We haven’t really seen any real “autumn” to speak of for a number of years, so it has been refreshing to re-experience those surprisingly brisk mornings, doing those runs where the cold air tears at your lungs a little, and the smell of wet leaves…
I keep telling myself to bring a camera to capture it while I can. I have been carrying around my Ricoh Kr-5 – a simple camera but one of my favorites. I think the battery for the light meter is starting to run down but by now I have a pretty good sense of which settings to use in most conditions.
I’m glad I don’t have to rake any of these leaves.
One day at lunch we took a walk around the Foreign Service Institute (FSI – where I’m currently studying French) to see what we could see – there is a surprising variety of different plants hidden away in the corners of the property.
Down the street the local church was doing a fundraiser – selling pumpkins – and they must have had more pumpkins than I’ve ever seen in one place out on their lawn. When I stopped to snap a picture they thought I was a journalist and asked which paper the photo would end up in.
I also carried it with me on a few trips into the capital. These are two shots of the National Museum of Art, from above ground and from below.
There is plenty to photograph in the city but sometimes it’s fun to snap some of the less obvious things.
As the temperatures continue to drop in the Washington / Arlington region, I hope to brave the cold a few more times and do some more street photography. The idea of crisp temperatures as autumn gives way to winter sounds great in theory, but in reality it can sometimes be hard to drag myself away from the heat. In just a few short months we will be back to the jungles of the southern hemisphere, so best to enjoy it while we can.
