The National Mall Experience: A Photo Safari By Circulator Bus!

Washington DC’s National Mall is one of the great treasures of the nation’s capital, rich in photo opportunities for any camera or phone!

But it is very long – 2 miles – making it difficult to capture in one afternoon. So Paris-trained architectural photographer and Washington Photo Safari director E. David Luria is going to take you around on a DC Circulator Bus to all the best sites in comfortable air-conditioned splendor, while teaching you techniques of travel photography!

By using the bus, you spend less time walking and more time learning photography on a 2.5 hour photo tour that gives you the opportunity to capture all the best-known monuments in Washington DC, while getting photographic guidance that will make you a better photographer in all your future travels! The safari is timed to take advantage of the late afternoon sun that throws its light on all the west-facing structures.

We start our safari right on the National Mall by the Madison Drive entrance to the National Sculpture Garden with a 20-minute orientation on travel and people photography: how to use the camera to capture the best images when you travel, how to understand f stops and shutter speeds, choice of lens to use, how to pose people, how to shoot architecture. The Sculpture Garden is the perfect place to practice these techniques.

After a quick shot of the lovely National Gallery of Art’s West Building, we then climb on our Circulator Bus for a ride to the Jefferson Memorial and its views across the Tidal Basin and its direct line of sight view right into the White House as ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt when he commissioned the construction of the memorial that was completed in 1938.

Our next stop is the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Tidal Basin, with its dramatic sculpture honoring the fallen civil rights leader and its iconic view of the Jefferson Memorial across the basin.

We then ride in style to our final stop, the Lincoln Memorial, climbing the steps to get that iconic view down the Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument, the U.S. Capitol and shots of the Abraham Lincoln Statue itself.

At each location we get out and take pictures with Mr. Luria’s direction and guidance on best composition and camera use. There is a Circulator Bus coming about every 10 minutes, giving us plenty of flexibility at each location . Bring a non-photographer companion or child for only $5/person! They will enjoy the tour and they can be your models posing in front of the monuments.

“Safari” is a Swahili word meaning “journey.” You will come away from this “photographic journey” with some great images of DC’s most famous ikons and very useful tips on travel photography that you can use anyplace in the world! If you are only using $100 worth of the features of your $800 camera and you think it is smarter than you, then come join us on this safari!