A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.
- John A. Shedd

2011 was the year I decided that a camera in a bag was a dead camera. Our photographic tools (DSLRs, point-and-shoots, iPhones) are designed to be used. That’s where they’re built for.

I’m also fortunate/cursed to live in interesting times, as protests descend upon Washington. I know the city well and can get just about anywhere quickly by walking or biking.

So, I decided that I would use my Canon T2i and iPhone 4 to document political protests, art events, food and just interesting things I saw in the city.

Protests

One of my favorite photos of the year was from an OccupyDC protest:

While I took a lot of other pictures of this Key Bridge march, the Amaro filter in Instagram gave this picture a very warm 1970s-style. Ironically, it was freezing that day and the sun had just emerged for a couple minutes late in the day.

This “hippie protester” was part of the OccupyDC movement. Most groups come to Washington, march around, and leave. These people stayed. They turned McPherson Square into a squalid encampment and have disrupted the lives of the 99% (the people they claim to represent) by continually blocking traffic during rush hour.

The turning point for me came a month later, during their barn raising in McPherson Square. It was a small, silly event:

If you added up all the protesters, police, media and tourists, there couldn’t be more than a couple hundred people involved. But CNN covered it as if it was some sort of mass insurrection. A stand-off with police is always good TV.

Another way the media got things wrong was a laughable article on the McPherson Square camp as a model of new urbanism. The piece is filled with so many factual mistakes and academic-speak that I thought it was a parody. The thesis that the Occupy movement has “activated” the park can be demolished by actually visiting the camp, which is nothing but muddy tents and masked anarchists.

OccupyDC, can’t you come up with something more modern than marching in the streets like 1930s strikers? As an example of effective and innovative political action, check out DC Flag Day, where residents demonstrated their love of the city.

This woman is rocking the red heels as she advocates for DC statehood.

Art

Protesters could learn a lot from arts advocates in this city. I’m fortunate to be friends with the amazing Philippa Hughes, arts promoter extraordinaire. She’s reinvented the local arts scene with the Pink Line Project (who I write for occasionally). Philippa doesn’t do staid art gallery openings. She always has a different take on these events, designed to attract people who aren’t normally interested in the arts

She’s seen here at Audio Warhol, which is a perfect example of her work, making art fun and accessible to ordinary people. Watching strings perform an avant-garde piece in the National Gallery of Art was one of the most beautiful things I experienced all year.

Dancers and actors are an alien species to me, which is perhaps why I find them so fascinating. Getting up on stage and performing? That would be my nightmare.

But some can do it, even in the hundred-degree heat of Dance Day DC. In addition to capturing Redskins cheerleaders and the very loud Mary Murphy, I got this photo which I love:

Black and white works really well in dance. And how did the girl on the left get up so high?

Leo Bloom: Actors are not animals! They’re human beings!
Max Bialystock: They are? Have you ever eaten with one?

I love that quote from The Producers. My favorite part of the year is the DC Shorts Film Festival. And one of the coolest things about DC Shorts is the short screenplay competition, where the winner receives $2000 to turn their script into a short film.

Out of more than a hundred submissions, we chose five finalists who performed their scripts with actors in a a live screenplay reading. One of the writers couldn’t make it, so I filled in, casting and directing his script.

Here’s the annotated script of Desdemona, the script that we performed. I read the descriptions while actors played the different characters in the story.

While I admire actors, dancers and other creative types, I draw the line at performance artists. I always thought that they were crazy and my suspicions were confirmed by my encounter with Agnes Bolt. You can read the story of an art experiment gone wrong. Or just look at her eyes in this picture:

Weirdly, the bubble that Bolt lived in is now part of OccupyDC, which is appropriate because they’re both acts of meaningless theater.

Bikes

I must mention my obsession with bikes. One of the things that I love about DC is you don’t need a car. I bike everywhere so of course I took pictures of Bike to Work Day, as well as bikes in the snow, pretty girls on bikes, electric bikes and even a bike trail video. But it was this picture that generated the most controversy:

I thought it was funny – a park ranger in a big hat riding a bike. Turns out it’s Bill Line, spokesperson for the National Park Service and opponent of bike sharing on the National Mall. A minor kerfuffle resulted, as local cycling advocates noted the irony as well as Line’s unsafe biking practices. Lesson learned – even your most trivial photos may turn out to be important.

Food

Why is taking pictures of food so much fun? It’s because you’re capturing the memory of a good experience, like the Pink Blast cocktail:

It’s a custom drink for Philippa Hughes – how cool is that?

Peruvian chicken, an afternoon cupcake, a Shake Shack burger, amazing tacos and this delicious chicken curry all fell to my iPhone.

My only regret is not taking pictures of everything I ate in 2011.

Coffee was a recurring theme, however, which why I was glad to go to a coffee tasting at Yola, featuring Jon from DistrictBean.

He can answer anything you’ve ever wanted to know about the black brew.

iPhoneography

My photographic year was also influenced tremendously by the iwishyouwerehere show by Keith Lane at the Hillyer Gallery. Seeing iPhone photos hanging on the wall of an art gallery got me thinking about the photographic possibilities of this ubiquitous electronic device. His show and the earlier InstantDC show demonstrated that you could be an artist with an iPhone – that’s a very liberating thought.

This led to me taking a lot more photos with my iPhone and, just a few months later, winning first place in the Fotoweek Mobile Phone Image Contest.

That’s what’s great about art – it expands your vision in new and creative directions.

Moving Forward

Finally, I present this picture:

It had been rainy, cold and dark for three straight days. It was the worst time of year, when the days are short and night arrives at 5 PM.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I went out for drinks and then wandered the streets. The rain became a light drizzle and I captured this scene.

This represents a lot of what I’m interested in photographically – black and white, an iPhone pic, a city scene, a little lonely and mysterious.

It also demonstrates what a comfort art can be. On a dark, miserable night I was able to create an image that I really enjoyed. I forgot all about the three days of rain as I got this picture. That’s why it means so much to me.

In 2012, where will my camera take me? More food shots, certainly. I’d also like to do some portraits, as well as continuing the document the arts scene that I find so fascinating. I’m also interested in biking culture in DC.

At the start of 2011, I didn’t know I’d be taking so many pictures of protests. It’s hard to predict what the new year will bring. But my camera will be out of the bag and ready to go.

This is from the Audio Warhol concert at the National Gallery of Art. It was a beautiful and weirdly moving, as the strings played with a DJ accompaniment of sound clips from the 1980s.

On Monday night, I attended a panel discussion by local photographers at vitaminwater uncapped live, a popup arts/dance/music party in DC.

Inspired by the stories of how these photogs got started, I wrote an article for the Pink Line Project on the talk. The photographers on the panel, who work for sites such as Brightest Young Things, DCist, Washingtonian and the Washington Post, all transitioned from amateurs to professionals. They did this not through traditional education but by following their passions. What started out as a hobby for them – taking pictures of things they loved – eventually became careers.

Agnes in the structure

My good friend Philippa Hughes is hosting an artist in her home this week. It’s a project called Art is Fear.

Here’s the description:

This coming May 2011, for one week, the artist Agnes Bolt will move into the home of the very sociable and curious Philippa Hughes to playfully explore the dynamics between an artist and an art collector. With a naive optimism and subtle social critique the project will manifest itself with a large obtrusive structure situated within Philippa’s home in which the artist will live. The presence of the artist will be impossible to ignore. A series of rules, exercises, communication systems and bonding experiences will dictate the interactions between the two as will video cameras given to both parties. Both are required to follow the rules but mischief and expectations of an open spirited dynamic is highly encouraged.

A woman living in a bubble? I was intrigued.

I’m a huge fan of Philippa’s work with the Pink Line Project – with parties like Cherry Blast, she’s brought fun to a staid art world. I associate her with inventive and creative ways to engage people of all ages. From arm-wrestling with roller derby girls to scavenger hunts, her events are the very antithesis of serious Washington. In fact, I enjoyed them so much that I started writing for Pink Line.

I expected a similar light and fun touch to Art is Fear so I stopped by one afternoon to visit with Philippa and take some photos.

A clue to what was in store for me came from Agnes’s correction of photographer Matt Dunn, who took pictures of the bubble:

When I arrived, they were in the midst of an argument.  Philippa, smiling was explaining that the whole experiment was getting to her.  Agnes wanted to know exactly what was bothering her.  “This whole thing,” she said, indicating the structure, the imposition, the videographer who had also been staying with her the whole time, crashing on her couch.

crawling down the tunnel

They took a break from the “interesting discussion” as Philippa called it.  We had sorbet.  I crawled down a long blue tube (like something you’d see on a playground) and into the structure.

Inside the clear plastic bubble, it was stuffy and a bit claustrophobic but not necessarily uncomfortable. A couple of vents allowed in air. It was like a child’s play fort, where you could see the grown-ups but they couldn’t get at you. It was furnished with a little chair, a mat for Agnes to sleep on and other decorations. The videographer filmed things, looking down the length of the bubble

Agnes had a phone interview, taking the call through a tube in the structure. On the other side of the tube, Philippa held her phone so Agnes could hear the questions. They discussed the publicity the project had gotten, including the photos by Matt Dunn.

Philippa Hughes, outside the structure

We had an interesting talk about the perils of being well-known. Philippa gets energy from being with people, throwing events, but dislikes some aspects that the attention brings. If you’re going to do things in public, people are going to criticize you. They’re going to hate you.

Despite her public face, she doesn’t want to be “on” all the time, which is why Art is Fear has been uncomfortable for her at times. Like all of us, she likes her personal space.

Our conversation was interrupted by a visit from the ASPCA. Someone had reported Philippa, claiming that she was abusing an animal in her condo. The caller described hearing an animal being tortured, one that was “bigger than a dog.” They had provided her name and apartment number.

The man from the ASPCA came in. Philippa showed him that there was no animal here – just a woman living in a clear plastic structure. He was good-natured about it, saying that he sees all sorts of things in his visits to DC.

visit from the ASPCA

After he left, Philippa began to speculate on who might have made this false report. She thought it might be one of her neighbors, or people who dislike her. Or worse. As a public figure, and a woman, she’s had unwanted and threatening male attention.

“Bigger than a dog,” Agnes said, pleased with herself. She had made the call.

Philippa got it. She stood up, went to her bedroom, and closed the door.

At this point, a normal person would have empathy.

Agnes sat there. I told her that what she had done was wrong and that she should apologize to Philippa for frightening her.

The girl explained that this was “payback” for being “objectified”. The night before, Philippa had people over, to check out the installation. They took pictures and looked at the girl in the bubble. Of course, she had willingly put herself in there and could leave at any time. And performance art is necessarily public.  And she wanted and participated in the publicity. She even invited people into the bubble with her.

Agnes Bolt

Agnes thought that making the call to the ASPCA was part of a back and forth game that she and Philippa were having. She lapsed into artspeak, talking about conversations between collectors and artists and the difference between observing and participating.

I told her that it was one thing to have this little art game in the comfort and security of Philippa’s apartment but to drag the real world into it was immoral. And not just for scaring Philippa, the woman who was graciously hosting her for a week. She had wasted the time of the ASPCA, who had sent someone over to investigate a false report.

Agnes, however, was impressed by this turn in the game. There was in fact an animal trapped in a cage. Her.

There’s a fine line between a sociopath and an artist.

I crawled out of that rat’s nest of emotional dysfunction, on my hands and knees, glad to get out of this little art world.

It’s hard to imagine but booze was once outlawed in DC. The Prohibition era is the subject of a fascinating new book by local author Garret Peck.

He’s an excellent speaker with an encyclopedic knowledge of the city. I wrote an article for the Pink Line Project about his book talk, where he shared what life was like when Washington was “dry.”

Check out my latest article for the Pink Line Project on local filmmakers – this time I look at Silent Code Features. This local production company is helmed by Anthony Greene, a screenwriter I’ve known for a couple years now. He writes very punchy, topical scripts.

Out of the four films by Silent Code that I saw at a special screening on March 12, the one that I liked best was “The Favor.” Greene handles controversial material with a deft touch. It’s also a very funny film.

image courtesy of DCist Exposed

DCist Exposed is back! This fascinating photography show returns to the Long View Gallery from March 15 to 27, 2011.  Out of over 1,000 individual entries, 43 winning images were selected by a panel of judges to be included in this year’s DCist Exposed exhibit. DCist.com prides itself on engaging and promoting emerging local photographers through its daily use of images from the popular, reader-generated DCist Flickr photo pool.  Each day, DCist.com selects photos from the pool for use in its daily coverage of local news, arts and entertainment, food and sports.

The opening reception, held March 15 and 16, will be epic. In fact, it was so popular that last year I couldn’t even get in. DCist is attempting to remedy that by selling tickets in advance. Get yours now!

I had a photo in a previous year’s show. To see my pic hanging on the wall was inspiring, and I got to meet some amazing photographers who have broadened my concept of photography. The DCist community is awesome. They’re nice people who like a good drink and they all have their own unmistakable style. Just glancing at my Flickr contacts, I can pretty much tell who shot what – Samer Farha (beer), Erin McCann (coffee), Jim Darling (iPhoneography), Matt Dunn (portraits) and Chris Chen (street life).

To accompany the DCist Exposed show, there’s also a special edition magazine featuring the winning photographs from all five years of the show.  The issue can be purchased online at MagCloud for $27.50, which comes with a digital version, or at Long View Gallery during the receptions for $25.

DCist is also bringing back the popular special event for emerging collectors, Emerge Exposed, on Monday, March 21, 7 to 9 p.m. Co-hosted by DCist and the Pink Line Project, a panel of experts will share tips and ideas on how to begin collecting art.

What I like best about DCist Exposed is that it demystifies the art of photography. You don’t need to have expensive lenses or your own studio to be a photographer. You just have to take a decent photo.

Several years ago, I was sitting in a bar with a bunch of coworkers. We went out a couple times a week for beer, always to the same place. They were fine people but, good lord, how many times can you hear the same old stories?

While we were rehashing the same old petty little workplace dramas, a group of staffers from the Portrait Gallery came in. They had more interesting things to say than me and my coworkers, for they were talking about art.

It was then that I vowed to get more involved in the creative scene in DC.

In 2010, I was fortunate to not only sample a lot of what the city has to offer, but also participate in it.

Snowmageddon

First off, a word on snow. What’s the best stimulus program for the arts? A massive snowstorm. Not only does it give artists time at home to work, it prompts droves of photographers to venture out in the cold to capture the magical, transformed city.

DC has never looked better. Shrouded in white, bereft of cars, you wanted Washington to remain this way forever. There’s a gentle tranquility to the snow that was brilliantly caught by Flickr users like a.w. miller, bossa67 and Pepper Watkins. Their pictures show the power of photography to create magic.

Snow Globe

During this mini-Ice Age, I ventured out to take photos of the Snow Globe show at Transformer. Ballerinas performed in a tiny storefront.

Outside, in the cold and darkness, we watched, awestruck. It was a beautiful, free performance, a gift to the city from Transformer and the Washington Ballet Theater.

Cherry Blast

Eventually, it did get warm in DC, just in time for the cherry blossoms. The highlight of the season was Cherry Blast, a Pink Line Project party in Adams Morgan. Dancing and performance art filled a storage facility. The space was so awkward and so crowded that I thought, “Hipster death trap.”

No one died, of course, and it was another great party. You always remember the small moments. For me, it was the musician playing guitar in the massive freight elevator, serenading us as we slowly ascended. Absurd, touching and memorable all at once.

Pink Line Project

I am, of course, biased toward the Pink Line Project. I knew Philippa Hughes, founder of the site, before she was famous enough to appear on the cover of the City Paper. And I am a writer for the site, covering filmmaking and photography in DC. What I like about Pink Line parties is that they get you to venues you might have never visited, like the Textile Museum, which hosted the packed Hapi Hapi Hour, or the newly opened Artisphere in Rosslyn.

Capital Fringe Festival

Along with Paul Gillis and Kay Campbell, I got to be an official photographer at the Capital Fringe Festival. Julianne Brienza (director of Cap Fringe) had seen me hanging around with my camera and decided to put me to work.

The first show I did was (Snap)shots on a Greyhound Headed Home. I was in the front row as two half-naked dancers came out. I stared and then remembered, “Oh, yea, I’m the photographer” and picked up my camera.

I saw more theater over the two weeks of the festival than I had in years. The heat was unbearable, the spaces tiny, but the performances were packed.

I’m a huge fan of Rome and Juliet: Choose Your Own Ending but the defining show of Fringe for me was Ridgefield Middle School Talent Night. Two people, tons of crazy characters, interaction with the audience – that’s what Fringe is all about.

Also what Fringe is all about – meeting creative people. Actors, reporters, bloggers, singers, dancers, cross-dressers and audience members commingled between shows at Fort Fringe. It was fun to just sit there, drink my favorite beer (Bell’s Two-Hearted), and watch people come and go under the big tent.

DC Shorts

September brings the DC Shorts Film Festival, a local event that I’ve been involved in various capacities for years. My favorites were a couple of very funny films: Enter the Beard and the Imaginary Friend Practical Manual.

DC Shorts is also known for its great parties, the best being the one at Madam Tussaud’s where I finally got a picture of myself with Marion “Mayor for Life” Barry.

But wait there’s more!

In October, we had the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition. I was one of the judges and this year got to see the whole process – from the intake of scripts to the award for best short screenplay.

We had five finalists in the competition who came to DC. I accompanied them to the casting session, where the writers got to pick the actors they wanted to act out their scripts. The writers had a day to rehearse. Since one of the writers couldn’t make it, I took his part, playing the role of narrator.

The scripts were read aloud at a live screenplay reading that took place during the ScriptDC screenwriting conference. While the writers of Interview Date won $2000 to turn their script into a film, all the participants have gone on to great things.

Fotoweek

There’s been criticism of Fotoweek, that’s it gotten to be too big and not local enough. Some of that is warranted – it takes place all over the metro area and includes so many events (and a really confusing web site) that it’s almost impossible to figure out what to attend.

The event that really demonstrated what Fotoweek should be was NightVisions. Local photographers swarmed the city and then delivered the results to Fotoweek Central, which picked out the best pic from each photographer, printed them, and then hung them. This was perfect – an easily explainable idea, local participation, a result that you could point at.

InstantDC

Finally, I was really impressed by the InstantDC show, which demonstrated that you can make art with an iPhone.

And I didn’t just like it because the beer was from ChurchKey – there were some great photos from people like Jim Darling. It was inspiring to see what’s possible with a device that you carry around with you every day.

Conclusion

Let’s face it: 2010 was a crap year. Recession, war and other unrelenting problems stalked the land. Art offered consolation and reward.

Check out my latest article for the Pink Line Project on great gift ideas for local photographers. While geared primarily for photogs in DC, there are some gifts good for shooters anywhere.

Check out my Pink Line Project article on gift ideas for aspiring filmmakers, including membership in local organizations, such as Women in Film and Video and Arlington Independent Media. Making a short film doesn’t need to be expensive and DC is filled with filmmakers willing to help out.

One thing I’ve learned as a judge for DC Shorts over the years is that there are plenty of good technical people. They can get the sound right and light a scene correctly. And every city, it seems, contains talented actors who can make your script sing.

The hard part is getting the story right, in making sure that you have a script with a beginning, middle and an end. Something with an identifiable protagonist and stakes that really matter. My article concentrates on the storytelling part of filmmaking. It’s easy to pick up a camera but much harder to tell a good story.