writer, photographer, web person from Washington, DC.
Want to see great Washington photos while enjoying DC Brau in a hip art gallery?
Then check out DCist Exposed. It’s the sixth year for this photography show. I have a photo in it too.
DCist Exposed is so big that they have two opening nights – March 21 and 22. I’ll be at both.
You will not find better entertainment for $10!
It was a beautifully mild spring morning – a perfect day to bike to work. Here a bike commuter travels south on 14th Street toward Luther Place Memorial Church.
This is an iPhone pic, modified by Instagram. It also appeared in DCist: Out and About: Weekend Picks.
This photo appeared in America at Work in The Atlantic. It’s a fascinating gallery of the diverse range of professions in this country. I love how The Atlantic does photojournalism so was delighted that they chose my picture for inclusion.
The photo is from an OccupyDC protest. Living in Washington, I see a lot of protests. But what’s interesting to me is how these events are covered by the media.
I’ve written a second novel. Don’t Mess Up My Block is a funny parody of self-help books like The Secret and Who Moved My Cheese. Here’s the description:
The secret to success is to not let other people “mess up your block.”
Or at least that’s what Laurent Christ thinks, in this satiric novel disguised as a self-help book.
Laurent has pursued self-improvement to its logical conclusion – he reinvents himself with a brand-new name and history. He drops a hundred pounds, shaves his head and goes on the road as a management consultant, providing advice to corporations around the county. Everywhere he goes, comic disaster follows as companies follow his glib counsel.
But failure is not going to stop him as follows the path laid out by his mentor, Esalen McGillicuddy. One man and a story – that’s all you need to make it in America.
As a management expert, he’s inevitably drawn to Washington, DC. But even he is appalled by the incompetent bureaucracy he finds in the city. Maybe he’s been wrong about everything. Maybe you need more than a catchphrase to find success in this country.
Laurent tells the sprawling story of his life in Don’t Mess Up My Block, a literary novel that examines the American faith in gurus and easy solutions. It’s a dark satire that is reminiscent of Catch-22 and Absurdistan.
Don’t Mess Up My Block is available in a variety of formats:
Check it out – the novel is a funny, entertaining read.
I live a block off 14th Street, the setting for much of George Pelecanos’s gritty crime novel, What It Was. Set in 1972, it’s a fascinating read for anyone who likes books set in the Washington “beyond the monuments.” Watergate is briefly touched on, but this book contains no Senators, no wacky Masonic conspiracy theories and hardly any politics at all.
What It Was concerns the lives of real people, mostly cops and criminals, in a city scarred by riots. The popular conception of 14th Street is that it was a wasteland, from the disturbances of 1968 to the start of gentrification in the 1980s. But life went on. Pimps, drug dealers and hustlers of all kinds moved in. And for a lot of them, and the cops that pursued them, it was a hell of a time, even a good one. Continue reading “What It Was by George Pelecanos”
OccupyDC still occupies McPherson Square. I was there on the day that they were supposed to be evicted. Nothing happened, except for this tent-raising, where OccupyDC covered the statue of General McPherson with a Tent of Dreams.
I heard about Slow Shutter from James Campbell, an iPhoneographer who I’m pretty sure has every iPhone photo app ever created. I was fascinated by the blurry, abstract long exposures that he had created with it.
I have a “real” camera, a Canon DSLR, that I could use to get long exposures. I’ve done so before, but it’s always a bit of trial and error, since I don’t create long exposures that often.
Slow Shutter has enabled me to get long exposures just with a click – the app is that easy. I downloaded it, played it with a bit (the controls are little cryptic), then went out into the street. I wanted a photo of cabs going by.
But the cabs weren’t going fast enough – they didn’t have the long lines I wanted. So, I went to another corner and waited for the stoplight to change. Taxis took off and I got my shot.
I ran the photo through Slow Shutter, adjusting the “freeze” until it was dreamy, blurry and ghostlike while still retaining enough of the scene to make it identifiable.
Then I used Instagram (best iPhone photo app ever) to crop it to a square, Polaroid format using the X-Pro II filter. The filter also vignetted the photo, something I always like.
My dreamy cab shot made the DCist Photo of the Day. It’s one of those common urban scenes but with a slightly different, mysterious perspective.
Some photographers might look at Slow Shutter and say, “That’s cheating.”
My knowledge of f-stops and exposure times is, at best, limited. Just a few years ago you’d need fancy equipment, technical knowhow and darkroom experience to get such a shot. Now it can be done with just a click.
But what can’t be duplicated by technology is a good eye. Apps like Slow Shutter just make it easier for photographers to achieve their vision.
And like a good iPhone app, it’s also a lot of fun.
This is a photo of the Sears Tower from the LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition at the National Building Museum. It’s a small exhibit but strangely fascinating, with iconic buildings reproduced in LEGOS.
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.
One of my favorite photos of the year was from an OccupyDC protest:
Continue reading “Art, Food and Protest: My Year in Photos”
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.