The ability to easily embed photos on a web site is one of those things you just kinda expect these days. You expect to be provided a bit of code to copy and paste into a site. Yet, until recently, Flickr didn’t provide an easy embed tool.
Not that using Flickr photos on a WordPress site was difficult before – you selected a size, copied the code, added a caption, linked to the photo and voila! It was a multi-step process, but not a difficult one.
Flickr has made this easier with Flickr Web Embeds. It’s slightly easier than the old method but I don’t entirely like it – since it’s an embed, you can’t put a caption under it. And when I created this post yesterday, the photo had a white Flickr label on it, which has since disappeared.
Hopefully, this is just the start and Flickr will offer the ability to tweak and customize embeds.
And above that’s 10th St NW, near the new City Center development. Formerly home to the Washington Convention Center and then a parking lot, it’s the first time this street has been open in decades. I liked the bike lane. It’s an iPhone photo, edited in the Flickr mobile app.
DC is a land of tribes. “Where do you work?” is the first question that you hear at a Washington party. It’s an attempt to discover your tribal affiliation – are you Government, Lawyer, Liberal, Nonprofit, Corporate or Something Else? The purpose is to determine whether you are friend or foe, superior or inferior.
It’s a silly practice based upon the assumption that people are defined by their jobs. But work is not a passion for most people. Most of us are defined by our interests, rather than our jobs.
Case in point: The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA). At last night’s Holiday Party at the Bier Baron, I met an incredibly diverse group of people. They were young, old, women, men, gay, straight – one of the most eclectic gatherings you’ll find in self-sorting DC. They included everyone from government employees living in the suburbs to entrepreneurs working in the city.
And they weren’t interested in what you did for a living. Instead, the talk was of winter cycling tights and the best bike route to Silver Spring. “How many bikes do you own?” was a popular question. With just two bikes, I was an outlier among the avid cyclists.
New bike lanes and the advent of Capital Bikeshare has led to an explosion of cycling in DC. In the crowded 15th St Cycletrack, you see scores of bikers every morning – women in dresses (yes, even in this weather), hard-core commuters and elderly tourists on red Bikeshare bikes.
Which is why I’m glad to be a WABA member. It’s not just the sexy legs. It’s that cycling is a shared experience that bridges communities across the city. I’m a WABA member because biking in DC is fun.
The annual Exposed show is a celebration of the best in local photography in Washington, DC. Now in its eighth year (it used to be known as DCist Exposed), Exposed DC seeks images of the people and places, the art and music and food and sports, and the culture and nostalgia of this incredible town we live in. This is DC beyond the monuments, the real city that we live in and experience.
And it’s a show that’s open to anyone with a camera (or iPhone). You don’t need a a $2000 lens or the ability to talk f-stops. All you need is the ability to create a compelling image. The openness of Exposed DC is what makes the contest unique.
Exposed DC picks the best images to hang on the walls in the recently-expanded Long View Gallery in Mount Vernon Square. And there’s a big party where you can meet tons of local photographers while hundreds of people admire your work.
What you need to know:
Deadline: January 8, 2014
What to Submit: Three photos of DC.
Cost: $10
Media Storm – selected for 2012 Exposed. This was during the post-earthquake inspection of the Washington Monument.
My photos have been selected for Exposed twice – in 2007 and 2012. I’ve had drinks with the Exposed judges (not that difficult to do with this boozy bunch) and talked to winning photographers.
1. Read the Rules. Having been a judge for other kinds of contests, it amazes me that people submit content without reading the rules. Read the rules. They not only spell out the procedures you need to follow, but also offer helpful hints on what judges are looking for – and not looking for. For example, note the prohibition against “gratuitous use of HDR.” What is gratuitous HDR? Well, if you can tell it’s HDR, then it’s gratuitous.
2. Think DC. This is a DC contest run by people who live and work in DC which culminates in a gallery showing in DC. It is not Exposed Baltimore or Exposed NYC, which are both lovely places but not the setting for this contest. Submit photos from the metro DC area, including the VA and MD suburbs.
3. Look at Past Winners. What gets selected for Exposed DC? Lots of gritty pictures of urban life. What doesn’t get selected? Tourist shots of monuments. Not only does looking at past winners provide valuable advice for getting into Exposed DC, they’re a wealth of creative ideas to consider. Look through the photos to find new places to shoot, different techniques and unusual perspectives.
Rose Runs – selected for the 2007 Exposed. I liked the contrast between Rose and the graffiti-covered wall.
4. Trust Your Gut. Put yourself in the position of the judges for a moment. They look through hundreds of photos to select 40 or so for Long View Gallery. What’s going to pop out to them? Well, what pops out to you? What are the photos that you come back to time and time again? They’re the ones you should submit.
5. Join the community. The best part of Exposed DC has been the relationships I’ve made through the contest. I always go to the opening night party. The photographers are all really interesting, generous people. While there are some professionals who shoot full-time, the majority of contest winners are ordinary people with a love of photography. Follow Exposed DC to become a part of this community.
Find three photos, scrape together $10 and submit to Exposed DC! It’s an opportunity to see your work hanging in a gallery and become part of a local, creative event.
Perfect cappuccino at Peregrine Espresso on Capitol Hill.
When I first looked into the Coffeeneuring Challenge, I thought to myself: so many rules! You can tell it’s a contest created by a Washingtonian.
But the strictures were good-natured and amusing, a Byzantine level of complexity that obscured a simple idea:
Bike to seven coffee shops over seven weekends from October 5 – November 17.
There’s something about completing a goal, even an arbitrary one, that excites the imagination. It provided motivation to get me out of the house and on my bike. Here’s where I went:
1. Buzz Bakery in Alexandria Date: October 6
Distance: 17 miles
Drink: Coffee (and a cupcake)
This was a really pleasant ride on the Mount Vernon Trail. This branch of Buzz Bakery was right off the trail but I had never been there before. That’s what I liked about coffeeneuring – it provided inspiration to visit new places.
2. Big Bear
Date: October 15
Distance: 6 miles
Drink: Coffee
Next stop Hipsterville as I fixed my foldy bike and crossed the city to Big Bear in Bloomingdale. Note: I took advantage of a special proviso of the coffeeneuring rules that allowed weekday adventures by those effected by the government shutdown.
3. Union Market
Date: October 20
Distance: 8 miles
Drink: Cappuccino
I’d never been to Union Market, and followed some crazy Google bike directions to get there.
4. Capital Crescent Trail Date: November 3
Distance: 18 miles
Drink: A bad cappuccino-like substance
I love the CCT. It’s my favorite trail in the city.
5. Peregrine Espresso
Date: November 10
Distance: 9 miles
Drink: Cappuccino
It was a beautiful day to visit Capitol Hill, and experience the best cappuccino in the city.
6. Illy Cafe
Date: November 16
Distance: 7 miles
Drink: Cappuccino
A hidden spot in the city, I’m a big fan of hanging out at Illy and reading – or writing – a book.
7. Buzz Bakery at the Navy Yard
Date: November 17
Distance: 11 miles
Drink: Coffee (and a cupcake)
I wrapped things up by going to a Buzz Bakery, but this time in the revitalized Navy Yard neighborhood.
What I liked about the Coffeeneuring Challenge is that it gets you in the habit of biking places. And drinking coffee (not that I needed help with that). By combining a fun activity with a goal, it’s a perfect expression of the joy of biking, demonstrating the great time that you can have on two wheels.
Destination: Buzz Bakery, Navy Yard, Washington, DC
Total distance: 11 miles
The great thing about biking around a city are the surprises you see along the way. Being on a bike allows you to cover large amounts of ground quickly – but it also lets you stop and check things out, in ways that you couldn’t if you were trapped in a car.
I was on my way to the Navy Yard for my final coffeeneuring adventure when I noticed that Constitution Avenue was closed along the National Mall. I stopped and asked someone what was going on. A historic Pullman train car was being installed in the African American History Museum. It’s such a large object that the Pullman is going in first and then they’re building the rest of the museum around it, which isn’t scheduled to open until 2015.
A historic Pullman train car being hoisted into the under-construction Museum of African American History.
Cappuccino from Illy Cafe at the Renaissance Dupont.
Everyone has their secret spots, places that they only know about.
For me, it’s Illy Cafe at the Renaissance Dupont at 22nd and M St NW. It’s a hipster-free zone, without a beard or skinny jean to be seen. There’s also no wifi, so you don’t get laptop campers or deluded grad students.
A beautiful cappuccino is only $3.08 – probably the cheapest in the city.
And not only was it delicious, it was artistically perfect, as you can see from the photo above. The work of a good barista is indistinguishable from magic.
Peregrine gets a bad rap for being a hipster haven, of being home to skinny jeans, ironic facial hair and hipper-than-thou attitudes. But it’s not the staff that’s the problem, I realized as I looked for a place to sit. It’s the patrons.
I had to perch on a stool in a corner because the tables were occupied by grad students with laptops. While I’ve done my share of work in coffee shops, I would never choose a busy store like Peregrine. And I certainly wouldn’t occupy multiple chairs with my textbooks, knitware and electronic devices.
Nobody cares about your grad school dissertation – that is what I felt like shouting. Ten years from now, you will not even remember what that paper was about. And your thesis advisor, the only other person to have ever read it, won’t remember either.
Grad school won’t get you a better job. I’d be more impressed by someone who managed a Wendy’s than someone with an MA. The Wendy’s manager had to get people to show up and work every single day – that’s really hard, and much more impressive accomplishment than going to classes.
Besides, all those old rules and gatekeepers are coming down. Our most successful companies, like Facebook and Apple, were founded by college dropouts. There is no reason to genuflect before some academy before you can do what you want. You can do so now.
Avoid the trap of grad school. Instead, take advantage of the opportunities that cheap tech and the internet have brought us. Want to be a director? Go shoot a movie with your iPhone. Aspire to run a company? Use Kickstarter to raise the money. Want to change the world? Use Meetup to start organizing people.
If for no other reason, avoid grad school so you can enjoy Sunday afternoons outside. Ten years from now, you’ll remember sunny fall days like today – not the time you wasted hunched in front of a computer.
I live in DC, take photos in DC, know lots of DC photographers, even won a FotoWeekDC contest but I cannot make heads or tails of the FotoWeekDC web site. There’s an overwhelming number of events – gallery openings, workshops (mostly paid), talks, lectures, training and other activities – but without an easy way to sort and find interesting stuff to see.
People have asked me what they should see during FotoWeek. I have no idea. I’m sure there’s lots of good stuff but I can’t figure out the web site.
But I can recommend FotoNOMA: The District Experience. Admission is only $5 and includes photos from Strata Collective, Instant DC, The Pulitzer Center, International League of Conservation Photographers(ILCP), American Photographic Artists (APADC), Silvercore Photographers, Critical Exposure, Washington School of Photography, Galerie Blue Square, Indie Photobook Library, Empty Stretch and Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW).
The Strata Collective includes many of my favorite DC photographers such as Joshua Yospyn and Matt Dunn. They are experts at catching the absurdities of urban life. Many of their photos will be familiar to you, if you read the City Paper or local blogs.
I’m also friends with the folks behind InstantDC. Founded by James Campbell, the group has expanded my idea of the possibilities of mobile photography, from cutting-edge tools to different ways of seeing the world.
The International League of Conservation Photographers is also represented at FotoNOMA. They’re a great group of incredibly talented photographers who use their National Geographic-level skills to further environmental conservation.
FotoNOMA: The District Experience runs through November 10. The exhibit is just a couple blocks from the New York Avenue Metro. A whole new neighborhood is going up there. Check it out.
“The journey is its own reward” should be the slogan of the Coffeeneuring Challenge. It’s not the coffee you drink, but how you get there.
That was my consolation after drinking this.
A bowl of hot milk – enjoy!
It was supposed to be a cappuccino, from Quartermaine’s in Bethesda. It was more like hot milk in a bowl with a dollop of espresso. I’d been so spoiled on my previous coffeeneuring adventures to Dolcezza and Buzz Bakery that this mediocre concoction was a shock.
I needed to return to DC, where cappuccino was made by surly men with beards. So I gulped this down and headed back to the Capital Crescent Trail. It’s my favorite trail in the Washington area and the one I ride the most. The CCT follows an old railway line from Georgetown to Bethesda, with a gentle uphill grade most of the way. Scenic year-round, it had exploded with fall colors over the weekend.
There’s actually a speed limit on the CCT – 15 miles per hour. On the downhill run back to Georgetown, it’s easy to exceed the posted limit. DC hasn’t figured out how to post speed cameras on bike trails – yet.The MD section of the CCT is maintained by Montgomery County. It’s in better shape than the DC section, which is neglected by the National Park Service.The Dalecarlia Tunnel, where the CCT passes under MacArthur Boulevard.And then there’s great old railway bridge over the C&O Canal.The Sunday after the time change, and the shadows were long.For the last few miles into DC, the CCT runs parallel to the C&O Canal. This is at Fletcher’s Cove.The CCT begins in Georgetown, right under Key Bridge. The late afternoon light and the fall colors were absolutely perfect. Crazy how good iPhone pics can be with the right light.
Four coffeeneuring adventures completed – three to go! Will I complete all of my seven required trips by November 17? Will I have better luck in coffee? Stay tuned!
Progress in this city is as rutted and uneven as the bike lane pictured above. This is the 15th St Cycletrack. It’s supposed to be a bike lane running along the curb, protected from traffic by white, reflective bollards and a line of parked cars on the left.
The DC Department of Transportation (DDOT) is rebuilding the lane – great! But they tore it up and left it this way, with no detours or accommodations for cyclists. Without white painted lanes or bollards, drivers don’t know it’s a cycletrack. They drive and park in it while cyclists come the opposite way – a recipe for accidents.
DDOT was warned. WABA asked to help during the planning process – and was ignored. And once the construction started, cyclists tweeted at them, including me, after witnessing WABA Bike Ambassador Pete Beers nearly get killed. I asked that orange cones be put up to mark the lane. DDOT assured me that they would fix the problem. But they did nothing.
This infuriates me. I work in government. I respond to citizen concerns every day. Civil servants have a duty to fix problems. DDOT under the Fenty administration responded to and fixed problems the same day.
This DDOT project has been poorly planned, reckless and negligent. It would not have happened under Adrian Fenty. But is commonplace under Mayor Gray. Cast your vote accordingly.
