Today’s theme is the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. I present three variations on that theme, all created on the morning of October 18th, 2008. Each was created with different focal lengths at different times and from different locations, though I captured the same basic perspective of the memorial in each.
Lincoln Memorial in blue
The first photo was captured during blue hour, before the sun rose, at 6:59 am, giving the sky a beautiful blue glow. The memorial was lit up at that time, and I was fortunate to capture one couple sitting on the steps waiting for sunrise. This photo was created with a wide angle lens at 12 mm, so I was standing on the lower steps very close to the monument. There is some angling to the building as a result. I chose a very wide aperture of f/4 giving me a shutter speed of 1/13 second.
Early morning at the Lincoln Memorial
The second photo was captured at 7:30 am. The sun was high enough to begin lighting up the area, though it was very overcast so still a bit dark. The statue of Lincoln was still lit up. I was using a different wide angle lens at 18 mm and was standing further back from the memorial, so there is less angling to the building. I chose a long exposure of 2 seconds to get a small aperture of f/22 and this resulted in motion blur around any people who moved during that time. The couple from the first photo are still sitting on the stairs, and a small number of other people have arrived.
Sunlit Lincoln Memorial
At 9:06, well after the sun had risen, and during a brief moment when it peaked through the clouds and illuminated the memorial, I captured the third photo. By this time we’d walked away from the memorial so I was using a longer focal length of 200 mm, eliminating any of the wide angle distortions. I had the aperture set to f/9 giving me a shutter speed of 1/800. The lighting is more contrasty than in the previous two. And by now many more people had gathered on the memorial grounds. The statue of Lincoln was no longer illuminated.
I found it interesting seeing some of the differences between these photos, all of the same subject but at different times with very different lighting, different focal lengths, shutter speeds, and distances from the subject. I also found it interesting seeing how more people gathered at the memorial as the morning stretched on.
What did you think about the differences between each of these photos?
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