I was a judge for the short screenplay category. My fellow judges and I selected Pinheads (PDF) as the winner. Congrats to Jacob Motz and everyone who participated!

And check out the rest of the winners from my alma mater – I particularly liked America’s Wilderness, a gorgeous short film from Rocky Mountain National Park.

Honorable Mention in 2013 Cherry Blossom Photo Contest

Digital has taken the guesswork out of photography. After all, you can check the screen of your camera to see if the photo came out. No more wondering if everything is in focus and properly exposed.

Even with these advancements, you still don’t know if the photo really works.

I biked to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms. As a jaded Washingtonian, I’ve seen innumerable perfect cherry blossom pictures. I wanted something different.

Across from the Jefferson Memorial, the late afternoon light was perfect – soft, warm and with a hazy quality to it. I liked how sunset was coming through the trees. And I’d been thinking of silhouettes.

I took the photo above with my iPhone 5, before moving on to take lots of other pictures with my “real” camera, the Canon.

Once I edited the photo in the Flickr mobile app (using my favorite Mammoth filter), I knew that this photo just worked. There’s a romantic quality to it, capturing how the cherry blossoms are a beautiful, shared experience.

This photo is an Honorable Mention in the 2013 Cherry Blossom Photo Contest. Sponsored by FotoDC, the contest was judged by Carolyn Russo of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and Professional Photographer Frank Van Riper

I only submitted one photo to the contest. I had lots of other photos of blossoms and the Jefferson Memorial. They were pretty but looked like a million other pics. So I submitted my iPhone pic – it was different than the others. It popped. It worked.

Look for this photo, plus lots of others at the opening reception. Here’s the details:

FotoDC’s Cherry Blossom CDIA Exhibition
Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts
May 23, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
1055 Thomas Jefferson Street NW, Washington, DC

This is the context that’s been missing in discussions of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy, and one that’s provided by Always Right by Niall Ferguson. In this Kindle single, he shows how the benefit of hindsight has diminished our view of Thatcher’s achievements.

As Thatcher stated before taking the job of Prime Minister in 1979, “My job is to keep Britain from going red.”

This was a real danger. I did a study-abroad program in London in the mid-80s. As part of the class, we visited a Labour MP in Parliament. After he got done insulting us as spoiled rich kids, he shared his aim of imposing socialism across the country. Real socialism, not the Obama kind, but a political system where the government controls where you live, what you do and how much you make. The Soviet Union was held up as a model to emulate.

It’s hard to believe but millions of people shared this belief.

Thatcher was right, of course, and they were wrong. And the elite classes of England hate her for it, to this day. Despite being the most famous graduate of Oxford, the university never gave her an honorary degree. The middle-class grocer’s daughter is not one of us…

We’re fortunate to live in a better time. As bad as things are, it’s not 1979. Always Right is a look back, without the benefit of hindsight, at the parlous era and the Iron Lady who changed it.

This murder-mystery is set in DC, but in the real city beyond the monuments. It makes a perfect gift for anyone who wants to learn more about how Washington works – or doesn’t. Murder in Ocean Hall has received a slew of five-star reviews on Amazon. It is a quick, entertaining who-dunnit filled with memorable characters and a dash of humor.

Download Murder in Ocean Hall today!

• Making money is evil
• Lawyers are the most important of professions
• Criminals are always unjustly accused

This homogeneity is boring. Being an artist is about questioning age-old assumptions and coming up with something new. Rather than “speaking truth to power,” Hollywood films reflect the narrow mindset of the Malibu class.

With cheap cameras, the Internet and social media, we have a chance to change all that, and bring true diversity – diversity of thought – to a staid industry.

The Filmmakers Workshop is a free, three-day workshop in August for young filmmakers interested in freedom. Through a sequence of panels, work sessions, and discussion groups, faculty will share their accumulated experience and industry know-how with students. Sessions feature such topics as How to Pitch Your Idea, How to Land a Job on a TV Writing Staff, and How to Fund an Independent Film.

I attended an earlier version of this workshop several years ago. The program is not political but focused on the standard stuff of film/TV workshops – writing a script, pitching to producers, working in television. The attendees were primarily libertarians – people who felt that government had come to dominate too much of American life. A lot of them came from Washington and some of them even worked in government. They (like me) were familiar with the maddening waste and inefficiency of the federal bureaucracy.

The Filmmakers Workshop is a great opportunity for someone who has made a short film or written a script to get an introduction to filmmaking in LA. And unlike other workshops, it’s free. Apply by June 14.

Lauree Ostrofsky at the book launch for I'm scared and doing it anyway

Lauree Ostrofsky had a brain tumor. Twenty-nine years old and it seemed like her life was over before it had really begun.

This brush with mortality was a clarifying moment. She didn’t want a brain tumor – she wanted to be healthy. Sometimes we only discover our true wants in opposition to something else. For Lauree, she wanted to be healthy once again.

And she wanted so much more – she wanted to live a life where she was scared and doing it anyway. Lauree would meet her fears and go past them.

Three surgeries later, the tumor was gone. But the changes had just begun. This experience with death taught her the importance of a positive outlook on life and how much potential we have to affect change. Over the past decade, Lauree has been a speaker, author, PR strategist and life coach, as well as leading a hug tour.

She describes the journey in her new book, I’m scared & doing it anyway. As she explained in the book launch at the Science Club, she wrote the book that she wanted to read after her tumor diagnosis. It’s a book for anyone going though a trying situation. Which, sooner or later, is just about everyone.

They call it a “gap” as they move people from one contract to another. I’ve got a job with the new company on a new contract. Who that company is, when the work starts and even how much I’m paid – all that is unknown.

Letting the contractors wander off and then hoping to sign them up with a new company is one of those “only in government” moments. It only makes sense if you work there. But if you think about it logically, and count up all the costs in managing people this way, it will drive you mad.

I was a Communications Manager for the Weather-Ready Nation initiative, which is about making communities more resilient in the face of extreme weather. In this role, I developed communication plans, managed web site content and coordinated social media efforts. We were making good progress too – see this presentation I gave to the Federal Communicators Network for more about my work.

DC is gorgeous this time of year. In addition to enjoying the delights of the city (food trucks, bike trails, museums), I have my own projects to work on:

• Judging screenplays for the American University Visions contest
• Blogging
• And, of course, photography

I’ve got plenty to do.

The first appeared in Explore on April 8 and is a shot of the cherry blossoms by the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. I went after work and the soft late-afternoon light was gorgeous. I used the Mammoth filter in the Flickr app to give it a distinct look.

My second Explored photo came a week later. Coming up the escalator at the Ft. Totten Metro, I saw this:

It was surreal to see a train full of Bradleys next to the Metro tracks. I framed this photo with the Metro station sign because I thought it was so bizarre. In addition to Explore, this photo appeared in the local blogs DCist, Greater Greater Washington and PoPville. Plus, another photo I took of the train was published in the Express, the free paper by the Washington Post. That was nice – I read that paper every day on the Metro.

DC is filled with the beautiful and the bizarre, if you will keep your eyes open.

Opening night at DCist Exposed 2013

What does the brave new world of photography look like? It looks a lot like the DCist Exposed show wrapping up this weekend at Long View Gallery.

In an era when digital images are ubiquitous, and everyone has a cellphone camera, what does it mean to be a photographer? Is a photographer someone who has expensive gear? Someone who works for pay? A person who understands ISO and exposure?

We are all photographers now. This is liberating and terrifying all at once. It’s liberating for millions who can now use inexpensive cameras and free apps to pursue their artistic vision. And it’s terrifying for anyone who hopes to make a living at this trade.

You can see the results in DCist Exposed. I’ve been in the show twice myself and think it’s a great celebration of photography. You can learn a lot from the show. It offers the opportunity to look at familiar landmarks in a new light.

I’ve seen the Capitol a million times but never from the terrace of the Newseum like this photo from Victoria Pickering. Another familiar landmark is seen in Memorial Day by Gary Silverstein.

But the show also offers off the beaten path looks at the city like the abstract lines of Hockney by Jim Darling and river speed by Bryan Bowman.

Running Around the Tree by Eric Purcell is my favorite from the show.

What fascinates me about DCist Exposed is that it’s done by ordinary folks. The show is not curated by a Gallery Director and populated by the obscure work of pierced art students. It’s a scene unknown to local art mandarins, leading an Atlantic magazine columnist to sniff, “Who are these people?”

Instead, the curators are people who have day jobs in government and the photos come from lawyers, web developers and other prosaic professions.

And that’s why the show is such a success. Like the DC Shorts Film Festival (which I’m also involved with), DCist Exposed is a show open to all with a populist sensibility.

Organized, curated and promoted by amateurs with cameras, the future of photography looks a lot like DCist Exposed. Go see it.

DCist Exposed: March 25 – April 7, 2013
Long View Gallery
1234 9th St NW
Washington, DC 20001
Wednesday-Saturday 11-6
Sunday 12-5

• Use common terms
• Avoid acronyms
• Get out of your organizational bubble
• Make it relevant to the reader
• Stress benefits, not features

In the talk, I used case studies from my current job as a Communications Manager for The National Weather Service (NWS).  For example, NWS has a great new technology under development  – Wireless Emergency Alerts.  When talking about this new service, do you communicate the features (cell towers, polygons, alerting authorities) or the benefit (getting a text alert before a tornado hits your house)?

You stress the benefit, obviously. The benefit establishes relevancy in the mind of the reader. Grab the reader’s attention by leading with benefits and then you can explain the complicated details.