part two

And now we have the second part of my journey to DC...

Jill's Real Birthday
That Tuesday, I joined Jill, Jennie & Matt for the first of three celebration for Jill's birthday! Its funny... Jennie made a comment like "I feel like we are meeting Lori's child" in reference to my D80. She also suggested that I snap a quick pic of our beverages, remembering that I take random pics. Thanks Jen!

The party people: Jennie, Jill, random pippy longstocking girl, & Matt. I wish I would have switched to my bff the 50mm to get a crisper shot, but it still managed to capture the memory. fuzziness and all.

Stupid Subway
Sometime while I was back there I passed the time in the Metro tunnel by taking random long exposure shots (hmmm, I think, actually, that it was on Thursday after Jill's third birthday celebration and a few rounds of yummy Japanese Mojitos...). I have named it "Stupid Subway" not because the actual subway is stupid, but more of a frustated venting. Take a look at the pic... notice anything? Where are the Dudes??!!?? stupid subway.

Tribute to my BFF

Ok everybody... who is my bff?

If you answered my 50mm, then you, dear random reader, are Fantastico. If you answered Panda then you get partial credit because you were very, very close ;)

I was sooooo happy to have my bff the 50mm with me because for once, I was able to get beautiful shots from the National Archives. I love this place & always try to check it out when the line is short (note: 10am ish is good & mid-week in the evening is cool too). In order to preserve the documents they don't allow people to use flashes, so the f1.8 on my bff the 50mm was priceless.

Here is a picture of the Rotunda...

One of the many cool architechtural details...

and a sample of the signatures on our nation's Constitution...

Tribute to Heroes

My trip to the National Archives was part of a big 'ol six mile trek that some poor soul from North Dakota had opted to embark on with me. I don't think he figured my "going for a walk" would be so extensive. But I was armed with my trusty Keens & camera... I could have kept walking. haha suck-errrrrr. Oh well. One of our destinations was the World War II Memorial, which is, I think, the newest of the memorials. It is another one of my favorite places in DC; partly because it honors our WWII vets, and also because of the beautiful water features. My weary colleague from North Dakota noticed the reflection of the Lincoln Memorial in one of the WWII Memorial fountains & I spent about 15 minutes trying to capture the unique vantage point. My gradiant neutral density Cokin filter definitely came in handy here, eh?

At the entrance to the WWII memorial, I was drawn to the American flag billowing in the wind. I took a few pictures, but liked the one posted below the best. Just for fun, I converted it to black & white, too. enjoy.

Kalorama

Fast forward to Friday.... my meeting concluded at noon, I spent a good hour on the phone saying "no you" and my dear friend Jessica drove down from Baltimore. Jess & I went on another six or so mile trek around DC. This time, I used my DC walking tour book to guide us. It was a pretty cool walk, it was basically a tour of Embassy Row.

This pic is just a random, empty building that caught my eye. I don't have a polarizer yet for my 18-135mm, but my cokin filter definetly did the trick! I LOVE the blue sky in this shot. I had also tried converting into my default black & white, but actually didn't really like it. Interesting, huh?

I think that this beautiful building is the for the Consulate from Burma? I thought that Burma is now Myanmar? Oh well, this is just a blog, not a guide book... what matters is that it is pretty ;)

And there you go, a little glimpse of my travels to DC. I hope you enjoyed looking at DC through my eyes; random, per usual :)