A Beach Stroll

As we tend to associate beaches with summer which is right around the corner, I thought this photo would be appropriate to post. It was taken last Feburary at San Gregorio State Beach in northern California.  Tempertures there, typical to the northern California coastal climate, can be on the cooler side in the summer. In addition, as this climate can change consistantly during the course of a day, the beach is perhaps a better place for taking a stroll instead of bathing in the sun. In fact, although the beach wasn't that crowded while I was there, its sand did contain evidence of traffic from previous visitors.

Drummers Circle with my FE

Here are a few more shots taken using Kodak Tri-X 400 B&W film with my Nikon FE last Sunday at Drummers Circle. They were taken with 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm lenses. There were hits and misses (difficulty in clearly capturing the "I love Mom" pin in the photo from my previous post for example). Shooting with film does encourage you to think more about the image you want to capture and helps encourage better shot displine.

Mother's Day at Drummers Circle

There is a park in DC where people get together every Sunday during the warm seasons to play drums and dance. I went to this park on Sunday which was Mother's Day in the United States. This photo was shot with my dad's 30 year old Nikon FE that he gave me a few years ago. I rarely shot with film, but I had a role of Kodak Tri-X 400 speed black and white film that I needed to use up. Shooting with the FE can be challenging but fun. It doesn't have those automatic features on modern cameras. You have to manualy advance the film with every shot and of course you have to manual focus. However, the camera does have a larger and brighter viewfinder compared to my modern D7000. As a result. you feel closer to the subject when you shoot with the camera.

I used a 50mm lens to capture this photo. This leads me to mention another aspect that I like about shooting with my FE. A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens and not 75mm lens as it is on my D7000 due to the smaller size of this camera's sensor.

Be'la Dona

Be'la Dona, a set on Flickr.

A few weeks ago, I attended one of the daily Millenium Stage concerts at the Kennedy Center. A DC born band, Be'la Dona perfomed that evening. It was a very energetic and upbeat atmosphere, on stage and in the crowd.

The Closing of a '53 Giant

The Giant on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Newark Street finally closed its doors last month after 59 years of operation. It will be replaced by a larger and more modern Giant that will open in 2014.  Compared to other Giants that I have seen, the age of this store stood out by its large neon bulb "Giant Food" signs. Located on two side sides of the store, when lit up, they glowed in the night like the"Restaurant" signs from Tom's Dinner in the TV show Seinfeld.  When looking at the opening advertisement of the store from 1953 (see below), the Giant signs appeared not to have changed much in the store's 59 years of operation.  Anyways, I went to photograph the store last month a few days before it closed. Its signs were taken down shortly after to be never again lit up.

The Union, Lincoln, Forever

This is one of those shots that can only be captured at a certain time of the year.  During the end of winter and the arrival of the spring seasons, the position at which the sun rises allows for its light to enter the Lincoln Memorial. The position of the shadows in this shot show that the sun was rising slightly south of the Lincoln Memorial. When I came back about a week and a half later, the sun had moved north to rise directly on the memorial placing the statue of Lincoln at the center of two of the column shaped shadows. That time though, the words "Union" and "Lincoln" were not visible in the sunlight.

The 2012 Cherry Blossoms

This year's blooming of the Cherry Blossoms was the first since the opening of the MLK Memorial on the Mall in August of last year. I took this photo on March 19, when the blossoms were at their peak period. They arrived early this year as a result of the rather warm winter we had in DC.