Each spring, thousands of cherry trees bloom around the Tidal Basin, Washington Monument grounds, and nearby areas of the National Mall. The pale pink and white blossoms provide opportunities to practice everything from close-up nature photography to wider compositions incorporating some of Washington’s most recognizable landmarks.
Your Digital Photo Academy instructor can show you how to use a wider aperture and shallow depth of field to isolate individual blossoms against a softer background. Look for clusters of flowers, branches, color contrasts, and backlighting as the morning sun passes through the petals. Changing your camera position by even a few feet can help simplify a busy background and create a stronger composition.
For wider views, use branches and blossoms as natural frames around the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, and other landmarks surrounding the Tidal Basin. The curved shoreline and walking paths can create leading lines, while reflections in the water provide opportunities to experiment with symmetry and foreground interest.
The area is also an excellent place to practice photographing people within a landscape. Visitors walking beneath the flowering trees can provide scale, movement, and a sense of place. Your instructor can demonstrate how shutter speed, depth of field, and careful timing can help separate a subject from the crowds at this popular spring destination.
Peak bloom varies from year to year depending on temperature and weather conditions, but the cherry trees typically reach their peak between late March and early April. Even outside the exact peak-bloom date, different trees and varieties can provide spring color and photographic opportunities throughout the National Cherry Blossom Festival season.
Meeting Spot
Meet your Digital Photo Academy instructor in front of the stage at the Sylvan Theater, located on the south side of the Washington Monument grounds near 15th Street and Independence Avenue SW.
Sylvan Theater
Washington Monument Grounds
Washington, DC 20024
Public transportation is strongly recommended, particularly during cherry blossom season, when parking and roads around the National Mall can become extremely crowded.
Know Before You Go:
Please bring your DSLR or another type of digital camera that you use, a fully-charged battery, and the equipment that you can carry. You should dress for the weather and wear comfortable shoes.
Each Composition in the Field class begins with a talk with one of our experienced instructors, and then you and your fellow students take a stroll through one of a variety of photogenic locales (in any of the 20+ cities the DPA encapsulates). There is street photography, magnificent interiors, farmers markets, zoos, landscapes, and more, photos of which are included within. These photos are a mix of student and instructor images in many different venues and cities across the United States and Canada.
You will have fun, learn to shoot strategically, get more interesting photos of the event, and walk away with a foundation to improve your photographs in the future, whether you’re traveling, or at a birthday party and everywhere in between.
Please note: If a class must be cancelled due to weather or other circumstances beyond our control we will be happy to work with you to reschedule. If you should need to cancel and require a new class date, contact us. A $25 transfer fee will be imposed without a 3 day notice before the scheduled class.
