Finishing What I Started

As I said yesterday, the battery died in my camera the other night and I wasn’t able to finish taking the photos at Mt. Vernon Place. I went back last night and finished what I started. I’ll publish three today and three more tomorrow.

The snow helped. There is nothing like the combination of snow, lights and a historic setting to really magnify that holiday feel. Also, snow makes a great tripod. I need a tripod.

I realized yesterday why I have such reservations about taking photos of the monument. Yes, it is overshot and A. Aubrey Bodine already closed the book on the subject; but there is another reason, lens envy. Every time I walk past the monument, someone is already there taking pictures with an insanely expensive camera with a huge zoom lens mounted on the front. I’m a little too embarrassed to pull out my dinky little camera.

I was feeling pretty stupid about what this said about me in that penis envy sort of way, until I realized how strange it was that at any given time, there are three or four guys (and they’re always guys) taking pictures of the Washington Monument with ridiculously well hung cameras. I can go months in this city and not see one person taking pictures, but it is always a good bet that there are some dudes snapping the great big shaft poking up out of the center of the city.

The fact that these guys are more screwed up than me instantly made me feel better about myself.