Washington Monument in Washington, DC

Clouds create an interesting pattern behind the Washington Monument in Washington, DC.

At the end of July, Laura and I took a trip with our friend Karen to Winchester, Virginia. Our main goal was to see Karen’s daughter Katie in two shows. But we also visited Washington, DC, on two different days. Laura had never been there before, and I had last been there 35 years ago, so we were excited to see some of the sights, including museums and monuments.

The photo above was actually from our second day in DC, but I thought it would be a good representation of our entire visit. And although it looks nice out, it was actually quite hot. The temperatures at that time were in the upper 90s, so as you can imagine, we sweated a bit. But it was all good.

Alternate View

If you know me any at all, you probably know that I can’t let just one photo suffice. So here is another view of the Washington Monument, taken from the middle of the National Mall. While I liked the clouds in the first photo, I like these different clouds in this photo. Both photos were taken on the same day, if you are curious.

The Capitol

Looking the opposite direction down the National Mall from the previous photo, here is the Capitol Building. We never did get all that close to the Capitol, so I decided to just include this one photo here instead of having it in a separate post.

The Girls and the Monument

And here are Karen and Laura on the lawn near the Washington Monument. We did not try to go up in the Monument, instead choosing just to observe it from a distance. And then we moved along to continue our monument and memorial tour on that day. More of those monument and memorial photos to come!

History

I love history. I love reading about it, learning about it, seeing where it happened, seeing monuments to commemorate people or events. So I was glad that we had this opportunity to go and learn some things. We also learned a lot about the history of Winchester, Virginia, which has a lot of interesting stories behind it. More about that at another time, too.

While there are always opportunities for growth and change, I think it is important to know our history and where we have come from, both the good things and the bad things. We can learn a lot from what worked as well as from what did not work. While it does no good to live in the past and ignore the present and future, if you ignore the past then you will just repeat the mistakes of others.

Know your history, and know why things are the way the are. It just might be important.

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. - Romans 15:4

About the Photos

The second Washington Monument photo was going to be the main photo of this post, but I was not quite satisfied with it. So then I found the first photo, and I liked it better. But I liked the other photo enough to include both of them here. Because often just one photo is not enough.

I use a few different looks on these photos. But then I went back and added some soft glow Orton effect on all them, too. I like the variety in these photos.

The Capitol looks a bit hazy in its photo. Because of the heat and humidity, there was a good bit of haze in the air on both days of our visit. I corrected what I could, but that was how it looked in real life from a distance.

Also, on this trip, I used the 28-70mm zoom lens instead of the 35mm prime lens that I used on the Hawaiʻi Trip. While I still prefer the look of the prime lens, I felt that I would have several opportunities on this trip when I wanted to zoom in on things. I was not wrong.

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Raw Therapee and GIMP.
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS lens
Date: July 27, 2023
Location: Washington, DC