This section is placed further into the memorial and it is on this section that his likeness is sculpted.  As I saw the relationship between the two parts, I was quite taken with it.

I know the memorial has not be universally well received but I liked this entrance feature combining with the sculpture, the wall of quotations and the general feel down by the tidal basin.  I imagine that it will be a popular place in years to come.  The Vietnam Memorial was controversial when it was created and it is now considered iconic so we shall see how time judges this memorial too.

A Little Golden Knights Video

In my previous post I talked about my trip up with the Golden Knights.  It was a lot of fun and the primary goal was to get some images and information for the article.  However, since I was there, I decided to grab some video too.  I had a combination of the video capabilities of my SLRs as well as a GoPro I mounted on a wrist strap.  I tried to make this point in roughly the right direction but it was a bit of a struggle when I was focused on shooting stills.

Anyway, excuses aside, I knocked together a short edit of some of the footage I got.  Still not going to get the Emmy people excited but hopefully it gives a bit more of a feel for what it was like on the flight.

Virginia Air Power Park

Just down the road from the Virginia Air and Space Museum is the Virginia Air Power Park.  This has some similarities to the Air and Space Museum and some differences.  First, since it is also close to the Air Force and NASA facilities, it shares the access to some interesting exhibits.  Therefore, there are some very interesting aircraft on display.  This includes an XV-6 Kestrel from NASA, just like the Air and Space Museum.  Strange that such a rare aircraft should have two on display in such close proximity!

The differences are more pronounced.  It is an outdoor exhibition and decidedly less glamorous.  Getting funding to look after the aircraft is a continuing issue for the team there and they are working hard at it.  Some of the aircraft are repainted but others a in need of a new coat when they can get it.  Since everything is outdoors, I imagine that the preservation task is a more difficult one.  We were there on a rather grey day.  It had been raining heavily and was still cloudy and dull while we were there.  Some of the aircraft were standing in large puddles which can’t be good for them.

None of this is meant to be critical of the team.  That they are doing what they can to keep these aircraft on display is great but it must be a struggle to make sure that they are not going to rot away.  Not only are there aircraft but also some interesting missile and some rockets from the space program’s test activities.  They also have some capsule hardware from test activities.

There is a building at the park as well which currently contains a wide selection of models of different aircraft, ships and spacecraft.  Again, if you are passing by, I would recommend you pay it a visit but you might need to make sure you have some shoes that don’t mind puddles!

Virginia Air and Space Museum

Located in Hampton Virginia is the Virginia Air and Space Museum.  Hayman and I checked it out as part of our tour of local museums.  I had been warned by Liza that everything inside was pretty crowded and she certainly wasn’t wrong about that but more of that later.  The museum is a very modern looking facility with glazing at both end walls allowing lots of light inside.  That also makes for a few problems with the levels of contrast between parts of the building but I doubt they planned it based on the needs of photographers!

In fact, they really didn’t.  The building has a great collection of aircraft.  The close proximity to NASA facilities has obviously been helpful in getting access to some pretty unusual exhibits.  The Apollo 14 Command Module is on display as is the HARV F/A-18 Hornet, a research F-106 and an XV-6 Kestrel among many other interesting airframes.  They even have an MMU from the Space Shuttle program (although getting a shot of it from the moving elevator was tricky).  The result of all of these exhibits is that they have to be squeezed in.  They are usually suspended from the ceiling which makes them look more dynamic.  However, they do tend to overlap a lot.

This isn’t a problem if you are visiting to see everything which is, after all, the purpose of the museum.  It does, however, make getting photos a bit more tricky.  I ended up using a combination of lenses.  A wide angle zoom and a fisheye zoom were the two I chose.  The fish is a lens that viewers can tire of quickly but, in this case, it was a case of trying to get unobstructed shots where possible.  It also let me try a few odd angles for fun too!

While not a museum I would go back to repeatedly, this was certainly a good place to visit.  I might go back one more time with some new ideas about how to shoot certain things but even that might require the cooperation of the management!  If you are passing and have a couple of hours, do pay it a visit.