a night of adventure and intrigue!

so here's the story:

a friend and i decided to ride the metro into town tonight to see the monuments. we get there, it's dusk, we see the washington monument, we see the world war ii monument...

(the fountains at the world war ii memorial with the washington monument behind)

...then we walk up to the lincoln monument, and there's a police officer that says, "NO. I'm not gonna let you pass." ??? so we back away and start watching. cop cars have the place under lockdown! everyone on the monument is confined to the steps and police are keeping them there, and then all the on-the-ground spectators are kept a good distance from the monument too, so there's a huge gap of no-fly-zone around the monument. there are lights going off and policemen with flashlights and bags searching bushes. we waited 20 minutes to see it all unfold...we're thinking bomb threat, russian spy hiding in the shrubbery, who knows!

(the policeman)

(a policeman searching the bushes...i have a really good lens, okay?)

as it turns out, it was a purse. a lady's purse that she left by accident that someone had found and they thought it could be a bomb. yep. bet she felt really sheepish.

(policemen searching the purse)

so then we climb the stairs up to honest abe, walk around, take pictures, the usual monument goings-on. as we're about to leave, a girl approaches me and says, "look, my friend is about to propose to his girlfriend and i'm supposed to take still pictures and video it as well, but i can't do both. you have a big camera so you must know what you're doing. will you take the pictures?" heck yes i will! so i got to pretend like a tourist and sneakily take pictures of them as they walked up to the monument, as he kissed her, and then as he got down on one knee and asked the big one. (years of sniper picture-taking with telephoto lenses prepared me for tonight.) she said yes.

so there you have it--how i became a crime-scene and wedding (proposal) photographer (and barely made the last train out of the district!) all in one night.