After an extended period away from teaching due to the birth of our first child, I resumed photography workshops in Washington DC this past Sunday. I conducted the workshop at the Netherlands Carillion in Arlington, where in the spring time there is a grand showing of tulips facing the Washington DC Skyline, including the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and U.S. Capitol.

The tulips had just begun to wilt, so we searched around to find a composition that highlighted the best of the bunch. I got low into the ground to eliminate the distracting midground and used a depth of field blend to blur out some of the wilted tulips in the foreground, while maintaining their color through a bokeh effect.

On this night, we also had the opportunity to view the full moon as it rose over the eastern horizon. It was too far south to include in contrast to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and U.S. Capitol, so I tried to get a little creative. I repositioned the camera to include only the fullest tulips and used a zoom to fill the top of the frame with the full moon. Since using a zoom exacerbates the depth of field, I used a depth of field blend: one focusing on the foreground tulips and one on the background moon, while leaving the uninteresting midground as a blur.

Thanks for looking! Hope you can get outside to enjoy this month’s wonderful weather.