09.29.24: Monument base

I have hundreds of photos of the Washington Monument from my many trips to Washington, D.C., over the years.

It’s an easy site to photograph because, as the tallest structure in Washington, D.C., the Washington Monument can be seen behind a number of other recognizable scenes in the nation’s capital. And its location, directly south of the White House and near the center of the National Mall that runs east-west from the U.S. Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial, puts the Washington Monument in the middle of everything.

But nearly all of my photos of the Washington Monument show the entirety of the almost 555-foot structure.  I consider those to be among my “travel shots” — photos from different cities showing sites that say “This is ________ (place name of city here).” The Washington Monument is one of those location-identity sites, as are  Grand Central Station, Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building (New York City), Big Ben (London), the Eiffel Tower (Paris), the CN Tower (Toronto), the “Painted Ladies” Victorian houses (San Francisco) or the Gateway Arch (St. Louis). If you visit a city, you have to get the identity shot. That’s Rule Number 1 for travel photography.

This photo of the Washington Monument is a bit different. First, it isn’t immediately recognizable as the Washington Monument. It could just show walkers and flags in front of a big white wall. And this isn’t a photo I expected to get during the visit. I was actually walking to the monument to check for possible photos looking toward the U.S. Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial or the White House. But as I moved up the hill toward the base of the monument I saw people walking by and liked the composition, so I stopped, framed a shot showing two flag poles against a white marble background, then waited for a couple of walkers to enter the scene.

I liked the simple composition, with small areas of color against the off white background.

By the way, the white marble behind the walkers is from Baltimore County, Md., the marble selected when construction began in 1848. Funding problems and the Civil War halted construction from 1854 to 1877. When construction resumed, a marble from Massachusetts was used for a short time before builders switched to another marble from Maryland to complete the stone structure of the monument in 1884. The changes in marble sources are obvious when viewing the entire Washington Monument. The shading changes about 150 feet up, which is where construction was halted. There’s a narrow zone where Massachusetts marble was used, then shading changes again when builders began using marble from a second Maryland source.

Visitors walk beside the base of the Washington Monument, Washington, DC.