Party Report: DCist Exposed Photography Show

party sceneLast night was opening night for DCist Exposed, a gallery exhibit of some of the most interesting photos from around the Washington region. Read my FAQ to learn more about this interesting show which, by the way, runs until March 27 at Long View Gallery.

After hanging out there for a couple of hours, drinking beer and talking to photogs, what did I learn?

  • Long View is almost too cool to be in DC. It’s enormous, sparse and separated by historic Blagden Alley by just a glass garage-style door. Last year, it played host to the opening party of DC Week too. One drawback: only two little bathrooms in the back, not ideal for large crowds served beer.
  • I cannot tell the difference between the various varieties of Yeungling that they served last night.
  • Giving the photogs and DCist staff name tags was an excellent idea. You could easily spot the show’s participants.
  • From Samer Farha, one of the show judges, learned that Mpix was a good place for prints and Apex in Virginia was a great place for framing. We both agreed: insanely expensive to print at home.
  • Brian Mosley informed me that you don’t have to go too early down to the Mall on July 4th to get a shot like this. I find this hard to believe.
  • Art lovers bought photos on opening night, including this classic shot of a stunned-looking Mayor Fenty. The photographers don’t know who buys their pics.
  • Selling tickets in advance was a brilliant idea. No fire marshals and there was plenty of room for everyone.
  • Heather Goss, who started DCist Exposed, has about five different jobs. But not to worry, she’s apparently a machine.
  • People liked my line in the FAQ I wrote for the Pink Line Project about the DCist commentators being a “riotous crew of misfits.” That’s me literary background.

Be sure to check out these great photos of the night from Vincent Gallegos. Can’t wait til next year!

Update: more great pics from DCist!

FlackRabbit

I wrote a little piece on making your blog look good on the iPhone for FlackRabbit, my friend Margie Newman’s blog. FlackRabbit is filled with useful thoughts on social media and PR. She’s a communications professional who really gets the web – there’s not many of them out there.

Technically, I’m not in PR. But I’ve worked long enough in web strategy and communications to have strong feelings on the subject.

Look for more articles on FlackRabbit in the coming months!

Me, Schmap and the iPhone

Schmap publishes a series of local city guides.  They found some of my pictures of DC and elsewhere on Flickr and used them (with my permission) in their local guides.  They just released Schmap Guides for the iPhone, basically iPhone optimized versions of their guides.

What was slick and considerate of them was that they emailed me about their new guides.  And, even better, they included a link so that I could see what my pics looked like in the iPhone versions.  They didn’t have to do that – they already have my permission to use my pictures – but I think it’s pretty smart to do so.  Being an iPhone user myself, I was impressed that they had converted their guides and my pics over to the iPhone.  It sounds cheesy but seeing my pics on a mocked-up iPhone on a web page really made me feel special.  I’m sure it’s done with a big database but this little bit of personalization broke through my cynicism.  It was a well-executed bit of one-to-one marketing.