For the first time since I moved to DC six years ago, I finally got the chance to really photograph the annual cherry blossoms down by the Tidal Basin. I woke up around 4AM and arrived at the Tidal Basin at around 5 to make sure I could beat the sun and crowds. I managed to do both. Below are a few of my favorites from the few hours I spent down there:
Anyone else wanna share their cherry blossom photos? There were a ton of photographers there yesterday morning. If you were one of them, put a link to yours in the comments!
You can buy prints of some of the featured photos here over at my online gallery.
You can also see the rest of my shots of the cherry blossoms in my Flickr stream.
Tags: blossoms, cherry, dc, Featured, hdr, jefferson, memorial, monument, washington
March 30th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Very nice shots. For an event as photographed as the cherry blossoms, I’m extremely impressed with the originality of some of these. The panoramas & hdrs are quite striking.
March 30th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Thanks Wade!
March 30th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I love the way you’ve used the cherry blossoms to frame the photos - I particularly like #5 (the vertical one).
March 30th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Thanks Marty! The vertical one is one of my favorites, too!
March 30th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Great shots Shawn!
March 30th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Simply beautiful. Once day I’ll take the ride for this time of the year.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Please don’t take it wrong, take it as constructive criticism here, but I will “go ahead and sorta disagree” with Wade here: with the exception of the first one, these are beaten to death already.
I mean, they are done well and everything, but how many post cards from DC with cherry blossoms in the foreground and a monument or two in the background does it take before they bore a person to death?
If you wanna make postcards, these will probably work and sell. Personally, though, I would take your HDR shot of the suburbia townhouse row from a couple of weeks ago over these any day of the week. I know for a fact, too, that you can be way more creative than these — take your chinatown arch, for instance, which is just awesome, creative, unusual and presented the way that’s original, artistic and
The first shot is not bad, but, again, in my very subjective opinion, the memorial is just not that interesting visually, no matter what it may signify to some people. The shot is interesting to me because of the HDR effect, the starry night and the unusually purplish clouds; it looks like it’s from a sci-fi something, rather than from a city as boring as DC. I’d rather see one of those Restaurants at the End of the Galaxy instead of the monument there, though, with yellow dudes to look nice on the purple clouds background.
I hope you are getting what I’m trying to say here, and by no means am I trying to lessen the effort here — I know exactly how hard can it be to shoot things like these, believe me.
If you are not getting it, feel free to confront me at work — I’ll just have to beat it into you. =)
March 30th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
On the technical note: on the third one, blurred foreground doesn’t quite work for me, I wanna see it with the DoF from the ends of your shoes all the way to the monument.
On the last one, the toothpick is a bit tilted and/or distorted. While perspective correction is not necessary in the first one, it works as is, I think it’s in order on the last one.
Just a couple of cents.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Absolutely. I don’t disagree with you at all. There are a million shots of cherry blossoms. Everyone’s gotta go through and have the obligatory through-the-branches-Jefferson-Memorial shot. And I’ve got plenty now.
I was trying to get something a little different because, even as I was shooting, I was thinking it had been done a million times before. I was looking for something a little new and creative but nothing really struck me in terms of ideas.
I do really value the feedback. I know I can always count on your for an honest opinion… and it is truly appreciated!
March 30th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
@MrYu: Second comment. I agree with you on the blurred foreground there. I actually would have rather gotten the blossoms in focus instead of the monument if I had to choose. But, in the dark, I had a hard time finding them and focusing on them. This happened to be the best one of the bunch.
And on the last shot… I can’t really see it. Maybe a little since you mentioned it. I think I’m gonna open it in Photoshop and see if I can’t see how it lines up against a vertical grid.
Thanks!