Although it looks like the sun is coming up over the horizon, it’s really just a bright spotlight and the fog and mist in the air helped create the cool glow. Setting the white balance to “shade” also helped create the sweet orange color.

This photograph reminded me of some other night photographs that I took when I first got my D700. The following were taken the same night as those of the Air Force Memorial, which I wrote about in August.

Corner section of the Lincoln Memorial

The Washington Monument, looking east from the Lincoln Memorial.

Despite my background in photojournalism and my tendency to distance myself emotionally from the events I’m covering, it was pretty hard not to feel the rush as Aretha Franklin sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”; or the joy as Yo Yo Ma played the cello in a quintet with Itzhak Perlman, (violin), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet); or the excitement when President Obama took the Oath of Office and gave his inauguration speech.

I hope the following images can convey even just some of the various highs of this historic event.

People stream into Washington D.C. along Memorial Drive for the 2009 Presidential Inauguration.

“Yes We Can” was a prominent theme of the Obama campaign.

Mother and daughter sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, waiting for the inauguration to begin.

Before the inauguration there was plenty of concern that the 5,000 porta-potties strategically placed around the National Mall would be insufficient for the expected crowds, but I saw many without any lines or wait. Perhaps closer to the Capitol this was an issue.

This flag is located between the Vietnam Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

These two young women were one of the few exceptions to the mostly unpainted crowds.

Scattered throughout the Mall were JumboTrons showing the inaugural proceedings. This crowd is gathered by one of the two screens located near the National WWII Memorial.

This woman reacts to Aretha Franklin’s rendition of Samuel F. Smith’s “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”.

This woman is overcome with tears following Aretha Franklin’s performance.

A young man draped in an American flag watches President Obama’s inauguration speech.

Two women cheer during President Obama’s inauguration speech.

This is only a small portion of the estimated 2 million people who attended the inauguration.

This crowd is gathered north of the Washington Monument. Beyond this point, the crowd became quite dense and nearly impenetrable.

Following the inauguration, many in the crowd started streaming west, heading towards the Lincoln Memorial and the roads leading into Virginia.

Before I took this image, perhaps 30-40 buses had already passed by.

Apparently nearly 43,000 security personnel were on hand for the inauguration, although it didn’t appear that heavy, at least west of the Lincoln Memorial. Here a police helicopter makes a flyby.

After the inauguration, the crowds stream across the Arlington Memorial Bridge into Virginia.

Back in my days as a scout, one summer my friend and I were at Camp Steiner in the Uintah Mountains working on our canoeing merit badge. One of the skills to learn was tipping a canoe over, righting it and then climbing in. In warm water with a functioning canoe, this is doable. The problem was, we had neither. Camp Steiner is known as the camp with the coldest lake in the Uintah’s and our canoe was missing the Styrofoam flotation from one end of the canoe. Subsequently, when we tipped the canoe over, one end immediate sank leaving the other end sticking out of the water looking suspiciously like a shark fin and there we were left floating in the middle of the lake. Unsure what to do, we floated until an instructor saw our predicament and told us to swim to shore.

Well, that’s a long story leading up to the point of this post, but one of the skills I wanted to help the scouts learn was photography. I arranged a class where we discussed the aspects of photography, camera equipment and then we scheduled a photo competition, photographing some of the national monuments in D.C.

The boys had a great time and I think they learned a lot. One aspect I tried to stress to them is to find a different or unique angle and use framing to vary what would otherwise be an ordinary image.

The following are images I took with a little Canon compact shooter and are my attempt at showing a different look. One of the advantages of a smaller cheaper camera over a larger, heaver and expensive digital SLR is that I would never hold my SLR a few centimeters above the Tidal Basin, like in this shot.

One of the many waterfalls at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. I balanced the camera on one of the rocks and set the shutter to delay for this longer exposure image.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial as seen from across the Tidal Basin. Once again a longer shutter speed, balancing the camera on the sidewalk.