writer, photographer, web person from Washington, DC.
A pair of costumed riders pause for a moment during the Tour de Fat bike parade. We weren’t really heading for the interstate but passed underneath it on the way back to Yards Park. Shot with an iPhone, edited in Flickr mobile app using Mammoth filter.
Who wouldn’t want to parade around DC on bikes and then drink Fat Tire?
Well, maybe not cycle-hating Dorothy Rabinowitz, lest her wig get disturbed, but every other normal human loves biking and drinking beer. And we had a great Saturday to do it at the annual Tour de Fat.
Sponsored by my favorite New Belgium Brewing (maker of Fat Tire, Shift, Ranger and Dig – all great beers), Tour de Fat was a big, whimsical bike festival that benefited local biking advocacy organizations like WABA. Continue reading “Tour de Fat Rolls into DC”
Come check out my photo at the 2013 FotoDC Cherry Blossom photo contest opening reception on Thursday, May 23rd from 6:30-8:30pm at Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts (CDIA). The winners, honorable mentions, and some FotoDC favorites will be showing at CDIA from May through June.
My iPhone pic is one of the honorable mentions.
CDIA is located at 1055 Thomas Jefferson St NW in Georgetown, across the street from Baked and Wired 🙂
DC Shorts Laughs featured local comedians with some of the funniest films from the DC Shorts Film Festival. Short flicks alternated with comics Jon Mumma, Brandy Reece and David Miller from the Funniest Fed competition (yes, there is such a thing). The show played to a full house at the Navy Memorial Theater on May 18.
The comics were great but First Date from Steven DeGennaro is probably the film the audience will remember most – it is horrifying and hilarious at the same time.
I was in the front row, shooting for DC Shorts. See the complete set of photos to get a taste of the evening.
Coming up next month for DC Shorts is Popcorn and Pasties – “short flicks and even shorter skirts in a debauched evening of cinema.” I wrote that memorable line of copy. So proud… 😉
Each year, The American University School of Communications’ Visions Festival celebrates outstanding student work in the categories of film, photography, broadcast and new media.
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.
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
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.
Due to a sequester-related contracting snafu, I get a spring break of an indeterminate length! Hopefully, I will be back to work at the National Weather Service in a week or two.
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:
I’ve got plenty to do.
I’ve had two photos recently in Flickr Explore, which selects the most interesting photos from around this photosharing site. Both are mobile pics, taken with my iPhone 5, and edited with the Flickr app.
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.
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