Virginia Highlands Park Overlook

Author's Comments

I almost did not write about this one. It is a neighborhood park, the kind of place you would drive past without noticing, and the view is not dramatic in the way the Arlington overlooks further north are dramatic. But on a clear afternoon in late October, walking to the west end of the park, I stopped. The spires of Georgetown were lit up across the river, the DC skyline stretched out behind them, and the whole composition was framed by the branches of oaks that have been growing here longer than most of the buildings in the frame. It is a quiet photograph. That is what I like about it. You are not fighting crowds, you are not queueing for a tripod spot, you are just standing on a small rise in a residential neighborhood watching the light cross the Potomac and land on the far bank. Golden hour is when it works. The spires catch warm light about an hour before sunset and hold it for maybe twenty minutes, and during that window the layering is genuinely beautiful - oak branches in the foreground, the river you cannot quite see in the middle, the city glowing at the far edge. Spring works too, before the leaves fully fill in. Bare branches give a cleaner frame and the air is usually more transparent. Come on a weekend afternoon. Park on the street. Walk to the west end and wait.

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