Despite the title of this post, you will see very few "perfect" photos of the famous cherry blossoms of DC. What you will see are a lot of very good photos and some bad photos to give pointers on how to maximize your photographic experience. In this post, I will tell you everything I learned over the past week.
First off, to get fantastic photos you need a few things. Most importantly the majority of the flowers have to be in bloom. Secondly, you need a good quality camera. If your cell phone has a good camera, that is perfectly acceptable. Third, in my experience, a bright blue sky makes for much better photos than a dark sky or even the soft light of dawn and dusk. Lastly, it helps if there isn't any wind, but of the four things this is the least important and really an added bonus.
Timing your trip-
Cherry blossoms can peak anytime between March 15 and April 15. However the most likely time is the last week of March/first week of April. The last two years the blossoms peaked on March 28. When figuring out when to take time off from work the week of March 27-April 1 seemed perfect. However, the blossoms peaked this year on March 21. The whole week leading up to my vacation was warm. Warm was bad because it hastens the blossoms demise. I'd read updates about seventy degree days and it made my stomach sick. We left Sunday night and drove until just outside of DC (sleeping at a rest area for a few hours before dawn) so not to waste a travel day. We arrived in DC about 7 am on Monday March 27.
By the 27th the peak was "over" luckily there are 1700 trees and they do not all peak at the same time. We found many in full bloom. Getting close up shots of blossoms was easy. However, even on the 27th, I could tell some of the trees were past peak. Some had stems devoid of flowers that were there a day or two before. Others had a tint of brown on flowers on the way out. However, all in all, I think I got lucky. Monday was still close enough to be in peak bloom that I knew I'd get my photos and enjoy the trees.
So, your guess is as good as mine. I still think the last week of March is the best time to plan a vacation despite the early bloom this year. Of course, making reservations last minute could guarantee peak bloom, but you still need to get lucky with the weather.
Camera-
I'm not going to lie, I got better photos with my Moto 9 phone than I did with my Canon t71. So if your phone takes good photos, you will be fine.
Sky and light
All photographers talk about the magic hour. They want the soft light before dawn or at sunset. I didn't get to the monuments for dawn but I was there at sunset and on cloudy days. I'll take the bright light shining down on the flowers with a blue sky. Below are various close ups
The majority of your cherry blossom photos are going to be around the Tidal Basin. You have the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial to get calendar quality photos of. To a lesser degree if you work the angles you can get photos of MLK Monument and parts of the FDR monument.
By far the easiest monument to get gorgeous photos of is Washington. From the Tidal Basin it sits to the NW. This means that the in the late morning through early afternoon the sun is behind you. It is not only shining on the monument but also the cherry trees in front of it. From the MLK Monument it is as simple as finding the angle you want and taking a photo. You can shoot Washington with flowers all around it or you can take photos of tourists taking photos with trees as a backdrop and the monument in the background. The opportunities are endless. One step forward or back and you may have an entirely better photo. Pray for a bluebird sky behind Washington.
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| I do not think this photo would have been as good if you took the person out of it |
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| The Cherry Trees near the Washington Monument did not seem to be blooming on Monday, but on Friday they seemed dead. This is from Wednesday |
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| People is a photo will give it life |
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The sky was pretty dramatic for this one |
I've seen cherry blossoms framing the Jefferson Memorial in calendars since I was a kid. It was the shot I wanted. Since I've seen that photo so many times, I assumed it would be easy to get. It was more of a challenge than I thought. Jefferson sits on the east of the basin, so unless you are looking for a sunrise shot behind it, it sits in junk light in the morning. When the sun is at the south you can get fairly close to Jefferson by FDR, the problem here is, while Jefferson is in good light, the trees here were kind of bare. I had to work to find suitable limbs to frame Jefferson. Also, you are surrounded by bigger trees and a hill behind you, so there isn't as much light on the trees. What you have is a silhouetting affect where Jefferson is bright and the flowers are dark. Obviously you can correct this to a point with flash or playing with your white balance.
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| Though the flowers are a little blurry (it was really windy) you can see they do not have the same "pop" as in other photos I think the trees on that side of the basin blossom first |
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| This is what I mean by Jefferson being in light but the flowers are dark and silhouetted |
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| Notice the empty spaces on the branches |
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| I lightened this one up so the pink would show through |
In the afternoon, you can get photos across the basin from MLK, the paddleboats or anywhere in-between. You should get some postcard quality shots, but you will have to work to find the angles you like. Again, if you are not there during peak bloom, some of the nicer "framing branches" were quite bare and not worthy of your time. My advice is to give yourself a couple of hours walking around the basin looking for shots of TJ that you like. Don't expect to walk up the the pathway, take a photo and expect it to be an Ansel Adams.
Bad Weather and Bad Timing
As I said, Monday the flowers were still close to peak bloom. I also had a nice blue sky to work with. I went back on Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday I did a couple other daytrips from DC. Wednesday I could tell there were less flowers on the trees and by Friday I could see brownish tinges on many trees. If you wanted close ups of fully bloomed flower clusters they were still relatively easy to find, but you did have to look for them.
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| We saw multiple brides and a few grooms getting photos |
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| These were the first trees we parked near on Monday morning. The sun was just coming up so there wasn't much light. It was a huge relief that the trees were still pretty |
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| There's only about two branches that you can get with Martin Luther King. But at the bottom of the hill is where I got all my best photos of the Washington Monument |
The deteriorating blossoms weren't a big deal for me because I had my day on Monday. However, April 2/3 is a big deal in DC. This is the peak of the Cherry Blossom Festival. Thousands of people will descend on the city for it. Even on Friday, we could tell there were way more tourists than the previous days.
To be honest, I felt bad for them. I've wanted to see Washington DC's Cherry Blossoms forever. If I would have went down there past peak, I'd have been sick. Like I said, I was watching the warm weather of last week with dread. I would have been crushed if I went down there "for nothing". So I sincerely mean it when I say, I truly felt bad for people that planned their vacation around this weekend.
So what to do...
Unfortunately turning back the clock is impossible and waiting another year is a long time, so it is best to make do with what you got. If you get there and the trees are all leafed out, I guess you mentally accept that DC is still really photogenic. For times like this weekend where the flowers are noticeably in decline there are a few things you can do. You should still find a few clusters that are in peak. Close ups of those are nice. Obviously the more past peak the harder they will be to find. Remember there are 1700 trees, they are all in different light and soil, they are not on the exact same schedule.
You can back up. Getting shots of the trees from a distance should mean the trees will look full for a few more days. Even if individual branches or flower clusters are wearing out, the trees could still make good photos. The hardest photos to get would be the ones framing the monuments. Finding bright colorful flowers would become harder each hour day by day.
If your sky is a nasty gray, try to get the close ups at eye level instead of shooting up. Your going to be stuck with a grey sky behind the monuments, but try to cut as much of the sky out as you can focusing lower on the trees and water.
Obviously, the longer you are there the better the chances for nice weather. Planning one day to see the trees is playing Russian Roulette.
Some other tips
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| Sometimes you need a little help to get the blossoms to the right height |
If there isn't any wind, you should find multiple places where the monuments and trees reflect into the water. I was not so lucky. It was windy all five days of my trip. It would sometimes lay down, but most of my photos were taken in twenty plus mile winds.
You can get a map of where the trees are. The Tidal Basin with the monuments in the background is the classic place. There are Cherry Trees all the way to Haines Point and by the Washington Monument. Go for walk or better yet bring your bike.
Understand where the sun will be in your photos
Expect crowds. Though I think I went before the crowds arrived, there were plenty of places where I had to wait for an angle between branches or near the water. I was okay with that.
Don't be afraid to put people in your photos. You probably can't avoid them in every picture anyway. I took a few photos near the Tidal Basin of brides and grooms doing their wedding photos.
Don't rush your photo. Make sure the horizon is flat or at least make sure Washington is perpendicular in your picture and Jefferson isn't crooked as opposed to the water and sky (see below). You can tilt your photos when you get home on even the most basic photoshop program, but do you want to do that too many times?
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| Could I have screwed up the leveling of this one anymore? |
To sum up- I think a vacation planned for March 25-April 1 would be ideal for hitting it prime even if peak is a few days before or after these dates.
I feel lucky to have gotten a lot of good photos based on the peak being a full seven days before I got there. However, as I stated in the first line of this post I didn't get the perfect photo. Would the pictures have came out just a tiny bit better if I got there three days earlier? I could have gotten more reflecting photos if the wind would have calmed down while I was there. Lastly I was on museum time for the most part. I got a couple hours in the morning to take pictures before the museums opened and a couple hours after they closed (or we were too burned out from reading) to get shots.
I got enough good/great photos to be satisfied that I can cross the Cherry Blossoms off of my bucket list. I know if I ever went back during peak, non windy, bluebird sky conditions my photos would only be slightly better than the best ones I got. However, seeing the trees in full bloom and walking through Washington DC in the spring is something I hope will not be a once in a lifetime experience.
LASTLY AND OBVIOUSLY THIS IS IMPORTANT- BACK UP OUR PHOTOS!!! It doesn't matter how you do it. Send them to the cloud. Email them to yourself. Put them on Facebook. Put them on your computer then transfer them to an external hard drive. Make prints. Whatever your way is JUST DO IT! You do not want to lose your photos when your phone crashes.
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| A shit ton of flowers and a ton of...well, you know |
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