Two weeks ago I made a day trip to DC to observe the beauty of the Japanese cherry blossoms.
Planning for the trip consisted mainly of checking the weather report, and a cursory look at the DC tourism website to get an idea of when the trees would be in bloom. They gave very detailed info about historical bloom dates, and when you might plan a visit to witness the event at it’s peak.
My girlfriend and I wanted to go the week before, but we had to cancel. Then a friend, who has been trying to see the blossoms for years, warned us that heavy rain may knock all the bu
Boy, did we luck out. Not only was it the height of bloom but the rain hadn’t pillaged the trees of their delicate flowers! Adding to this luck we found a great, free parking spot along the tidal basin, within walking distance to the main show.
On trips like these I like to have a camera that can produce beautiful images without the bulk of my slr, and it’s requisite gadget bag. At about 11 oz, nearly pocket size and RAW image recording my Canon G9 fills this job nicely. With it slung over my shoulder we were able to really enjoy the day while still allowing me to make images as I saw them.
Pre-visualizing on the drive down, I knew that I didn’t want to make clichés. Once we got to DC there were plenty of people doing just that. I must have counted 3 dozen slr toting tourists/photographers pointing their cameras at the same scenes as each other, and every post card/print for sale by all the vendors.
That’s fine. Everybody likes a beautiful memory of a day like this. And I am sure some of those photogs are going to make a bit of money on stock or print sales. I hope to sell some prints too, but I am not content to make my own recycled version of the same. I attempt to work outside the bounds of normal, or the expected. I also saw this as an opportunity to potentially add a new image to my Tree Portrait series.
I think I half succeeded. After returning home I googled cherry blossom images. Looking at the results, I realized it is nearly impossible to create something new when it has already been shot 1000’s of times. Here are a variety of images to showcase what my eyes observed. What do you think? Did I succeeded in departing from the pack?
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Emberger’s work will feature black & white framed photos from his series, "Portraits of Trees"... Ten percent of the proceeds will be donated to the
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