Author Archives: Rob

WWII Memorial

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The World War II memorial opened a few years ago, after we were no longer living in DC.  However, I have been to DC a number of times for various work tasks and have had a chance to visit it before.  It is a very large memorial and impresses you with the scale of itself which is probably appropriate given the scale of the conflict and the loss of life it represents.

There are two halves to the memorial, one representing the Pacific conflict and the other the Atlantic.  Each of the states are represented on columns around the site and there are several water features.  On a hot day, the large expanses of light colored stone can make the temperature a little hard after a while so the running water and the areas of shade can be a welcome respite.

The whole design is very classical in its approach.  Whether this is a reflection of the response to previous monuments to conflicts on the Mall or whether it is just what seemed appropriate to those selecting the bidding architects I don’t know.  I think it works well and sometimes you don’t have to be different.  Since the whole installation is so large, a classical approach seems quite appropriate.  It is interesting that it took so long for this memorial to be built but now it is there, it adds an appropriate element to the Mall.

Fixing a Broken Bridge

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Living in the city you can get a lot of things happening out of the window.  They can spring up and catch your attention but can equally end before you know it.  This can be a problem when you are trying to decide whether to go out and see what is happening.  One such example happened recently.  I was on the phone when I looked out of the window and saw that the Michigan Avenue bridge over the Chicago River was up and didn’t seem to be showing any sign of coming down.  Finally it did lower but not completely.  This is when the fun started!

One of the Chicago Fire Department’s boats came up to the bridge and then started spraying water on the bridge.  It wasn’t clear at all what was going on.  Some fire trucks also showed up spraying onto the bridge from each end.  I grabbed some shots of this from our windows.  This is the time when you have to make a decision.  Do I grab my stuff and go down to get more shots and risk that it is all over before I get there or do I stay upstairs to see what happens and find out that it goes on for ages and I could easily have been out and shooting for a while?  I have got this decision wrong both ways in the past.  This time I decided to go out and see what I could see.

I didn’t find out what was happening since Chicago’s finest were happy to shout at you for stepping in the wrong place but certainly weren’t going to tell you anything.  I later found out the bridges had expanded in the heat and needed to be cooled down.  I managed to get to a few locations and get some shots before they opened the bridge up again and then lowered it.  This time it went where it was supposed to go and a few cheers came from the crews.

Along with shooting some stills, I also grabbed a bit of video.  While this won’t win any documentary awards, you can get a feel for what was going on.

Happy Birthday USA

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Today is a nation’s birthday.  As a Brit living in the US, I often get asked about how I feel about Independence Day.  I point out that, if Brits got upset about the independence day of every nation that we once controlled, we would hardly ever get out of bed.  I don’t mind things that happened over 200 years ago.  I do like having a day off though!  I plan on enjoying it and I hope you do too – wherever you may be!

Albert Einstein

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Just across from the Lincoln Memorial is the National Academy of Sciences.  On the grounds in the front of the building is a sculpture of Albert Einstein.  It is a great sculpture since it is quite sizable and impressive yet is in a style that is very relaxed.  It gets a few visitors at a time but isn’t very busy so is a nice distraction from the business of the rest of the Mall.  It is also just the right size to encourage you to sit in his lap.  I include a picture of Chris doing just that so you can gauge the scale.

Korean War Memorial

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.