Army Navy Country Club in Bloom–Golf Course Landscape Photography

These photos are dated by a month or so, but I thought to share them although the blooming trees have since taken on their summer foilage.  Over the last couple of years, I have been photographing the golf course at the Arlington campus of Army Navy Country Club with the intention of highlighting the beauty of the course during different seasons.

In addition to the blooming trees featured in these photographs, a key element for me is the sky.  In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of good landscape photography is an interesting sky.  A completely overcast sky with no texture is uninteresting.  Clear blue skies with no clouds are only slightly more interesting.  A sky featuring a variety of cloud formations always adds more interest.

And when you don’t have an interesting sky, just eliminate it from the composition.

Now that summer has suddenly arrived in Washington DC with temps in the mid 90s and our legendary humidity, I am forced to be a bit more selective in choosing which days to golf.  But I will not be deterred!

Have fun, and go make some great photography.

Craig

Christmas in Washington DC–Army Navy Country Club

Ok, I will admit to a bit of false advertising.  Army Navy County Club is not in DC.  And other than my Christmas wish list being 50% golf gear and the other 50% camera gear, golf has little to do with Christmas.  On the other hand, I know some of you are visiting this series of entries to see some of the cheerful snow we have on the ground…so we will roll with the license I took with the title.

 

Living in Washington DC, my opportunities for photographing in the snow are not as regular as those of you living in the great white North like my friends in Canada or friends and family in Michigan.  Photographing a scene dominated by snow is not easy.  Lets face it, it is a lot of white, and getting the exposure right so there is some definition in the snow while not turning all else into silhouettes is challenging.

 

The photographs featured here demonstrate one way of dealing with the naturally high contrast exposures that are common when shooting snow scenes; HDR.  I had not planned on shooting HDR when I took these shots and therefore did not have my tripod with me.  While Photomatix Pro does a reasonably good job of aligning handheld shots, it is not perfect.  The result is a little softness and edge halos.  Fortunately, with the size of the photographs in the blog, you are not likely to see these flaws.

 

As you might imagine, for me the snow is both a blessing and a curse.  From a photographic perspective, I am having a great time – seeing all the ordinary things I see daily in an entirely different way.  On the other hand, as I look at the forecast I don’t see any golf in my foreseeable future.

 

Finally, just in case the course superintendent at ANCC reads this, none of the prints or tracks on the greens were my doing.  Honestly.

Have fun, and go make some great photography.

Craig