Washington Monument

Author's Comments

The monument does not need your help. It stands 555 feet of white Maryland marble and it will be there when you arrive and after you leave, and every photograph of it risks being redundant before you press the shutter. That is the challenge and also the reason I keep coming back. The reflection is the thing. Constitution Gardens pond, west side, in the last twenty minutes before the sun drops below the tree line in late October. The water goes still in the early evening in a way it rarely does at midday, and the obelisk doubles itself perfectly, the marble going from white to pale gold to something almost amber. I have stood there in November with cold coming off the water and made the photograph I had been trying to make for two years. The secret is not the monument itself. It is that the reflection is more interesting than the object. Softer. More contingent. The view from the Capitol steps at dusk is worth the walk. The monument anchors the west end of the Mall and the sky behind it opens up enormously. A long lens compresses the distance and makes the scale feel correct. A wide lens makes you feel the length of the Mall itself. Both are true. Both are worth trying. Come in winter. The leafless trees along the Mall stop competing with the sky, and the light on stone in February is clear in a way that summer never manages.

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