Yes, I know we’ve seen this view umpteen times so I decided to add a little flare to the standard shot. This started with a High Dynamic Range image taken last year on my holiday trip to Washington DC. I just might do it again this year.

The color version of this shot, with the intense lens flare was pretty useless. OK, maybe ugly. So, to salvage the image, I used Adobe Photoshop, Channel Mixer to convert it to monochrome. I then cleaned up some of the larger flares to get a more even tonality in the  sky and grassy area. I still wanted to keep the upper left sun glare as a balance to the concrete wall at lower right.

For the version below, I used Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 for an antique look. With the buildings in Washington, it always seems to work.