Have several relatives in the DC area so am there at least once a year but this last trip was the first time I spent the time to take some nice photos.
Man, there are a LOT of things history books & school don't teach about Abraham Lincoln. Read the State of the Union Address from 1862 to get a glimpse of what he really wanted to do with "freed" slaves and why he "freed" them in the first place. That was just step one in killing the South's economy to help the North win the war.
DC is the only place I ever could tolerate outside of NY. Not sure what that says about me.... Need to hop on the Amtrak one of these days.
Good photography! For some reason the White House always looks better when it is not in a magazine or other media. How far away were you from the Washington Monument when you took that full shot?
Not that far since I had a very wide angle lens. I would say less than 100 feet outside the ringed perimeter.
Funny, I came to NYC because I couldn't stand DC. Cesspool of indolence, hive of time-servers, vacuum of initiative. It does make for nice pictures though.
Well I only spent a year there. And that was because I couldn't stand/afford to live near Bethesda. I ended up in a 100ish year old building near the Van Ness metro station. Nothing like walking by the armed guards stationed by the Kuwaiti embassy . FWIW, my (rather simplistic) assessment of the district came down to 1) H + H bagels being delivered on a regular basis to the local wine and deli(!) store and 2) (go figure) a lot of photography on the weekends.