The blooming of Washington DC’s Cherry Blossoms each spring is a major tourist attraction and is the occasion of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. But it only lasts a relatively brief time and the precise dates of peak bloom shifts according to the weather.

I have another page with a lot more information on Washington DC’s Cherry Blossoms in 2012, but here are some shots of how the trees looked on February 26, 2012. As you can see, the trees still look bare, and it’s only when you get up close that you can see the tiny buds starting to form.

Oddly enough, the side of an active volcano turns out not to be the safest place to live. The last major eruption of Pacaya Volcano, not far from Guatemala City and Antigua, caused considerable damage to nearby villages and reshaped the summit. It scattered volcanic ash over much of the nearby area, prompting school closings and emergency evacuations and cleared much of the vegetation near the top of the mountain. That May 2010 eruption, though, didn’t convince some of the local hardy souls to move away.

Only about an hour outside Antigua, and not much farther from Guatemala City, Pacaya Volcano is a popular hike for tourists. There are quite a few active volcanos in this neck of the woods; you can see two others from Antigua. Along with Pacaya, they’re all part of what’s known as the Central American Volcanic Arc.

The top of the mountain is constantly changing, with each episode of volcanic activity changing the shape and nature of the summit. There’s currently no classic crater to peer into, and the nearest you can get to the top is still a few hundred meters below the peak. The gravelly volcanic rock that covers everything up there is warm to the touch, and steam still steeps out steadily. When I went there was no flowing lava around, but it’s an active volcano and things can change quickly.

What to Know Before You Go

It’s a strenuous hike on uneven and steep trails. Wear good, closed walking shoes with good tread. Sandals or flip-flops will be no good–the fine volcanic gravel and sand will rub and the volcanic rock can be very sharp. The weather at the summit can be quite different than further down the mountain, so be prepared for clouds or rain to roll in very suddenly and for it to be significantly cooler. A flashlight is a good idea, just in case. A walking stick will help–you can rent them from the kids at the trail head for about 5 quetzals. Take water with you–there’s none available at the summit. Early morning is usually considered the best time to go.

Map

The 5.8 earthquake on August 23, 2011, the most violent recorded quite to hit the area, damaged some of Washington’s landmarks. Most notably, it damaged the Washington Monument, closing it indefinitely, but the quake also damaged parts of Union Station. Small sections of plaster broke loose from the intricate arched ceilings of the Main Hall and the Concourse.

There’s dense scaffolding parts of the 220 foot-long Main Hall and in much of the Concourse area. A protective net hangs over the entire Main Hall area. The plan is to do about 20 percent of the ceiling at a time. Once each section is completed, the scaffolding will be moved along to the next bit.

The Main Hall repairs are expected to take eight to ten months and be completed in late-summer or early-fall 2012.

This is how it looked at the end of February 2012.

Washington’s weather is best known for being hot and humid in summer, but the region also gets a good dose of each of the other three seasons. But a decent winter snowfall creates havoc for the area’s legions of commuters and it forces many schools to close, but it also transforms the National Mall, its monuments, and other Washington landmarks like the White House into a winter wonderland.

World War I Memorial.

Statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park across from the White House.

Constitution Gardens.	The Washington Monument.
Lafayette Park.	15th Street NW.

Lincoln Memorial.

Korean War Veterans Memorial.

The Washington Monument.

The Washington Monument from Lafayette Park.

The White House.

Arlington National Cemetery.

Map

Every year in early spring, the 1,678 Japanese Cherry Blossoms ringing Washington’s Tidal Basin and surrounding area near the Jefferson Memorial and FDR Memorial burst into bloom with their white and pink flowers. The annual event provides the occasion for Washington DC’s two-week National Cherry Blossom Festival, which brings bus loads of tourists into town (and about $150 million in tourist dollars) and makes for a spectacular kickoff to Washington’s tourist season. ¹

The whole phenomenon really is quite beautiful, although with the peak blooming only lasting a few days and varying slightly each year depending on the local weather conditions, timing is everything. The color of the blossoms changes from pink, when young, to puffy white, when mature. So if you prefer pink blooms, come at the beginning. If you prefer white blooms, come towards the end. And if you can’t stand crowds, good luck! The actual blooming only lasts a matter of days, but other events are planned around the city as part of the festival, including a Cherry Blossom Parade and fireworks.

And for something new this year, we’ll have the newly unveiled Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in the thick of the floral action.

When Will Washington DC’s Cherry Blossoms Reach Peak Bloom in 2012?

Late each winter, the experts at the National Parks Service issue their forecast for when the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin will be at peak bloom. They’ll be issuing the preliminary forecast on March 1. As soon as they issue their prediction, I’ll post it here–you can sign up here to receive my email updates or like my Facebook page. And I’ve posted some photos from of how the Cherry Blossoms look as of late-February 2012 on my Cherry Blossom Watch 2012 page.

It’s not unusual for the dates to be tweaked as the date approaches; it’s not until about 10 days out that the experts feel truly confident in their prediction. Peak bloom is defined at the point that 70 percent of the blossoms are open. For 4-6 days before that, you can still expect to see a lot of puffy white blossoms, and for several days after, you’ll still be greeted with floral fireworks. Within a week or two of peak bloom, though, the trees will have shed their blossoms and be a fresh green color as the leaves come through.

The date of the peak bloom changes every year depending on weather conditions. Warmer, sunnier conditions tend to bring an earlier bloom. The average peak bloom is April 4, but in the past few years, the peak bloom has come a few days earlier than average. Unseasonably warm and sunny conditions in 1990 helped bring an early peak on March 15 and very cold conditions in 1958 delayed the peak bloom until April 18. Typically, the last week of March through the first few days of April is a good period to aim for if you’re looking to catching the blooms. In case you’re looking to make travel arrangements, here are the official peak bloom dates for the past six years:

2011: 29 March
2010: 31 March
2009: 1 April
2008: 26 March
2007: 1 April
2006: 31 March

So far this winter in Washington DC has been unseasonably warm with snowfall well below average. January 2012 was the 17th warmest on record (ie. since 1871). January 2012′s average temperature of 40.8 degrees compares with 1990′s 43.6 and  2007′s 40.7 and 2006′s 43.1. If this warmer pattern continues–and the National Weather Service thinks it might, at least through February–it hints at an earlier-than-usual peak bloom. But January temperatures by themselves aren’t necessarily a reliable indicator.  The related factor of the amount of sunlight is also crucial. For example, the difference in average temperature between January 1990 and January 2006 was only 0.6 degrees and yet the peak bloom came came on March 16 in 1990 and March 31 in 2006.

That said, there are daffodils blooming already in the area, several weeks ahead of the usual schedule. March is also shaping up to be warmer than usual. But it’s still entirely possible that we might yet get a cold spell. So, for the moment, the precise peak bloom date is anyone’s guess.

2012 National Cherry Blossom Festival

The 2012 Cherry Blossom Festival will be an extra-long affair, lasting from March 20 to April 27, 2012, to mark the centennial of the 1912 gift of the 3,000 cherry blossom trees from Tokyo to Washington. (Technically, that was the second gift of trees. The trees from the first gift, in 1910, succumbed to insects and disease and were destroyed).

Organizers have big things in the works, and the festival will be chaired by First Lady Michelle Obama. Aside from the blossoms themselves, here are some highlights of the planned events for the 2012 festival:

The opening ceremony will be held during the late-afternoon of March 25. The Blossom Kite Festival will be held next to the Washington Monument on March 31. Fireworks will be held on the evening of April 7 at the Southwest Waterfront (Haines Point is a great place to see them from). The National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade will be held from 10AM to noon on April 14.

Photos & Prints of Washington DC’s Cherry Blossoms

You can check out more photos and buy high quality prints of Washington DC’s Cherry Blossoms here. The shots below are from the 2011 and 2010 blooms.

The Washington Monument is reflected on the glassy water of the Tidal Basin, with some of the 1,678 Cherry Blossom trees turning much of the shoreline white.	The Jefferson Memorial and some of the cherry blossoms.
Washington's weather in the early spring can be a mix of cool, clear days, and cool, rainy days. Average daily highs in late-March and early-April are in the low 60s. Average precipitation for the area is fairly constant throughout the year.	The cherry blossoms become a favorite backdrop for family and engagement photos.

Some of the 1,678 Cherry Blossom trees blooming in early spring around the Tidal Basin next to Washington. Your best bet at getting the still, glassy water like in this shot, head over early in the morning. At that time, if the sun's out, you'll get the sun directly on the trees, like this.

In the background of this shot, on the opposite side of the Tidal Basin, is the Jefferson Memorial.

More Photos of the Cherry Blossoms

Check out more photos of Washington DC’s Cherry Blossoms.

Map

I’ve always mostly avoided using Lightroom’s recovery tool. The concept is promising–it helps recover details in image highlights–but I’ve usually been disappointed with the side effects. What I’ve found particularly frustrating is the pink color shift that it’s always seemed to add, something that discolors whites and makes blue skies more purple. It’s a bit like adding a red shirt with the washing. And while it’s possible to correct with something like Nik’s Viveza, that’s not exactly an elegant solution–it adds more steps and more hassle and is hard to get consistent results. And so I’ve generally avoided using the recovery tool altogether, or, if I really have to use it, using it with a very light touch.

Until now, that is. The most recent versions of Lightroom have a much improved recovery tool. The color shift side effects are now pretty much gone, making it a much more useful tool. And it means that the advice to ‘expose to the right right’ by slightly overexposing the image in order to take advantage of the mathematics of digital capture makes much more sense (in short, there’s more image data in the lighter end of the spectrum (or right on the histogram) than in the darker end (or left), so if you expose for that you can maximize the signal to noise ratio; here’s a more detailed discussion).

Below are some real-world examples comparing Lightroom 2.5 with Lightroom 3.6. Both are using the same original RAW file (in this case, a Nikon NEF). Both are using exactly the same develop and export settings. For each set, the only change is in the recovery tool–all the other settings remain the same.

You can see that in the Lightroom 2.5 versions, there’s a definite color shift that’s very noticeable in the sky changing color. In the Lightroom 3.6 versions, the highlight recovery is much more neutral (and much more usable). I’ve also included the histograms at each setting so you can see what effect the recovery tool is having on that at those settings. And while I generally would never push it to 100 in actual use, even at that extreme the results are very usable. And it’s also a promising sign for Lightroom 4, which will have develop tools that are better yet.

The Recovery Tool in Lightroom 3.6

Recovery 0	Recovery 30	Recovery 100

The Recovery Tool in Lightroom 2.5

Recovery 0	Recovery 30	Recovery 100

A Partial Workaround for Earlier Versions of Lightroom

If upgrading isn’t on the cards for you right now, there are some things you can try to reduce the effect. Your best bet is to try to reduce the exposure first (drag the exposure marker to the left), then use the shadows and brightness sliders to bring back some detail in the shadows. The risk with that, though, is that you can easily introduce noise in the shadows.

The Reynolds Center, in the heart of downtown Washington DC, combines two museums in one: it houses both the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. It has paintings, sculptures, photos, and drawings ranging from classical oil paintings to folk art to modern art.

The building has undergone major renovations in recent years. In addition to sprucing up the gallery spaces, it included a major overhaul of the distinctive enclosed courtyard in the center of the building that provides a tranquil escape from the bustling streets outside. With its ribbed roof of glass covering what was once the exterior of the buildings, it’s reminiscent of the British Museum in London.

Photographer Friendliness Rating

Cameras are allowed, but many of the galleries have “no photos” signs.

Photographers are likely to find the various photo galleries of interest. The Portrait Gallery often has a mutli-room photography exhibit on the ground floor near the entrance.

Photos

Getting Here

The Reynolds Center is set back from the National Mall in the heart of downtown Washington DC. There’s some street parking nearby, but this is a busy part of town and finding a free park can be hard.

The Gallery is an easy walk from the National Mall, but the most convenient way to get there is by metro. The Gallery Place/Chinatown stop (Red, Yellow, and Green lines) is on the next block. Metro Center (Red, Orange, and Blue lines) and Archives/Navy Memorial (Orange, Blue, Yellow, and Green lines) stops are also nearby.

Map

Official Website

Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture

Facebook’s user interface is not what you’d call a web designer’s dream. Flying in the face of the trend towards customization, it has remained perversely and stubbornly enamored of its simple, lowest-common-denominator aesthetic. The layout is frustratingly rigid and idiosyncratic, and users are given very little control over the look and feel of their profiles or pages. One can’t help wonder whether it’s a reaction against the garish abominations that ensued when MySpace gave users control over the design of their pages, and if so they have a point. All that said, the new Timeline view looks better, although there’s much else about it that’s sparking user complaints.

But Facebook can be a great way to share photos with people you know, especially if you want them actually seen. And Facebook itself is evidently increasingly seeing the value of photos as content, especially when people tag people and places. In recent years, it has become the largest online photo storage site by far, and is now much bigger than the previous kings of the roost, Flickr and Photobucket. The new player on the scene, Google+, is arguably even better for displaying and sharing photos, but it still doesn’t have anywhere near the volume or reach of Facebook.

And it’s getting more photo- and graphics-friendly, if ever so slowly. There are a few different ways of using images and photos on Facebook. Some are for design and identity on the user interface, such as the profile picture and link thumbnails to display on your profile or page and wall. It’s also a great place to share photos. (But be sure to read the terms of service before diving in–see below.) And now that Timeline is getting activated for all users in their personal profile (but not yet for product or business pages), there’s a new set of variations. To make best use of the graphic elements you can control it’s very helpful to know what dimensions constraints you have to work within. I’ve found Facebook’s own help pages are frustratingly fragmented and sometimes obtuse. So I thought I’d try to put all the image and graphics dimensions specs together. These are a bit of a moving target—Facebook changes things from time to time, typically with little notice—but I’ll try to keep these up to date.

Timeline Photos

There are two main images you can control on the new Timeline view, the Cover Photo and the Profile Image.

Cover Photo

Facebook calls the large, panoramic image space at the top of the timeline is called the Cover Photo. In the example at the top of this page, it’s my shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge at dusk.

The final display image comes out at 850 pixels wide by 314 pixels high. Facebook’s help pages recommend that you use an image that is at least 720 pixels wide.You can upload an image already cropped and resized to precisely those sizes (here’s how if you’re using Lightroom). Or you can upload a larger image, in which case you’ll be given a chance to move the image to display the part you want–basically forced cropping.

You can only designate one photo as your Cover Photo. It’s idea for panoramas, but there’s nothing stopping you from assembling a montage in your imaging software, saving it as a single image file, and uploading that. Here’s a very basic example (I’ll add separate instructions for how to do this soon).

When you first convert your profile to the Timeline, you won’t have a cover photo. To add one, just click on the Add Covert Photo button at the top of the page where the Cover Photo will go. You’ll then get this warning popup:

Once you’ve added your photo, you can change it easily. When you’re logged in to your account and on the Timeline view, if you hover the mouse over the Cover Photo you should get a “Change Cover” button at the bottom right of the Cover Photo. Click on that and you’ll get the menu item to choose where photo comes from. You can choose from existing photos you’ve uploaded to Facebook or upload a new one. And if you decide you want to reposition or remove the photo, you can use the same menu. It looks a little something like this:

Something to be aware of is that Facebook compresses uploaded Cover Photos pretty aggressively when you upload them. It makes sense–naturally, they want to speed page loads and reduce bandwidth by applying as much compression as they can get away with. To my mind, they compress too much, but how noticeable it is will depend on whether things like the range of colors in your image and amount of detail in your photo. In the examples above, the JPEG compression is far more noticeable in the montage version than in the Sydney Harbour Bridge version. I set the quality and sharpening settings the same for each in the originals before they were uploaded.

Profile Image

The Profile Image is now the smaller, square at bottom left. In the examples above, it’s my shadow. It’s final display dimensions are 125 pixels by 125 pixels. The white border is added automatically.

Old-Style Profile Page

This section is if you’re using a Product or Business Page–the new Timeline view isn’t yet available for those–or if you haven’t yet switched (or been automatically switched) to the Timeline view that will soon become the default for all users. Maximum Image Dimensions: 180 pixels wide by 540 pixels high The largest single graphical element on the page is set aside for your profile picture. You can choose not to use the whole space, and if you use an image with landscape or panoramic aspect ratio your longest edge will be the 180 pixels across. There’s a 4MB limit on the size of the image you can upload. If you’d like to include text or other graphical elements on your profile picture you’ll have to prep those in the image editor of your choice before uploading–there are no editing or text overlay options built into Facebook’s graphics handling. And there’s no reason you have to use a photo. Other kinds of static graphics or artwork will work just as well so long as it can be uploaded as a jpg or png file.

Link Thumbnails

Maximum Image Dimensions: 90 pixels by 90 pixels These are the small icons you can choose when adding a link to your wall. If you’re posting the link through Facebook itself and the linked page includes photos, you’ll be given options taken from the graphics or photos on the linked page. Use the arrows to choose a thumbnail or check the box for no thumbnail. Through Facebook itself, you can’t upload your own image to use, but you can if you use Post It At(Post It At only works for pages, not for personal profiles).

Photos

Maximum Image Dimensions: 2048 px X 2048 px Facebook recently increased the size of the photos significantly. It also added a javascript Lightbox viewer, a simple but stylish way to display images and associated comments. The folks over at PetaPixel have put together a nifty graphicto visualize the changes in Facebook image sizes. When you upload a photo through Facebook’s inbuilt image uploader you get the option to control to some extent who can see the photo. You can customize by location and language, but there’s no simple way to control if you only want to share the photo with Aunt Gertrude and no-one else. And there’s no way to switch off the download link–if people can see your photos, they can download the original version you uploaded–you can’t specify things like allowing only low-res downloads. And if you really want to control who can see the photos you’re going to have to wade into the convoluted and often counter intuitive way Facebook deals with privacy settings on your account.

How to Change Your Profile Picture Thumbnail

Your profile picture thumbnail is the small, square image that’s used around the site next to your comments or other site activity. It’s taken from your profile image–you can’t have separate images for your profile image and your profile thumbnail.

You don’t have a whole lot of control over the way the thumbnail displays, but you do have a little bit.

First, make sure you’re signed in to Facebook and looking at your own wall. Then hover the cursor over your profile image at top left and you’ll see a “Change  Picture” button appear at top right of the image. You can also use the “Profile Picture” item from the menu below the image.

When you click on that you’ll get a screen with your image at left and options to add a new image at right. But under your existing image, there’s a tiny “Edit Thumbnail” link. When you click on that, you get a popup that looks like this: 

If you put the mouse over the small image square, click and hold and drag, your can move it up and down to choose different parts of the image. You can also use the “Scale to fit” option to fit the entire image in that tiny square (that doesn’t work very well for tall profile images like I’m using here). When you click Save, it’ll update every thumbnail next to your comments through Facebook automatically.

Facebook’s Terms of Service

Just because you can add photos to Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean you should immediately start uploading your entire image archive. Facebook’s terms of service are closely watched and often controversial. So I’d definitely recommend reading the TOS carefully before uploading to see whether it fits with what you want to do. If you’re a stock photographer that needs to control dissemination (eg. if you have an exclusive contract with an agency) you’ll want to look into this very carefully before uploading any photos that might cause a conflict. At the time of writing, the terms pertinent to sharing photos are:

Sharing Your Content and Information

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
3. When you use an application, your content and information is shared with the application. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information. (To learn more about Platform, read our Privacy Policy and Platform Page.)
4. When you publish content or information using the “everyone” setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).
5. We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use them without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them)

Again, it’s a bit of a moving target–Facebook updates its terms from time to time–so be sure to check the current, full version. And it’s also entirely possible that the terms will change at some point after you’ve uploaded the images. Oh, and while you’re at it, why not use the panel at right to “Like” my Facebook page so you’ll be sure to get more handy hints like these.

Digital memory cards are tough little things. They can put up with a lot more than most cameras. They can breeze through airport security x-rays without a hitch, don’t mind being dropped, are immune to magnets, can often emerge unscathed by an accidental run through a washing machine, and, if you’re really lucky, can even last for a good stint submerged in sea water.. SanDisk is even going to so far as to officially claim on the packaging of its new Extreme SDHC cards that they are waterproof, temperature proof, shock proof, x-ray proof, and magnet proof.

While all current model memory cards boast flash memory, the physical design of Secure Digital (SD) cards make them a bit more resilient than most Compact Flash (CF) cards: they’re smaller, lighter, and able to handle dust and sand better than Compact Flash (CF) cards (CF cards have 50 small holes on one face that the pins in your camera or card reader go in, which offer perfect sanctuaries for dust and sand).

But all flash memory cards can wear out, at least in theory. In practice, it takes an awful lot of use and isn’t a practical concern for the vast majority of photographers. A figure of 100,000 write cycles used to be bandied about as a standard measure of what’s known as Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF), but more modern cards measure their failure rates in millions of hours of continuous use. Card manufacturers build into the card controller features that help with distributing the write cycles evenly across the card so that no one spot gets much more use than any other, a process known as wear leveling.

In practice, wearing out a memory card isn’t a practical concern even for pros who are shooting thousands of images a day, day in day out. A card manufactured in the past couple of years is likely to take normal usage conditions in its stride. And for abnormally demanding uses, industrial grade cards are available that are manufactured to higher standards.

Unfortunately, though, as low as the risk of wearing out a card is, if the card’s going to go it will probably go suddenly without warning. So it’s a good idea to build sensible precautions into your workflow to minimize the risks of losing large numbers of images if something does happen to go wrong somewhere along the line. That means having backup cards on hand, downloading your images regularly, and formatting the cards in camera after downloading the images. There’s no hard-and-fast rule on how often you should replace your memory cards; it’s something to start thinking about when you’re getting up into the millions of images on a card (or hundreds of thousands if your card is an older model). Of course, if you’ve shot that many images, chances are you also have to start worrying about failure of the shutter mechanism in your DSLR. But that’s another story…

Tip: Like just about any product, especially an electronic one, it is possible for a brand new memory card to be faulty. So always check that it’s working normally before you head off on that once-in-a-lifetime trip. And always take at least one or two spare cards with you.

Another Tip: Always format the card in camera rather than on your computer. While the latter might well work, camera and card manufacturers usually recommend doing it in camera to avoid data errors.

And Another Tip: Always download the images to your computer as soon as practicable and edit and archive from there. Trying to edit images directly on the memory card can lead to problems, and the cards are not designed for long-term archival storage.

If you’re technically inclined, here’s a 2003 SanDisk paper on wear leveling in flash memory cards.