Washington Monument & Jefferson Memorial Sunrise II

The Washington Monument is among the most well-known landmarks of Washington, D.C. The massive obelisk dedicated to the first president of the United States stands over 500 feet tall. Construction began in 1848 and didn’t finish for nearly 40 years due to lack of funding and the American Civil War. Made of marble, granite and bluestone gneiss; one can see the different shades in color of the stone between the bottom and top sections of the monument as the quarry stone couldn’t be matched after a two-decade long gap in construction. Fifty flags surround the base of the structure, symbolizing the fifty states of the Union.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial on the National Mall is located at the southern end of the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. This memorial is dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, an integral American Founding Father, one of the main writers of the Declaration of Independence, member of the Continental Congress and third president of the United States. The neoclassical architecture commonplace in Washington, D.C. is evident in this memorial with its circular marble steps, ionic order columns and shallow dome. It is open to the elements and managed by the National Mall and Memorial Parks division of the National Park Service.

I shot this panoramic stitch at sunrise during the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms in March 2023. This was taken near the Tidal Basin Bridge (Ohio Drive Bridge) and provides sweeping views of the Tidal Basin, lined with flowering cherry trees. There is a short section along the Tidal Basin where one can see all the way to the United States Capitol Building and the Statue of Freedom, atop the Capitol Dome. Normally these trees could be mistaken for the myriad deciduous trees with their beautiful green canopy, but in the early spring these aged cherry trees burst with new life. During the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., their canopy and flowering blossoms happily hang over the edge, engulfing one in a flowering tunnel as they walk around the Tidal Basin. Washington, D.C. is filled with many unique sites and monuments which make up the cohesive whole; one of those iconic sites being the Cherry Blossoms in D.C. on the National Mall. This is the place to go to visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and enjoy views of the Washington Monument, White House, and government buildings, such as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing as seen in this photo.

This ultra-high resolution photo of the Washington, D.C. skyline allows for making extremely large fine art prints and produces a hyper-realistic look unlike that of traditional fine art photography. At well over a gigapixel, it provides the viewer unrestricted access to the most intricate details of the scene. This fine art photo of the Cherry Blossoms in DC can be printed almost twenty feet long with no loss of detail.