Photography Archives - Page 4 of 20

The Maritime Republic of Eastport

Island life makes people a little crazy. Key West has the Conch Republic and a little neighborhood in Annapolis has the Maritime Republic of Eastport?

While technically not an island, Eastport feels that way, located across a drawbridge from highfalutin historic Annapolis, MD. But you won’t find cobblestone streets and signers of the Declaration of Independence here. With its narrow lanes, wooden shacks and air redolent of the Chesapeake Bay, it really did remind me a bit of Key West.

My trip to Eastport was courtesy of Enterprise CarShare. I’m a social media ambassador for them, like a real millennial. It was a day trip for me. Easy – you reserve a car online, swipe a card over a sensor on the windshield and drive off. Gas is even included.

Ford Escape – an SUV that I actually like.

I picked a Ford Escape which was conveniently parked a block from me. I really like that little SUV. You can haul stuff with it (like a bike) but it’s also nimble enough to parallel park.

Annapolis is about an hour from DC. Once there, I stopped for coffee at Ceremony.

Photo Aug 28, 10 21 59 AM — Coffee and a muffin at Ceremony Coffee in Annapolis.

Then I met my friends Lynn and Anthony for lunch at Davis’ Pub in Eastport. Crab dip over a pretzel – delicious! It was also nice to sit outside by the water at this unpretentious bar.

Photo Aug 28, 12 28 51 PM — Lynn and Anthony has said that no one has ever not liked this crab dip – they were right!

We then walked over to the Annapolis Maritime Museum. This riverfront museum is devoted to the history, ecology and the arts of the Chesapeake Bay. Learned a bunch about oysters. And they had a great exhibit of photos on the people still wresting a living from the bay.

Photo exhibit at the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

This was the third of my three free trips courtesy of Enterprise. I get free travel and a small fee, and they get photos to use online. It’s been a great opportunity to explore new places and take photos.

When I briefly owned a car in DC, all I did was worry about tickets, break-ins and having my car towed to some distant lot. Carsharing is easier, even for a non-millennial like me.

Photo Aug 28, 1 14 45 PM — Not a millennial.

Canon G9 X: First Impressions

My first digital camera was a Canon and since then I’ve been wedded to the brand. It was a Canon Digital ELPH S110, I believe, a compact 2.1 megapixel shooter that I paid close to $400 in 2001. Back then, anything digital was impressive. But I also really liked the design – square and metal, it had a heft and solidity that soon disappeared in digital point-and-shoots .

I moved on to DSLRs, getting a new Canon Rebel every few years. And the iPhone got better and better, largely eliminating the need for a point-and-shoot camera. And almost eliminating the need for a DSLR.

I tried different point-and-shoots but was unimpressed, finding them slow and disliking their cheap plastic bodies.

With one exception: the Canon G series. This was a camera that I could love, being fast, good in low light and with a metal body that seemed substantial in one’s hand. It seemed solid, reliable and made by people who recognized its value. This was not a camera destined for the electronics aisle at Target but a well-constructed tool to be used by professionals.

So when the Canon G9 X went on sale at B&H, I jumped at the opportunity to get a decent point-and-shoot. B&H is awesome – I received the camera the next day. While it was billed as an “open box” special, it looked brand new to me.

Think I’m going to like this camera. While smaller than in the pictures (think smaller than an iPhone), it has the heft that I want, as well as capable of producing some awesome images. It’s fast and fun.

And beautiful, a trait that should not be underestimated when marketing electronics. Devices are more than just functions, they need to be aesthetically appealing, like the iPhone.

My only complaint: wish it had a longer zoom. This is an area where Canon has fallen behind Sony and Nikon.

Still, the Canon G9 X is perfect for my needs. I wanted a camera to take on my bike, something light and yet capable of producing better images than a mobile phone. The Canon G9X easily fits into a bike seat bag, with room for a wallet, iPhone and Clif bar.

And when I carry it in my messenger bag, I don’t even notice that it’s there. I put it in an interior pocket because it got lost among my books and papers. It starts up quickly so you can grab a quick shot on the go.

One other slight complaint: a viewfinder would be nice but I recognize it’s 2016 and the kids don’t use them. We’ve all gotten used to looking at screens.

I think this will be a fun little camera, rekindling my my love for point-and-shoots, and ideal for my biking and wandering around the streets of Washington, DC.

Del Ray Ramble: Going Back for Biscuits

I'm in historic, sweaty Del Ray. — I’m in historic, sweaty Del Ray.

Record heat is predicted this weekend. But last weekend was plenty hot for me, so I got my biking in early Sunday morning.

I was up at 7 and out the door not too long after. Sunday morning is the best time to bike in DC, with very little traffic in the city and before the tourists arrive. I cruised over the Memorial Bridge and on to the Mount Vernon Trail. Destination: Alexandria.

Approaching the boardwalk on Daingerfield Island, a cyclist going the opposite way shouted an incoherent warning to me. Wonder what that was about?

Then I saw:

Tree down on the Mt Vernon Trail at Daingerfield Island.

There had been a storm overnight, leaving a massive tree branch across the trail. The bridge was damaged – chunks were missing from it and debris was scattered everywhere. I walked my bike through this mess, stepping over the missing boards.

After having coffee at the Starbucks in Old Town, I decided to take a different route home, to avoid the tree across the trail.

Cameron makes a nice alternative to King Street, a low-traffic route that led me up from the river and to the Potomac Yards Trail, which parallels the train tracks into DC. I followed this new trail for about a mile before detouring into Del Ray on Monroe Av.

There, I passed a beautiful-looking Swing’s Coffee across from a park – that’s where I should’ve had breakfast! I filed that way for next time.

Making a right on Mount Vernon (the avenue, not the trail), I idled through Del Ray. It’s like hipster Alexandria. It was early but there was a line to get in to a place called Stomping Grounds. If only I knew they had biscuits! Another place filed away for next time.

Mount Vernon takes you back to Four Mile Run. Along the way, I passed this bus, which I found very interesting. Traveling the country in a rolling coffee house – that sounds like a dream.

Bus owned by Cllegro Coffee Company. — Bus owned by Allegro Coffee Company.

Rather than take Four Mile Run to the Mount Vernon Trail, I went through Crystal City, stopping to take in this spooky bit of art near some new apartments off Route 1.

Then I got back on the Mt Vernon Trail and returned to DC, just as buses began disgorging hordes of tourists at the Lincoln Memorial. The day only got hotter after that. Glad that I got in my Del Ray ramble early.

I’m going back for biscuits.

Photography Show: New Orleans by Ben Carver

A friend of mine once lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans. After first visiting during Mardi Gras, I returned every few years, my last trip occurring just a few months before Hurricane Katrina. While everyone knew that the city was basically a big bathtub, and that a storm could fill that bathtub with water, no one expected the unthinkable to happen.

And then it did. What surprised me was the long-lasting impact the storm had. The city was devastated, livelihoods were wiped out and thousands of people left the city forever – including my friend Bob. I visited a year after Katrina and much of the city seemed like a ghost town. It’s slowly recovered since then.

Ben Carver spent three months walking the neighborhoods of New Orleans, capturing the city as it exists ten years after Hurricane Katrina. An exhibit of his photos recently took place at the White Room in Shaw, featuring selections from the 600+ images that comprise this collection.

For anyone who has visited New Orleans, the photos evoke a lot of nostalgia. I’ve been a fan of the city since reading A Confederacy of Dunces, one of my favorite books of all time. It’s unlike any other place in the United States – and I hope it remains that way.

DC to Leesburg by Bike and Metro: A Multimodal Adventure

Last weekend, I rode to Reston, taking a 50-mile bike ride from DC into the outer suburbs of the nation’s capital.

I wanted to ride the WO&D Trail again but wanted to skip over the parts of the trail that I had already done. I would use Metro for that purpose, since you can take your bike on the train on the weekends. With the new Silver Line running out to Reston, it seemed like the perfect solution, allowing me to leapfrog ahead to where I left off last weekend. Bikes and trains – a perfect multimodal adventure!

But, of course, there was track work on the weekend, as always with Metro. Orange line trains were running only every 20 minutes and the Silver Line was terminating at Ballston rather than running into DC.

I checked wmata.com for the next Orange Line train before leaving home. I hurried to Farragut West and was so proud of myself for making the train!

Unfortunately, I blanked on switching to the Silver Line at Ballston and so just stayed on the train to the end of the line in Vienna. Then I biked through the neighborhoods and back to the WO&D.

It’s a beautiful trail that just gets better the further west you go. Every few miles, there’s another town, with a brewery, bike shop and coffee place. I don’t know how people bike the length of it without stopping multiple times. I biked through Reston, Herndon and Sterling without stopping.

But when I smelled the barbecue at Carolina Brothers in Ashburn, I had to stop. Located right next to the trail, it’s awfully tempting.

I actually went past it, thought about it and then turned around and came back. I’m glad I did. It’s a great spot. Casual, fast and filled with cyclists enjoying a mild Sunday afternoon.

Once you get past Ashburn, the trail really opens up. With its long straightaways and miles between road crossings, it attracts the road biking crowd.

For me, I kept on to Leesburg, where I stopped for coffee, of course! My motto: Always Be Coffeeneuring. I had cappuccino at King Street Coffee along with a new doggie friend. Cute place and excellent coffee.

Purcellville and the end of the trail was another ten miles. I decided to save that for a future trip. I turned around and headed back, passing many tempting trailside breweries.

This time I would catch the Silver Line in Reston. The Wiehle Avenue station is right off the trail, though you have to navigate a bit of construction to find your way into it. The station was really anticlimactic. I was expecting something more glamorous. But it looked just any other Metro station complete with a 1970s-era train waiting at the platform. Got on the train and sat there for a good twenty minutes, along with tourists coming from Dulles. Yup, it’s always this way, I wanted to tell them.

The Silver Line train then slowly chugged its way past Tyson’s Corner then down the middle of I-66 before ending in Ballston. Getting off the train, a crowd of confused passengers waited on the platform. The next train into DC wasn’t for another 20 minutes (at least).

Thank god I had a bike! I abandoned Metro and headed for the Custis Trail, flying downhill into Rosslyn, then over the Memorial Bridge to home.

Lesson Learned: Using Metro to leapfrog ahead on the WO&D would be great if the transit system actually worked. But a bike is more reliable.

Next Level Craft at the House of Sweden

InstagramDC recently got a sneak peek at the Next Level Craft exhibit at the House of Sweden in Georgetown. This beautiful embassy along the Potomac played host to an exhibit described as:

A mythical wedding, a demonstration, a carnival, a funeral procession, a fashion show or perhaps a combination of all these? A colorful parade of mysterious creatures wander through a fictitious northern landscape carrying unique crafted objects. Who are they and where are they going?

Next Level Craft is not your typical handicraft exhibition – it has its own soundtrack and music video. The renowned young Swedish artist Aia Jüdes has created a playful and different tale of craft, mixing voguing (a modern dance style characterized by perfect, stylized hand and arm movements, acrobatic poses and flamboyant fashion), street art, high fashion, pop culture and electronic music with everything from wool embroidery, weaving and felting to root binding, wood turning and birch bark braiding.

It was a surreal experience, a room filled with bizarre objects and an ever-changing lightshow. Adding to the strangeness was a trippy video of dancing Swedes. So much weirdness for InstagramDC to photograph, as the lights cycled from red to blue.

Best of all, photography was encouraged! It’s a very forward-thinking embassy for hosting this strange exhibit and for reaching out to local photographers to cover it. We had a blast taking pictures of these unique crafts and posing for photos in the weird lighting.

That was cool. But getting up on the roof was even cooler.

There was an amazing view of Rosslyn and the Kennedy Center, from a vantage point that few get to see. It was sleeting but no way was I going to miss this experience.

As a writer, it’s inspiring to see creative work. It’s source material for me. I wrote Murder on U Street, my novel about homicide in DC’s art scene, after having similar experiences. So don’t be surprised if a trippy Swedish art exhibit shows up in a future book 😉

DC Walkabout: Meridian Hill and Millie & Al’s

As mentioned in my previous post, it’s time to walk. Walk hard. I pulled a muscle in my calf so I can’t run for a while. Instead, I’m going to walk around this city – a different direction each time – and blog about the things that I see. This week’s adventure: Meridian Hill and Millie Al’s.

I had to visit Millie & Al’s one last time before they closed. Millie’s is an iconic dive bar that’s been on 18th Street in Adams Morgan for decades.

Leaving my Logan Circle apartment, I set off up 15th Street on Wednesday after work. Musical choice was the excellent new album from Blur, The Magic Whip.

Spring is a funny season in DC. Warm one day, freezing the next. I happened to catch Mother Nature on one of her nice days, mild and overcast.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have Tulipmania. I’m just in love with these splashes of color that blossom all over the city in April. Sometimes, they appear in the most unexpected places, like behind the mysterious Scottish Rite Temple on 16th St. I’m sure the flowers are used in some sort of mysterious ritual. Or maybe they’re just for the neighborhood to enjoy.

I passed the apartment where I used to live, back in the 90s, pre-Whole Foods, when the neighborhood was transitional. At that time, 14th Street was to be avoided, unless you were looking for crack or hookers. Other than the Black Cat, most everything else along the street was boarded up. However, the neighborhood was cheap enough that a recent grad like me could afford to live there.

When I lived at 15th and Swann, I liked to walk up to Meridian Hill Park. Back then it was more commonly referred to Malcolm X Park, but demographic changes have made that moniker seem absurd. People do yoga in that park now. Boot camps drill bridesmaids in the morning. Bros throw frisbees around. Malcolm X Park is no more.

One place that remained from the 90s was Millie & Al’s. I mean literally the same, down to the same Star Trek models hanging from the ceiling and the filthy, cramped bathrooms – part of its charm. It was not a fake dive bar like hipster-friendly Showtime. It was the real thing, a place to sit in a booth and drink pitchers of beer, while you waited for the $1 jello shots sign to turn on.

Millie’s was the first bar I ever went to in Adams Morgan. In the rough and tumble DC of Marion Barry, 18th Street still had a residential character to it – there was a hardware store along the street. The only bars were Millie’s and the even more divey Dan’s. I used to drink with my roommates Bob and Colin after taking the 92/96 bus from our apartment near National Cathedral.

I liked taking people there – it was cheap and had a feel of real DC about it. Broke foreign students particularly liked it. You could go to Adams Morgan on a weekend until around 2003 before you felt like you were entering a riot zone. 18th Street turned into Bourbon Street with brawls and vomit predominant. But I guess must’ve made some impression at Millie’s because I ran into one of the bouncers about five years ago and he remembered me.

Millie & Al’s closed on April 7. This dark drinking hole where beer was sold in plastic pitchers and you had to navigate a stairway to reach a couple of cramped toilets – it fetched a cool $1.8 million. Drinking is big business in DC.

As a lover of dive bars, it would be easy to be melancholy. Gentrification claimed Millie & Al’s. However, this same force revitalized 14th Street and made Meridian Hill Park safe to visit. Progress is a good thing, even when you lose an iconic drinking institution.

DC Walkabout: Sunsets, Tulips and Barbies

I have a calf strain, a sharp twinge that occurred when I was playing soccer about a week ago. It’s prevented me from running. I can only go about a mile before the twinge forces me to stop and walk. The only remedy for this pain is time. Instead of running after work, I had to come up with a new activity.

I decided to do evening walkabouts, ambulatory strolls around downtown Washington. I started last night, just as the rain was tapering off.

My destination: the White House. There I discovered tulips, their petals closed up and sparkling with rain drops.

After taking some tulip pics, I headed for Farragut Square. The rain had stopped and the clouds had cleared in the west. Suddenly, the streets were suffused with a warm, golden light.

And then, in the sky over the office buildings, a rainbow appeared – a good luck sign, blessing the idea of evening walkabouts.

I continued my way up Connecticut Avenue to Dupont Circle. It’s a destination that I’m drawn to again and again. Not only is it a pretty spot, but it represents something to me – it’s where I first got a taste of urban life after coming to DC for college. It was where we went to eat Greek food at Zorba’s (still there) and drink in local bars (most of which are gone or changed names). The sun was just beginning to set as I arrived.

Listening to the Pixies, I headed east on Q St. There was one more destination I wanted to check out: the Barbie Pond Garden. This is a local institution that I have somehow missed. The owners of this house at 15th and Q decorate their garden with naked Barbies. This month’s theme was Easter.

It’s going to be a while before I can run again. The only remedy for pain is time. Instead of running, I’m going to walk in different directions – north, south, east, west – and write and take photos of what I discover in DC.

Here’s to Jon Gann

Jon and me – I’m on the right and a little drunk.

Here’s to Jon Gann, who recently left the DC Shorts Film Festival after thirteen years at its helm. In 2015, the festival showed 125 films from 26 countries in 17 unique showcases over 11 days to audiences of more than 9,000 people. DC Shorts was ranked as Moviemaker Magazine’s Coolest Short Film Festival for a reason – Jon created a festival that was for filmmakers, putting them at the center of the action.

I’m glad that I got to be a part of this unique event that brought so much joy to audiences and filmmakers. Meeting Jon literally changed my life – he’s one of the “superconnectors” who knows everybody and everything in the city. Need an event space for a 1000 people? Want the gossip on a local councilmember? Where can you find the best bagels in DC? Ask Jon and he’ll know.

I met Jon through a screenwriting group. When DC Shorts created a screenwriting competition, he asked me to help. I’ve done so every year since. The great thing about Jon is once he has confidence in you, he thinks you can do everything. I went from reading screenplays to managing the competition, a responsibility that put me on stage before hundreds of people – something I never imagined myself doing.

I loved being part of DC Shorts. I met actors, filmmakers and other creative types. It was inspiring to see scripts go from the printed page to life on screen. While I was never part of theater, putting on the live screenplay readings was like doing a staged play – it’s an exhilarating experience seeing the whole production come off.

Joel David Santner and Jon Gann — Jon awarding a $2000 check to Joel David Santner, winner of the DC Shorts Screenwriting Competition.

Once Jon discovers you are useful, you get lots more to do. I also managed event photography one year, supervising a couple dozen photographers as we covered the festival. An exhausting experience that taught me that I never wanted to be an event photographer! Having your picture snapped at a red-carpet event is glamorous. But for the photog, it means hours on your feet and lots of photos to edit.

Mary Kay Cook, Rocco Cataldo and Kati Mahalic — Sexy event photography

I’m not going to say that working with Jon was easy – anyone who knows him would know that’s not true.

Every year, I saw him go through a roller coaster of emotions during DC Shorts. On the opening night of the festival, he’d be convinced that everything was going to be failure. Where’s the food? What happened to the volunteers? Will we get press? He’d reach a fever pitch of anxiety (one I steered clear of) on the second night before collapsing into acceptance on the third night. Then he’d disappear and go drink bourbon with Kelley Baker.

Jon Gann and Kelley Baker — Jon and Kelley

By the time Sunday rolled around, he’d be content and verklempt, tearing up as he told the story of why he created the festival, before an audience of filmmakers who adored him.

I’m surprised he lasted thirteen years!

But, after a while, everything has to end. In just a few short years, Jon took DC Shorts from an idea in his head to one of the largest short film festivals on the East Coast. Now he’s on to something new.

I volunteered for DC Shorts year after year because it was about helping filmmakers. Under Jon’s tenure, DC Shorts also had a commitment to quality, from the films selected to the drinks at the party. As a volunteer, you want to feel that your work has meaning – and I did, getting to select scripts and take photos.

I don’t know what’s next for Jon, but I predict it will embody the values of DC Shorts – helping, quality and meaning. Here’s to the next big thing!

Photos Beyond the Monuments: Ten Years of Exposed

Congrats to Exposed DC, which recently marked ten years of celebrating photography in Washington, DC. They do so with an annual photo contest that highlights a city that most tourists never get to see – the DC beyond the monuments.

I was fortunate to be in the very first show back in 2006 with my photo “Rose Runs.” It’s the daughter of a friend of mine, captured as she was walking past a graffiti-covered wall in Stead Park near Dupont Circle. The park has since been cleaned up but I liked the contrast between the innocence of youth and the grit of the city.

The advent of digital cameras had drawn me into photography. I took “Rose Runs” with a Canon Digital Rebel, the first of its kind, costing more than $1000. Little did I know how much photography would change in the coming years.

That first show was in a series of rooms above The Passenger, near the Convention Center. The whole building would eventually be redeveloped but, at the time, it lingered on as a bit of old, rough DC. I missed opening night but came by later with some friends – including Rose herself!

What was great about Exposed (then known as DCist Exposed, and tied to the DCist blog) is that it introduced me to a community of digital photogs like myself, including Samer Farha, Jim Darling, Heather Goss, Jen Wade, James Calder, Pablo Raw and other great folks. I never thought photography could be social – until Exposed.

I love good beer. I love photography. I love meeting creative types. So every year, I went to Exposed, even if I wasn’t in the contest. The show moved around the corner and for several years was at Long View Gallery, where it attracted crowds that snaked down the block. And I began taking iPhone photos, with my iPhone 4.

In 2012, my photo of the Washington Monument being inspected for earthquake damage made the show. I had moved up to a Canon Rebel T2i, a faster and more capable camera than the original Rebel.

I had developed a fondness for black and white. And perhaps a tendency to get carried away with filters in Snapseed. For my interest in DSLRs was being overtaken by mobile photography, like most people. The iPhone had made photography easy, fast and social. Also, I won the Fotoweek Mobile Photography Competition in 2011, which opened my eyes to the value of iPhoneography.

The Exposed parties continued, drawing a huge crowd with delicious beers and treats in 2013, including DC-themed cookies. Exposed became a wonderful blur of drinking and talking photography.

In 2016, Exposed was at the historic Carnegie Library in DC, one of my favorite buildings in the city. I was glad to know so many people in the show, including Angela Napili, Holly Garner, Keith Lane, Noe Todorovich, Bridget Murray Law and Victoria Pickering. I didn’t even bring my Canon Rebel but instead just pocketed my iPhone 6 – it’s good enough. The triumph of mobile photography is almost complete.

Exposed DC has demonstrated that Washington is more than just monuments, revealing the real place beyond the iconic landmarks, as well as building a community of photographers. So, here’s to ten years of Exposed – and ten years more!