A large number of historic houses and buildings are present in Old Town Alexandria. One that is now an historic park is the John Carlyle House on North Fairfax St.
Situated across the street from the Alexandria City Hall, the Carlyle House is a Georgian and Palladian style home built in the mid-1700′s by merchant John Carlyle. The home is on the National Register of Historic Places.
I initially didn’t plan on photographing this house the evening I shot this. Instead, I headed to Old Town to take a photo of the Burke and Herbert Bank building on the corner of Fairfax and King St. After I finished photographing the bank, I was walking back to my car and happened to pass by the Carlyle House.
I thought its large front courtyard and lighting in combination with the blue hour sky was perfect for a photo. Something else that I thought would be a neat effect was the fact that there was a tour group sitting on the steps listening to a docent speak about the home.
Since I was going to be taking a long exposure (30 seconds at f/8 and ISO 100), I knew that they would all be blurred due to their motions. If they had been milling around the courtyard, then they probably wouldn’t have shown up in the photo at all. But since they all stayed in the same place for the entire exposure, there was enough light to illuminate them as well.
Since they were a part of a ghost tour group, I thought it was quite fitting that they all appeared ghostly due to the long exposure.
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