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Photography by John Caplis

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Fireworks on the National Mall

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f20, 2.7 seconds, ISO 100

f20, 2.7 seconds, ISO 100

What takes a fireworks image “to the next level”?  If you guessed having an interesting landscape to anchor the scene, then you are correct!   Living in Northern Virginia, one of the things on my photographic “bucket list” has been to photograph the fireworks over the National Mall on the Fourth of July.  I chose to shoot the fireworks from a position near the IWO JIMA Marine Corp Memorial in Rosslyn, VA.   It provides an elevated viewpoint of the National Mall from across the Potomac River, and most importantly, features a great alignment of the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial, directly under the fireworks.  I have to say the fireworks over the National Mall is a grand display that does not disappoint.    

 

f16, 2.5 seconds, ISO 100

Some of my favorite images were a series of bursts featuring our nation’s flag colors of red, white and blue.  

 

f20, 8.4 seconds, ISO 100

These images were shot using a Canon R5 with an EF adapter and a EF 100-400 mm L IS USM lens.  F-stops ranged from f16 to f20, the focal length was set to approximately 110 mm, and the exposures were usually between 3-5 seconds.  The fireworks bursts in each image are from single exposures and not composite images.   I did take a shot of the illuminated monuments under a dark blue sky before the show started (f16, 4.7 seconds, ISO 100), and then used that as the background layer to blend the fireworks into the scene.  This allows you to not overexpose the fireworks while maintaining a well illuminated landscape, while retaining some dark blue tones in the sky.  You can see more images from this amazing fireworks display in my gallery  “Independence Day Fireworks on the National Mall.”  

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Strawberry SuperMoon Rising Over the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

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This year’s Strawberry Supermoon (June 24, 2021) featured a fantastic alignment which rose over the Thomas Jefferson Memorial when viewed from the foot of the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial.   

 

 

The timing was also near perfect, as the moon rose during the later part of civil twilight and appeared as a large colorful moon against a pleasing dark blue sky.  I used the The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) app to preplan this adventure, and the location and timing information can be seen in the screenshot from my iphone below.  For this session, the augmented reality function didn’t have the location of the moon rising in exactly the right spot, but the map view of the moonrise worked perfectly.

 

 

Capturing a moonrise scene correctly requires taking at least two images, one image exposed for the foreground scene, and a second image that is exposed correctly for the moon.   The two images can be stacked and merged later in processing to recreate the scene that our eyes can see, but modern cameras are still not able to capture this dynamic range of light in a single shot.   I find the “lighten” blend mode in Photoshop particularly helpful for processing this type of scene.  The warm lighting used to illuminate the interior of the Memorial created a nice color connection between the portico and the beautiful yellow moon.  

 

 

This particular evening was very breezy, and there was a slight chop on the tidal basin.   As a result, there was no reflection of the monument on the water.   As the moon continued to rise and worked its way over the top of the Memorial, however, a spectacular display of moonshine appeared on the water that draws your eye across the tidal basin and up to the Memorial and the supermoon.

   

 

I noticed the light pollution from the surrounding D.C. skyline added a slight magenta undertone to the sky.   I liked the effect, as it adds a bit of extra color to the scene and creates a bit of visual separation between the water and the sky.  

 

 

You can view more “nightscape”  images of our National Capital in my DC at Night gallery.   

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White Oak Canyon in Summer Green

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White Oak Canyon is one of my favorite hikes in the Shenandoah National Park.   Usually I hit this trail during the peak times for fall color, but this year I decided to capture a few of the picturesque little cascades of water along the trail framed with lush green foliage for a different feel.  I picked a cloudy day following some rainy weather to ensure the lighting and water levels were good.      

 

 

 

 

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Aurora seen from Shenandoah National Park, Oct 2024. Aurora seen from Shenandoah National Park, Oct 2024. Aurora seen from Shenandoah National Park, Oct 2024. 129A8886-copy-crop IMG_9056_tonemapped IMG_9059 129A8965-copy

Spring Pastures in Infrared

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Looking at the images in this post, you might think they were taken in winter.   However, these were taken on an early spring day, when the pastures were full of vibrant green grass and the trees were just beginning to leaf out.  Since vegetation looks nearly white in infrared, finding dark shapes to place against a backdrop of grass creates some interesting opportunities to make your subjects stand out.

 

 

Isolating the tree against the hillside really highlights it’s intricate shape and structure.

 

 

I usually shoot infrared on partly cloudy or sunny days.  I decided to experiment on this completely overcast day.   I liked the overall infrared result for the skies and the foliage.

  

 

Black cows in a pasture of fresh grass add nice elements of contrast and interest.

 

 

Restoring the blue color to the sky in this image adds a brooding mood to this scene.

 

 

 

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The Lincoln Monument At Sunrise During the Spring Equinox – Part II

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I recently returned to the Lincoln Monument for another sunrise during the spring equinox.   I really enjoy photographing this event, because it truly is about “light and landscapes”.  My first time was in March 2019 and featured beautiful clouds during twilight behind the Washington Monument, followed by wonderful orange and golden light on Lincoln. It was very windy and there were actually waves breaking in the reflecting pool, ruling out any reflections on the water.  However, on this morning in 2021 (Part II), the sky was cloudless and the reflecting pool was flat calm.  I decided to photograph this Lincoln sunrise looking across the reflecting pool in order to include a reflection in the images. 

 

During twilight, the monument remains illuminated, framed by soft blues tones, and the white statue of Lincoln stands out nicely. The windows of buildings in the background were nicely reflecting red light from the horizon behind me where the sun was preparing to rise.  This vantage point is at the far end of the reflecting pool next to the World War II Memorial.  Unlike the crowded steps of Lincoln, there was only one other photographer with me at this spot, a bonus in the midst of a pandemic.  While I was using a 100-400 mm lens for these images, this shot was taken at 176 mm and a 70-200 mm lens would also work well from this spot.

 

 

The monument’s lighting is turned off just before sunrise, and the interior chamber goes completely dark.  The equinox, however, is tailor-made for sunrises at the eastward-facing Lincoln Monument.  As the sun rises at this time of the year due east (approx 090 degrees) on the horizon, the interior chamber is directly lit with an intense orange glow, and for a short time Lincoln himself is completely free of shadows.  

 

 

As the sun continues to rise on the horizon, the entire scene is bathed in warm golden tones, and the sun’s reflection creates a starburst of light on the glass building in the background.  Zooming in a bit to 250 mm creates a bit of an alternate composition, which emphasizes the details and golden lighting in the reflection and on the statue of Lincoln.  

I hope you enjoyed reading about this Washington DC right of passage for photographers.   I specifically selected these three images to show how the sunrise light changes and transforms this sacred American landscape every year at this time on the astronomical calendar.  You can see more images taken from inside of the interior chamber by visiting my gallery at Lincoln at the Spring Equinox.

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Bear Rocks Sunrise in the Fall

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Capturing fall color is one of my favorite subjects in landscape photography.  One of my “wish list” fall images has always been to capture sunrise at Bear Rocks when the heathland has turned to crimson red.   The Bear Rocks Preserve is a series of rocky outcroppings along the Allegheny Front, an escarpment in West Virginia that forms part of the Eastern Continental Divide.  Located at 4000 feet, it enjoys 2000 feet of vertical rise from the valleys to the east, and features a subalpine ecosystem of tundra like plants and stunted red spruce trees.  My vision was to capture the ridge line of white sandstone rocks surrounded by glowing red huckleberry bushes, with golden trees on the mountainside leading down to the foggy valleys below.   

 

 

Challenges include getting to this remote location in the Dolly Sods Wilderness when the foliage is peaking, picking a morning with the right weather conditions, and navigating the rocks to pick a spot in the dark that has the elements you are looking for in your photograph (along with the rising sun).  I found The Photograper’s Ephemeris (TPE) app in virtual reality mode to be helpful in estimating the location of sunrise in my image frame.  This image is a blend of several exposures in order to control the high dynamic range of contrast between the sky and foreground, as well as capturing the best lighting on the foliage across the scene.  Using a very small aperture (f22) for the sky gives you a very appealing sun burst, while using f16 for the foreground gives you a good depth of field for focus and while keeping good sharpness on the landscape.  Finally, you have to get up very early and dress very warm, but the view is definitely worth it!

 

 

 

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Vintage Truck and Gas Pumps in Infrared

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Old truck and gas pumps in infrared.

 

 

This old truck in the backwoods of Cabins, WV made for an interesting “vintage life” landscape, and was well suited for infrared.  This image was taken with a Canon 7D converted to a super color filter, which allows a small amount of visible light to pass to the camera sensor along with infrared.  Using channel swap and saturation layers in Photoshop, you can process the resulting image file in many ways, which is part of the fun of working with infrared photography.  One of my favorite methods is to desaturate the foilage, turning it white as a background, in order to strengthen the subject as the focus of the image.  The red in the truck color was the result of the channel swap, and I chose not to desaturate it in order to make the subject really stand out.  Finally, I added some similar red accents to the Texaco and Esso logos on the sign and gas pumps, just to give it additional visual interest that compliments the truck. 

   

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Seeing the Unseen: Fireworks Over the Historic Manassas Train Station

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Cameras allow us to see things differently, or in some cases, see things we normally could not see at all.   This can be especially true for long exposures.   In the case of fireworks, adjusting your aperture and shutter speed enables you to turn burning embers, bursting and then falling in the sky, into colorful streaks of light.   Generally speaking, your aperture affects the thickness of those streaks, while your shutter speed affects their length and number in a single image.  I used a very small aperture of f22 to create very thin streaks from multiple bursts.  Exposures ranged from 3 to 12 seconds, with longest ones having the most intense concentration of streaks in a single image.  A second technique used here is the blending of two exposures to make each image.  A 20 second exposure with no fireworks, taken at the end of the show, resulted in a well lit train station for the foreground, while shorter exposures were used to capture the fireworks overhead.  The foreground was blended with each of the fireworks images using luminosity masks or the “lighten” blend mode in Photoshop.   Each resultant image captures a unique combination of shapes, colors and patterns in their unique moment in time.   I intentionally put the images into a slideshow that mimics the constantly changing fireworks you would see in the night sky.   Only now, you can see the unseen.  Enjoy!

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EG5A8617_1200x800_U_100_Fixed-Height Winter 2015 2F7A7320-print-3 2F7A7229-234-185-blend-Lumenzia 2F7A0010-011-blend-v2 129A6872-copy-2 Consecutive bursts of color! (f13, 9 and 11 sec, ISO 100)

Shooting the Moon over the National Mall

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A rite of passage for landscape photographers in the D.C. area is capturing the moonrise over the National Mall.   A favorite location for this is in front of the Netherlands Carillon Bell Tower between the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.   From this spot, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol all align into one photo.    Catching the moonrise over this alignment in the evening sky only happens twice a year (once in the spring and once in the fall).   The moon must rise just shy of due east on the horizon during twilight.  Getting this image takes planning, patience, and a bit of good luck.   This spring (my fourth attempt over a number of years), the weather gods finally smiled upon me.   There was a light haze on the horizon which quickly became thick clouds higher in the sky.   While I thought this would ruin any chances of getting a good capture, on this night, it actually created some fantastic conditions for colors in the moon that only lasted for a brief moment before the whole show disappeared behind the clouds.  

 

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Photographing Lincoln at the Spring Equinox

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Every year around the spring equinox, an excellent photographic opportunity arises at the Lincoln Memorial. The spring equinox marks the end of winter and the first day of Spring. The sun is directly above the equator, the sun rises due east on the horizon. Inside the Memorial, a large statue of Lincoln faces east, staring out across the reflecting pool toward the Washington Monument.

 

The statue, pictured above, is shown in its normal lighting during periods of darkness, which is also stunning in its appearance. During the day, the statue only receives indirect sunlight and is largely shaded by the roof of the Memorial. During the spring equinox, the sun rises in the east (090 Degrees True on the horizon) directly behind the Washington Monument. Here is a screen print from the The Photographer’s Ephemeris, showing the alignment of the sunrise (yellow line), the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

 

 

This alignment provides for nice opportunities to make sunrise photos with the silhouette of the Washington Monument.  On calm mornings, you can also get great color from the sunrise in the reflection pool.  On the morning of the photo below, it was a very windy morning, and no reflection was possible.  Still, it was a beautiful sunrise.  As you can see, there was also a small window above the horizon with no clouds, which becomes important for photographing Lincoln.

 

The real photographic opportunity is in making elusive images of the Lincoln statue bathed in the golden light of sunrise, framed by the shadows of the massive pillars being projected onto the wall behind Lincoln.  This lighting is only possible during the week on either side of the equinox, on days when you have no clouds low on the horizon to the east.  It only lasts for the short period when the sun is low and rising just over the horizon. As the sun gains elevation, the top of the statue is quickly and increasingly cast into shadow. You also must time the shifting of the shadows of the pillars, which can also cover the face of Lincoln as the sun moves north to south on the horizon as it rises. But when everything lines up just right, the images you can make of Lincoln are beautiful.  The light can be intense as the sun first appears over the horizon, creating an orange glow throughout the inner chamber and on Lincoln himself.  As the sun continues to rise, the light turns from orange to gold.  I have to think Lincoln would enjoy knowing his likeness is a witness to a new beginning everyday over the city that is the national capital of the Union he fought so resolutely to preserve.

 

 

 

You can view more images of this event in my Lincoln Sunrise at the Equinox gallery.

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