A Studio With A View

Note to self: when visiting the U.S. Botanic Garden in the middle of August, skip the humid jungle exhibit in the Conservatory and head straight for the arid climate in the World Deserts section. Nice and cool. If you’re smart, you’ll remember pen and paper to write down the names of everything you photograph — I had planned on getting the names from the USBG web site, but there doesn’t seem to be an online inventory. Note-taking fail.

If you know the names of any of these succulents, post in the comments. Thanks!

Depth-of-field preview would’ve helped with this one: while the result is interesting, I think the DOF is too shallow. Would’ve liked to see more in focus:

Cacti; Washington, DC; August 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Though in black and white and cropped closer in, the lack of depth makes for a more interesting graphic photograph:

Cactus; Washington, DC; August 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

This one made me think of fireworks:

Cactus; Washington, DC; August 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Cacti; Washington, DC; August 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Cacti; Washington, DC; August 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Hens and Chicks in Bartholdi Park; Washington, DC; August 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Saturday really wasn’t a walking around town kind of day, but we braved the heat and humidity to wander down to the U.S. Botanic Garden, one of my favorite — yet rarely visited — touristy destinations in town. Photogs in particular will appreciate the “secret” gardens in Bartholdi Park, just across Independence Avenue from the USBG Conservatory: it’s a wealth of backdrops for portraits. This wasn’t a working trip, though, so I just have pictures of plants.

While exiting the Dupont Circle metro station on my way to Erica America’s going-away happy hour last night, I couldn’t help but notice a rather dramatic arrangement of clouds and sunlight. To be fair, I’m always looking up at the sky (making me a dangerous pedestrian), but I don’t understand how anyone would fail to pay attention to these clouds. And yet, as I pulled out the trusty Canon and started snapping away, I noticed that no one else really seemed to be looking up.

Clouds above Dupont Circle North; Washington, DC; July 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Cloud chaser that I am, I wasn’t happy with this snapshot. I started walking all over the neighborhood, trying to get the perfect shot. I tried enlisting Gandhi:

Clouds and Gandhi; Washington, DC; July 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Still not good enough. Amazed that this cloud formation was being good-natured enough to stick around (the best ones usually dissipate by the time I’ve taken the lens cap off), I continued my quest for the perfect photo. Surely my favorite landmark would help me out? I trudged over to the Dupont Circle fountain.

Clouds above Dupont Circle; Washington, DC; July 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

Clouds above Dupont Circle; Washington, DC; July 2010; © Jason Novak. All rights reserved.

I wasn’t satisfied. I packed up the camera and continued on to the happy hour. Now, reviewing these photos the day after, I’m still unsatisfied. To some extent, they are all decent photos. It’s plain to see I played with filters and exposure settings to try to get them to reflect what it was that caused me to take these photos in the first place: that elusive whisper of inspiration. But no amount of post-production will reveal that inspiration because I packed things up and continued on my way last night.

With this blog, I’m hoping to chronicle the lessons I learn in my endless quest to constantly improve my photography skills. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it’s probably a variation on the age-old not quitting theme, or, if you prefer, the “hang in there” kitty poster. But as I look at these snaps, I keep going back to the first one, the one I took while still on the metro escalator, before I started the hunt for the perfect pic. It was the end of the work week — there’s a blurry shape in the foreground: a commuter walking past me on the escalator. A woman on the down escalator seems to be double-fisting some kind of chilled beverage. It was, after all, one of the hotter days this year. Just visible is a bit of the Whitman quotation carved into the concrete bowl that swallows up the escalators — there is no mistaking which Metro entrance this is. And above it all is the sunlight filtering through the clouds. I think I did capture my inspiration after all.

My preferred way to see the cherry blossoms at the tidal basin is to get down to the Jefferson Memorial before the crowds of tourists overwhelm the landscape. (Unfortunately, they seem to get there earlier and earlier each year.)

This past spring, Studio Wife and I met up with Amy and Doug (who officially won the early bird award for meeting us on Ohio Drive before sunrise) to do a cherry blossom shoot. The blossoms were ethereal as ever, and you just can’t beat the softness of early morning light, but the moment captured below ended up being my favorite pic of the set. It is technically imperfect, but the motion blur and slight lack of focus make it seem far more candid than it truly was — smack dab in the middle of the FDR memorial, in front of the Freedom wall.

Amy, Doug, and FDR; Washington, DC; April 2010; © 2010 Jason Novak. All rights reserved.