WWII Memorial

Author's Comments

The symmetry here is almost too perfect. Fifty-six pillars arranged in a strict oval, the Rainbow Pool at the center, and the Washington Monument framed at the far end like the architect could not help themselves. I have walked past this memorial a hundred times without stopping, and then one April morning I arrived before sunrise and had to reconsider everything I thought I knew about it. The photograph that lives here is a reflection shot, and the pool earns it. Blue hour is the hour. Not golden hour, not midday. Blue hour, when the sky is the color of deep water and the granite pillars catch just enough ambient light to hold their shape. The Monument rises out of the reflection like something dreamed. The symmetry that feels almost clinical in full daylight becomes something stranger and more compelling when the light is like that, at five-thirty in the morning in early May, with no one else present. The crowds come fast. By eight the memorial is busy, by ten it is crowded, and the pool gets busy light and busy edges. Come early or don't come at all, if the image is what you're after. Position yourself at the south end of the pool, low, nearly at water level. The reflection only resolves cleanly when the surface is still, which requires still air. Fall mornings tend to be calmer than spring. But spring has better light and the cherry trees at the periphery add something to the wide frame. The memorial asks you to be patient with its formality. Work inside that formality and it gives you something real.

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