Tidal Basin Cherry Blossoms

Author's Comments

The window is real and it is merciless. Four days, maybe seven if the weather holds, and then the petals come down in the first serious rain and it is over until next year. I have watched the forecast obsessively for a decade and I still get it wrong sometimes. The park service estimates peak bloom and they are doing their best, but a warm week in early March can accelerate everything by ten days, and then you are scrambling. What I know for certain is this: six in the morning on a weekday in late March, when the air is still cold enough that you can see your breath and the basin is glassy. That is when the photograph exists. The Jefferson Memorial reflected in still water, the blossoms overhead catching the first pale light, the pink so soft it almost reads as white. An hour later the joggers arrive. Two hours later it is gone for the day. Walk east from the MLK Memorial and keep walking. Most people cluster near the main path and shoot the same angle. The eastern stretch of the basin curves in a way that lets you compress the tree line against the memorial, the reflections running long and unbroken in the water below. A longer focal length helps. So does arriving before you think you need to. The detail photographs are their own reward. A single branch in bloom against a gray morning sky. Petals already fallen on the surface of the water, drifting. These are quieter images and they take pressure off the wide shot, which everyone is attempting and which only works perhaps twice a season under the right conditions. Come early. Come twice if you can manage it.

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