Lincoln Memorial

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On a recent trip to Washington, DC, see Hassled by the Washington, DC Park Rangers for taking photos, I did the tourist thing early Saturday morning before heading back to Texas. I went out at 7am to avoid the heat and the crowds.

I walked from the Washington Monument, past the World War II Memorial headed for the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool. There were a few joggers, a few Ron Paul supporters (interesting group of characters) and city workers. As I approached the Lincoln Memorial a small group of tourists were already starting to mill around. I noticed this black city worker mopping the steps, back and forth, back and forth and I knew right away I wanted to include him in the photograph.

When I got to the bottom of the steps the group of visitors were all over the steps and inside the memorial. The worker patiently continued his work, waiting when the people blocked his path.

Standing there with my Nikon D300, waiting for the moment I wanted to capture I was approached by, wait for it — a Canon shooter. He was carrying two cameras (a Rebel XT and a 5D). We had a brief discussion about the light and our shared hobby. Nice fella; other than the Canon part.

Just as we were parting ways I got this photograph. It’s the best of the three I took of this man maintaining the monument’s appearance. The fact that it is a black man working for the Federal Government at the Lincoln Memorial somehow struck a cord with me. I mean no offense to the man doing an honest job, the fact Lincoln’s eyes appear to be watching him, makes, to me anyway, this photograph sort of special.

Hassled by the Washington, DC Park Rangers for taking photos

Ray ⋅ People, Places, Rant ⋅ art, background, Backgrounds, Blog, business, Business Meetings, Casting Call, Cat, Chap, CLS, Crowds, d300, Dozen Shots, Emily, Faa, face, FDR, Flickr, Fun, girl, girls, Granite, hassled, Head, Heir, Hhs, hobby, Hoot, Hotel, Huge Crowds, Light, lighting, Long Time, Memorial, Memories, model, Modeling, Modelmayhem, Models, Monument, Monuments, National Mall, new, nikon, office, one, Outsider, Park Police, Park Ranger, Park Rangers, Passing The Time, People, Photo, Photo Shoot, Photograph, Photographer, Photographers, Photographs, Photos, Places, Pose, pretty, pro, professional, Professional Photographers, Reply, Rig, Rkd, Sb, Sb8, SB800, Sessions, shoot, shot, Stan, street, Taking Photos, Target, Teenagers, Things, Tree, ttl, Walk, Water Fountain, Wrong Way, WW II, Ww Ii Monument, Youtube ⋅ 5 Comments

I’ve spent the last three days here in Washington, DC on business. Meetings with the 2661837879 36a304139e m Hassled by the Washington, DC Park Rangers for taking photos FAA, HHS and the WAAS office. Long times between meetings and I’ve been done pretty early in the day. So, I placed a casting call on ModelMayhem to see if I could pass the time doing what I like to do, take pictures. 5 or 6 TFCD models responded and I set up sessions with two of them. As my luck would have it – both at the same time. That wasn’t a problem for me (read assistant) or them though so we met at my hotel and headed for the National Mall to shoot. The plan was to use the monuments as the background. Sounded way cool.

We chose the new WW II monument because it had a nice water fountain. We got there around 7pm, good light, not huge crowds. As one model was getting her ticket from the Park Police (wrong way on a One Way street) the other model (Emily) and I set off to set up and shoot along the granite outside wall of the monument. I used 2 SB800s, at first to fill then to light her. Nikon CLS is so cool. So far so good. I get about a dozen shots off when the other model, Danielle walked up. She dismissed the ticket as part of life in DC and we starting posing her along the same wall Emily had used. About 10 minutes later I hear:

Sir – Sir:

Using the Nikon Creative Lighting System

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This photograph was taken using a Nikon D-300, the Nikkor 28-70 f2.8 and 2 SB800s. One SB800 was placed high picture right behind Emily the other was hand held slightly high picture left above her head. Although I have the equipment to mount the flashes to either an umbrella or softbox, this session was done with only the Nikon defusser on one of the strobes.

I am becoming a real fan of the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) and the ability to control the SB-800s using the Commander mode on the D300. I’ve now used them in studio sessions as fill or hair lights, outdoors from as far as 30 feet away or the sole source of light as in this photograph.

The two cautions when using the system is to remember to have the sensor facing toward the camera and don’t step to far in front of the flashes. I spent nearly 10 minutes on one outdoor shoot trying to figure out why the flash wouldn’t fire, gave up and realized, the next day, that I had the IR receiver facing away from the camera.

CLS is a great tool, take the time to learn it.

Read about us being hassled by the Park Rangers in Washington, DC during this shoot.

Also see Damien Franco’s expansion of my photo tip about Seeing the Shadows over at www.yourphototips.com.

The Artistry of Images. The Imagery of Art.

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Park Rangers

Lincoln Memorial

Hassled by the Washington, DC Park Rangers for taking photos

Using the Nikon Creative Lighting System