Category Archives: Photography

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Warm Pre-Summer Nights (and Other Things)

Last night I finally finished my Artomatic installation for this year. I’ve been around 95% of the way done for a week and a half; my wall was painted, my lights were installed, my photographs were hung, my business card holder and guest book holder were both attached to the wall. Happily, the last piece of the puzzle showed up yesterday—yellow vinyl lettering for my name—so I placed it last night (along with labels for the photographs themselves) and it went up with no problems.

I wasn’t smart enough to bring my camera with me, but I did snap a quick photo with my cell phone, enough to give an idea of the finished product. (I suppose I should’ve turned on the lights and taken off the yellow registration card on the left-hand side, but oh well.)

Artomatic Setup

Afterwards, I took the metro back over to L’Enfant Plaza (there was a Nationals Game next door to Artomatic so getting parking there just wasn’t going to happen) and I just kept marvelling at what a beautiful night it was. I can’t remember the last time I’ve walked around DC at night where it wasn’t a busy city street; just a stroll through the monuments, or around the Mall, that sort of thing. It’s so beautiful and peaceful then, and you really feel like you have the whole place to yourself. I need to make time to do just that over the summer.

But more importantly, walking back down the street, looking at the Capitol up ahead, I remember thinking how great it was to still find myself in a real “work in progress” stage of my life. My photography is still in its early stages but it’s been really uplifting to feel like I’m learning. I’m still finding new things I enjoy to do, or rediscovering old forgotten ones. Over the past few days I’ve gotten some really nice e-mails regarding reviews I’ve written. It’s like, yeah, it’s starting to fall into place.

In unrelated news, I had my first allergy serum shot this morning. So far there has been no mutation into some sort of supervillain. Very disappointing. But it did give me time to read 80-odd pages in John Kessel’s The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, and I’m enjoying the anthology so far. I’ll almost certainly finish it and several other books on my trip up to Indiana, PA this weekend for a family reunion. This reunion closes out two months of craziness when it has come to my weekends. I have almost nothing on the calendar for June and I’m making a concerted effort to keep it that way. Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be really nice to see a lot of the extended family this weekend, but I’m going to be happy once it’s over and I’m home and getting to focus on little things, or doing nothing at all.

Isn’t that what warm pre-summer nights are for, after all?

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Wishing I Had a Porch

Last Saturday was a little crazy busy for me; I had a 12-mile run in the morning (with another one scheduled for Sunday morning), business to take care of at my parents’s house out in Vienna, and dinner with some of Charlie’s co-workers up in Chevy Chase. And let me first get out of the way, the run was great—Charlie and I ran it together, and despite some nasty headwinds beating us down, we had a really good time. Likewise, dinner (at La Ferme) was also excellent, with good company and good food.

But I have to say, the best part of Saturday? It may have been after I’d finished taking care of everything out at the family estate, and I got to sit out on the deck and read my book for about an hour.

A Peaceful Afternoon [365portraits: 094]

I know, it doesn’t sound like much. But one of the things that I’ve really missed when I moved into Arlington was having my own porch or balcony; it’s something that while in both Falls Church and Tysons that my place had and I somewhat took for granted. There are a lot of nice parks in my current neighborhood that I can walk to and kick back and relax at… but there’s something extra-special about being somewhere all by yourself and just able to really and fully unwind. Especially in the spring.

It was just a great way to spend the afternoon; finishing the second 400 pages of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life, drinking a (rare for me) soda, letting the sun keep me warm, and not worrying about anything else. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon, and being outside means that I don’t find myself looking at everything in my home and thinking, “I really should take care of that.”

I also got to fiddle around a bit with a new camera lens; it’s a macro lens that lets me get some tight focuses on objects and blur everything else out behind them. I’m definitely still learning its finer points but so far I’m pretty happy with what it’s letting me do.

Daffodills Daffodill

Mom’s daffodills are already getting a little droopy and towards the end of their cycle, so it was nice to have someone appreciate them while they’re still out. (You know, for someone who hated hated hated weeding the garden all those years, every now and then I think that it would be nice to have a garden of my own. What sort of horrible subliminal brainwashing is going on with me?)

And speaking photography, I started looking at alternate lighting ideas for Artomatic this year, and may have found paydirt. Of course, what I really need to do is get up early on Saturday and hopefully finish up the set of photos for the exhibit. And then print the photographs, and buy frames… and paint for my wall at Artomatic… get new business cards…

It’s no small wonder I still owe some people e-mails from two months ago. Or why updates here are few and far between. I’m ready to become fabulously wealthy and live a life of leisure, can’t you tell?

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Ready to Run [365portraits: 029]

Ready to Run [365portraits: 029]

My plan today was to get up early and run some mile repeats at my gym’s indoor track. Unfortunately, my gym’s hours are tied to Arlington County schools, and they had a delayed opening.

Undaunted, I squeezed my run in right after work. Not when I’d have preferred it, because I was planning on watching Top Chef and making some homemade soup for dinner… but there’s time for everything! It’s all good.

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A Year of Self-Portraits

In November 2006, I tried a project where I took a picture every day for a year. It was a lot of fun, it made me get out there with my camera every day, and most importantly I think it helped me a lot with my photography. This year, starting in New Year’s Day, I’m working on a slightly similar project—only this time it’s a self-portrait a day.

I did this for two reasons. First, I like the idea of getting out there and taking photos every day, but making it a little different so I could keep my attention span up. But second, for someone who likes being behind the camera, I’m not so good about being in front of the camera. So, this will hopefully help me with that.

As I’ve been uploading my photos, though, I’ve been putting more and more commentary with them. So, I think that I’m going to start cross-posting them here (provided there is some actual meat to them). Just little glimpses into what I’ve been up to.

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A Very Pleasant Surprise

A couple of weeks ago I’d mentioned that the Ellipse Center was holding the All Arlington Salon, a show for people who live and work in Arlington, running from August 1st through September 13th, and with an opening tonight.

After a lot of hemming and hawing, I decided that my Winged Migration photo would go into the show. I love the huge numbers of geese as they fly through the air. And of course, I double- and triple-guessed myself. Was it the right choice? Would people like it?

Well, apparently so; I got to the opening an hour after it began and saw the tell-tale red dot next to my photograph’s number. Someone had already bought the piece.

Sold!

So yes, that was a very nice surprise. I met the purchaser, who was super-sweet. And I’m so happy it’s going to a home with someone who wants it. The excitement wasn’t over the money, but rather that someone liked it enough to buy it. I’m quite literally over the moon.

A great way to end the day.

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Down to Earth

Charlie and I went and saw WALL-E on Sunday night and it was, well, as great as everyone said it was. This is a movie I’d actually want to see in the theatre again (although movies are so darn expensive these days, who knows); just beautiful in both animation and story. And if that wasn’t enough, the super-fantastic Scott Morse designed the closing credits, which were beautiful and had a new song by Peter Gabriel (“Down to Earth”) playing over them. And I freely admit that I have listened to said song over a dozen times in the past 24 hours.

Obsessive? Me? Oh no.

I also found out this weekend (or was reminded of after I’d forgotten) that the Ellipse Arts Center in Arlington is having a six-week exhibition starting in August showcasing art from Arlington residents. The day one has to drop off the art is Thursday, so it’d have to be something that I showed in Artomatic. What’s nice is that the Center handles sales (for a percentage of the asking price), and it would certainly be nice to sell another piece. I didn’t come even close to breaking even at Artomatic; I wasn’t expecting to come out ahead, but I was certainly hoping to do so. When the show was over, I went home with all but two of the 5×5″s (that a nice gentleman in Falls Church bought), and one piece that Charlie had said he wanted and which I gave to him.

On the bright side, though, it certainly made me think a lot more about what I would do differently next time (a lot); presentation and selection and print size choices certainly had a lot to do with it. Glad I learned (or at least I think I did), but it would’ve been nice to have some of the costs offset.

Ah well! I’ve been having fun taking the new camera to the farmer’s market (as people who look at my Flickr account have no doubt seen) and I figure I’ve got a few more sessions to go there as the summer progresses. I like to imagine having a huge kitchen with which I could use some of those photos to decorate. One of these days, right?

Oops, American Gladiators is on. And such is my life, these days…

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Turnaround Shift

When I used to work in management at Giant Food, I occasionally got the dreaded “turnaround shift”—closing the store and leaving around midnight, then being scheduled to open the store the next morning which meant arriving around 6am. It was never a pleasant experience, but at least most stores tried to keep it from happening. (The exception was my six week stint in Leesburg, where the assistant manager instantly took a hatred to me and did everything he could to give me turnaround shifts, knowing I lived an hour away from the store. It ended because I got a job offer elsewhere and quite happily turned in my notice. The assistant manager was eventually fired for sexually harassing another employee and being stupid enough to do so in front of the security cameras. A happy ending for everyone, really.)

I mention this because I feel like I’m on a slight turnaround shift right now; after going away on a Saturday-through-Monday vacation with Charlie, tomorrow morning I leave on a Tuesday-through-Thursday business trip. So far all I’ve accomplished upon returning home this afternoon was unpacking my bag and starting up the laundry. Shortly I’ll repack the bag with clothes for the next couple of days.

It was a nice mini-vacation, though. We’d gone back to the Guest House at Lost River, which was as relaxing as always. When we went last time it was a Friday-through-Sunday stay, which most people seem to favor. So we met some nice people and hung out with others, and that sort of thing. But this trip was in part because we needed some one-on-one time, and Saturday-through-Monday fit our schedules better. And I’m glad we did it; it meant that almost everyone else left Sunday morning. So while we went hiking in Lost River State Park, the Guest House just about entirely cleared out. That meant once we got back, it was wonderfully quiet. So we read some books and magazines, took naps, and just enjoyed being around each other with no one else in sight.

Canny Crow Overlook

Don’t get me wrong, there were some nice people there on Saturday (one couple we met on Saturday night and then talked to some on Sunday morning at breakfast seemed particularly nice and had a great story about how they’d gotten together), and if we hadn’t been looking for some quiet time I think we’d have really enjoyed hanging out with each other. But instead it was great to just relax. I think we both needed it.

(Oh, and after taking 198 photos, I’ve already deleted 108 of them off the hard drive. And I think only eight of those which remain are actual keepers. Argh. Oh well, at least that’s a higher number than zero, right? Still learning, here.)