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Lincoln Memorial/Washington Monument, Aug 2009 – 13


Image by Ed Yourdon
Note: this photo was published as an illustration in an undated (Oct 2009) Boxxet blog titled "Washington Monument. It was also published as an illustration in an undated (Nov 2009) Squidoo blog titled "How to Find Great Movies and Music." And it was published in a late-January 2011 blog titled "Ancient Egypt – Influence on Modern Society."

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I first met this man at the entrance to the room where Abraham Lincoln towers above, gazing out with that sad look of wisdom. The man asked if I would take a couple of photographs; I waited for him to give me his camera, but he wanted me to use my camera, because he thought it would take better photos.

I took several, and then took some more of him with the Washington Monument in the background. He looked at the image on the display screen of my camera, and asked if I could crop out some distracting elements in the scene. No problem, I told him; and I said I’d email the edited pictures to him that evening.

And with that, he walked off in the direction of the Vietnam Memorial … and an hour later, he had a heart attack.

How do I know? Because I fell behind schedule during the remainder of the day, and felt obliged to send an apologetic email the next morning:

From: yourdon@me.com
To: xxxxx@hotmail.com
Subject: Haven’t had time to edit your pictures
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:14:37 -0400

Anthony,

We met yesterday morning when I took some photos of you at the Lincoln Memorial. I uploaded your photos onto my computer last night, but unfortunately didn’t have enough time to do the cropping and editing work. I plan to do so in the next day or two, and will send them along to you at that point.

Because I had to work later than expected yesterday, I only had enough time to edit a couple of early-morning photos of the Vietnam Memorial, just a few feet away from the Lincoln Memorial, to finish off an album that I had been working on. You might be interested in seeing it; you can find it on Flickr…

Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,
Ed Yourdon

and about two hours later, I got the following response:

ed,
i remember our meeting well.. about an hour later i had a heart attack and ended going by ambulance to george washington hospital.. thank God i made it back… anyway its ok if you send the photos you took of me as they are if you want…your album is amazing.. the reason i was in d.c. was to meet my friend at the wall, we were going to celbrate our trainers life, he was a great inspiration to both of us and he did two tours in country.. well take your time with your work.. interesting thats what they told me to do at the hospital…again thanks for your time with an old soldier

until next time,
anthony

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How do you go about photographing something that’s already been photographed a gazillion times, like statues or monuments or the Eiffel Tower? Well, I thought one possibility would be to catch some interesting shades of late-afternoon light — so I showed up at the Lincoln Memorial, in downtown Washington, an hour before sunset. I’m so oblivious that I thought the statue of Lincoln would be facing west, and would thus catch the golden glow of the sun. But it faces east, which makes perfectly good sense when you realize that it’s set up so that Lincoln is gazing along the length of the Reflecting Pool, toward the Washington Monument.

And since the sun was already behind the backside of the Lincoln Memorial building, the inner room where Lincoln was sitting was already in deep shadow. Frustrated, I decided to create a few 5-shot HDR composites of the reflecting pool and the Washington Monument. And then I photographed the steps leading up to the Lincoln Memorial, with the happy coincidence of a jet airplane flying overhead to show the contrast between old and new. I also photographed a young teenage girl, who appeared to be pouting on a nearby park bench, as if to say she really didn’t want to be there at all … and that was about as much as I could do.

I came back two days later at the beginning of the day, half an hour before sunrise. It was a good opportunity to get some dawn photos of the reflecting pool and the memorials, and it was also interesting to see the early-morning joggers and tourists. Indeed, I had two interesting little encounters while I was wandering around; I’ve provided the details in the comments for the relevant photos. I was hoping I might get some good photos of early-morning sunlight streaming into the Lincoln Memorial, but it quickly became evident that it would be another hour or two before the sun was high enough; and since the sky looked a little hazy near the horizon, I wasn’t sure there would be any strong rays of sunlight anyway.

So I decided that I’d had enough — and by 6:30 AM, I was all done, and it was time to return to my hotel for breakfast before heading off to my "day job." I’m still hoping to get some good sunlight shots of the various buildings, but that will have to wait for some other day…

Last tango in Washington, Aug 2009 – 75


Image by Ed Yourdon
This was the last photo I took … sadly, it was too dark to continue.

Note: this photo was published as an illustration in an Aug 2009 Squidoo blog titled "Dance Workout." It was also published in an Aug 2009 blog titled "Tanghéri." And it was published in a Sep 2009 Mahalo blog titled "Tango music."

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Every photographer knows that serendipity doesn’t announce its arrival in advance; if and when it occurs, you better have your camera with you, or the moment will be lost. In my case, it occurred just before 8 PM the other night, when my taxi deposited me back at my downtown Washington hotel after a rather frustrating and inconclusive effort at photographing elsewhere (the results of which may or may not appear on Flickr at some point in the future).

I heard music behind me, out in a square on Pennsylvania Avenue known as "Freedom Plaza," and turned to see what it was. Tango music was coming from a couple of speakers that had been set up, and people were dancing out on the square, in the soft dusk that was falling over the city. I strolled across the street to see what was going on, and was stunned by the simplicity and the beauty of the scene: a few dozen people dancing the intricate coda and rhythm of the tango, with Pennsylvania Avenue behind them, and the U.S. Capitol as a backdrop to it all.

I knew nothing about the individuals photographed here, and I know even less about the tango. But I could see that it was a tight-knit community, and that they took their dancing very seriously. What struck me most was the diversity of the community: young and old, tall and short, handsome and beautiful mixing with the not-so-handsome and not-so-beautiful, and various races and ethnic backgrounds. I eventually spoke to one of the dancers, who told me that, over the years, several of the people in the group had danced in various other parts of Washington; but they’ve been coming here, she said, to 14th Street and Pennyslvania Avenue, for at least 10 years. And I imagine they’ll keep coming for many years into the future.

I sat quietly in one place; I would like to have moved around, to photograph people from different angles and perspectives. But I didn’t want to bother them, didn’t want to interfere with the magical aura they were creating. All I could do was wait for them to whirl and flow and glide past me, and then do my best to capture what I was seeing. I took about 225 photos before it got too dark to continue — and many of the pictures were shot at ISO 3200 and a very slow speed, so they may be a little soft and noisy. But about a third of them were keepers; and that’s what you’ll see in this album.

By the way, when I gave up photographing and went back to my hotel, I spent another hour eating a quiet dinner in the restaurant. And when I went back up to my room at 9:45, I discovered that my room, on the 7th floor, faced out over the square … and they were all still out there, in the dark, still dancing. As the narrator said at the very end of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, "… and some people dance."

A DAY IN WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK / Dachshund Frienship Festival 2011 / Sand Painting – Washington Square Park, Manhattan NYC


Image by asterix611
A DAY IN WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK / Dachshund Frienship Festival 2011 / Sand Painting – Washington Square Park, Manhattan NYC

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