Hello!! My name is Osman Lopez, the current intern at RedEye Post. Upon learning about the opportunity to intern In Washington D.C for the summer, I decided that one of the items I could not leave home without was my beloved camera! I own a Nikon D7100, other than being a cropped sensor camera (Full-frame cameras are very Expensive!) I love every single aspect of it. I made it a challenge to myself to explore the city and document these little adventures through pictures.
As I embark on this self-imposed challenge of capturing DC through my lens. I want to push myself to be as creative as possible and develop my own style of taking pictures. Much like your personality, your style of photographs describes you as a photographer. I love taking pictures of architecture and candids of people, although they could give you a strange look if they see you taking random pictures of them.
This week I decided to go out at night with one of my roommates to specifically take night time picture, which is not by any means my forte. So, I packed my traveler’s tripod, my 18-55mm lens, and my 50mm lens. Gear packed and ready to go off we went.
Photography at Night
Our First stop was the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. When Taking pictures at night, I always find it useful to have a tripod with me. It allows me to get the symmetry that I want and more importantly the camera is in a fixed/steady place. Which allows to set the ISO low, that being sensitivity of the sensor, to avoid a grainy picture and slow down the shutter speed allow more light to come in.
This particular picture was all about symmetry. Cameras have a very useful grid; parallel horizontal and Vertical lines on the screen that help you align your subject along with the built-in camera level (and patience) I was able to achieve the symmetry in this picture.
Slow Shutter
After a few blocks we got to the National Archives. A really beautiful building which I wanted to capture and include the life around it. Again, camera on tripod. I slowed down the shutter to 3 seconds, this allowed me to capture the motion of the cars, the result are the moving lines on the street.
Majestic Buildings
When we finally made it to the front I could not leave without getting a picture of the columns. I attempted to make the building more imposing by getting a low angle on the tripod and tilting up my camera.
It was a short stroll, but it was full of places to be discovered. The architecture in D.C is so much different from back home that inspires to always have a camera in hand to not miss the next shot. Needless to say, I will continue to go in these night adventures to try to capture what captures my eye.
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