I am in Washington DC for a little vacation and the upcoming Photoshop World conference. Today was sort of a get on east coast time day and wandering around the National Mall kinda of day. The timing of the trip turned out to be great since most of the cherry blossoms are in bloom right now. The downside of this is of course the number of people. The path around the Jefferson Memorial was well…insane. There were people and cameras everywhere.

This sort of let me wondering about the uniqueness of each of the images I would be taking. Standing side-by-side with dozens if not hundreds of other photographers left me wondering, what about my experience can make the work become my own. Then as I stood there looking out over the water at Jefferson’s Memorial thinking about the words from the Declaration of Independence, the cool things in the Smithsonian and the wonder of the White House and the Capitol Building it hit me.

You see DC is one of the those cities that can make you realize just how cool your country is. And as I looked around at all the people gathered on the National Mall to see the memorials and the cherry blossoms, I realized that there is no way to not make a photo that reflects who I am. Just like the people around me, we are all unique and yet we all share in a common ground that is easy to see here in DC. It is this common ground what we walk on together that binds us over our difference. It is what makes us great as a country. We are all unique, we are special and we all have something to offer.