An Eye to the Battery

An Eye to the Battery. Fort Hunt Park, Virginia.

Walking the ruins of an old fort I was captured by the sight of an unblinking eye staring up at me, watching as I walked the walls. So I leaned through the railing, put my eye to my camera, and began photographing the eye. The image above is the result.

This is a view of one of the batteries of Battery Mount Vernon, located at Fort Hunt Park, Virginia. My father and I visited the park one morning and walked amongst the ruins. It had rained recently, and the rain water became the white of the eye in the image. The battery is the circular concrete platform that is the iris of the eye.

Battery Mount Vernon, completed in early 1898, was home to 3 heavy guns designed to protect Washington, D.C. from naval attack. Each of the guns, which could be raised to reach over the wall and lowered below the wall to protect the gun, was located atop a battery. The gun on this battery would have been facing the bottom of the image, towards the Potomac River.

In 1933 Fort Hunt became part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, a national park. Now we can visit these ruins, an eye to the past, pondering how different this area is today from what it once was.

An Eye to the Battery is available for purchase as wall art or on a variety of products.

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Cherry Blossom Trail - Washington, D.C.

Cherry Blossom Trail - A path leading from the FDR Memorial towards the Tidal Basin.

It’s almost that time of year again, when the cherry blossoms bloom along the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. Above is a photograph I created from a previous year. As you can see, it was on the tail end of peak bloom when the petals start falling, covering the ground, the trail, and the water of the Tidal Basin.

In this image we see a couple of National Park Service rangers walking down the trail from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial towards the trail along the Tidal Basin. I loved the placement of the rangers on the curved trail, both smiling, one looking towards the other, having a pleasant conversation as they walk. I loved all the scattered pink petals on the ground and on the two benches.

I created a number of frames, but this was my favorite. I do wish the orange construction cones hadn’t been placed along the pavement in the back of the image, but I could probably remove those in Photoshop if I chose to. It was a very overcast day, so there were no harsh hot spots or shadows.

Technical Details

Because it was overcast and I was hand holding and experimenting, I wanted a shutter speed fast enough to minimize the risk of blur caused by camera movement. So I set my ISO to 1600, giving me a shutter speed of 1/100 sec at an aperture of f/8. I used f/8 because I wanted a reasonable depth of field, and at 16 mm this worked very well. I love using my Nikon 16-35 mm lens when walking around town photographing these wider angle scenes.

To add a little punch and warmth to the color I often use a warming polarizer in scenes like this, with leaves or flowers as a major focus. The specific polarizer I like is my Singh-Ray LB “Lighter, Brighter” Warming Polarizer. Being a polarizer, it reduces any glare on the leaves and petals, which helps naturally add a bit of saturation to the color. And the warming aspect of this particular filter adds just a touch of warmth, something you could do in post-processing, but I enjoy being behind the camera more than the computer so I try to handle as much as I can in the field. That being said, I do still usually tweak various settings in post.

The resources below contain affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. This is at no extra cost to you.

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Gray Treefrog Resting on Steps

A gray treefrog resting on the steps with grass in the background.

Sometimes you don’t have to look far to find wildlife to observe. I found this little gray treefrog resting on my front steps one afternoon. I almost didn’t notice it. It blended in fairly well with the concrete steps. But when I did notice I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing my camera and capturing a series of photographs.

The gray treefrog has turned its eye to the camera.

There are 2 species of gray treefrog in this area, Hyla chrysoscelis (also known as Cope’s gray treefrog), and Hyla versicolor (known as gray treefrog), virtually indistinguishable except by their call, their DNA, or in some cases their location. This little treefrog never called while I was around (they typically call at night). I don’t have DNA testing equipment. And both species appear to exist in my area. So I have no clue which of the 2 species this little frog was a member of.

Side view of a gray treefrog.

These treefrogs are typically only seen during the mating season, which can stretch from March to August for the gray treefrog, and from May to August for Cope’s gray treefrog. I photographed this one in mid-May 2018.

This gray treefrog never had a problem with me up close photographing it.

This is the first treefrog I’ve seen in my neighborhood. I used to see many at a friends house in another neighborhood, but they mostly disappeared after further construction began. I will have to keep my eyes open, perhaps I’ll see more this season. Have you seen any treefrogs in your neighborhood?

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Resources

The resources below contain affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. This is at no extra cost to you.

The Virginia Herpetological Society is a great resource for identifying and learning about reptiles and amphibians native to Virginia.

I also regularly make use of field guides, another great resource for identification and education:

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