Category Archives: Featured Photo

Essential DC, Featured Photo, Life in the Capital, The Features
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Fright Night at the National Zoo


Krusty the Clown (and all other photos) by Max Cook

Usually the scariest things at the National Zoo are the lions, tigers, and screaming little kids, but as the animals slept in their cages Friday night, a different type of terror infiltrated the wooded hillside.  Clowns, zombies, skeletons, and other nightmarish creatures mingled together at the annual “Night of the Living Zoo”, a spectacle I felt compelled to document.  With live bands, freak shows, and loads of beer, it was a great way for hundreds of lunatics to let loose and kick off DC’s epic Halloween weekend.  As with most costume events that I’ve attended, people were more than willing to pose for my camera, the results which I share with you in hopes that you have a good laugh or better yet, a good nightmare.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘DC Streets: The Cathedral’
courtesy of ‘pnzr242’

High contrast black and white photography should be a genre onto itself. Not all pictures look good with that treatment, especially ones with people in them. The high contrast tends to add a sense of mystery and even undertones of evil.

But the best pictures amp the contrast while still retaining detail and without making the image too sinister. Flickrite pnzr242 seems to have hit the mark with this shot. His composition and treatment make this a standout photo. And, of course, it’s in a Metro station.

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo


DSC_0013 by mediaslave

Despite our best efforts, it’s hard to pick a favorite time of year.  Some say it’s the spring when the weather starts warming up and the cherry blossoms burst onto the scene.  Not long after we’re given an 80 degree day and are drinking margaritas on a patio which could easily contend for my favorite time of the year.  Yet somewhere deep down in my twisted psyche, the month of October will always hold a special place.

Perhaps it’s my memory of wearing vampire teeth with fake blood on them and running door to door with my friends to fill our pillowcases full of candy.  After a few years of practice, we knew which houses gave out caramel apples, which gave out toothbrushes, and which geriatric neighbors had the ability to scare the crap out of us regardless of what they were giving out.  As Seinfeld once said, the main objective of a kid is to, “Get candy, get candy, get candy,” and get candy we did.  Unfortunately, most houses gave out miniature versions of the real thing, from boxes of Nerds, to Dots, to Snickers.  It brought us great joy when our rich neighbors down the street plopped full size candy bars into our bags.  The weight of them as they hit the bottoms of our bags caused our tiny little arms to strain, but brought big smiles to our faces.  We then scurried off through the crisp October air, or snow as Denver would often have, to the next lit doorway in our sweaty little costumes.  We were on an important mission, a mission to get candy.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘(285/365)’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’

It’s still summer out there. Yesterday, we came within two degrees of breaking the record high temperature. Today, it’ll be in the low 80s. But fall is coming. It has to, you see:

The candy corn is in the stores. People are pumpkin picking. Sexy Big Bird costumes are in the stores. Even I am doing drinks and dinner outside.

And the Halloween decorations are out. Kim Baker‘s even got her house decorated (as do half my neighbors, it seems). There’s something just this side of menacing from that spider silhouette. But, as cool (or creepy) as that photo is, the best part of it is the sure knowledge that fall is coming.

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Featured Photo


Shirlington Oktoberfest by Amber Wilkie Photography

A photograph often evokes emotion in those that view it, however it isn’t necessarily the same emotion for everyone.  More than likely your soul is aglow with happiness as you look at this guy enjoying a beer on a sunny afternoon, wearing funny overalls and a smile that is no doubt a reflection of his lubricated contentment.  Yet I only feel deep sorrow, as I attended the real Oktoberfest celebration in Munich several weeks ago and am forced to draw comparisons.  To begin with the obvious, I’m sad that I’m now sitting behind a desk rather than visiting museums, strolling through the vast English Garden, and eating every imaginable type of pork product.  Not only do I feel sorry for myself, but I feel bad for the beer in this man’s hand.  It looks lonely and cheated as it should be surrounded by more beer in a much bigger mug.  I feel sorry for his arm as it should be getting tired from lifting a much heavier Maßkrug, and for his liver as it should be processing much more beer (likely of better quality).  I feel sorry for his ears which should be ringing from a nearby band and the loud singing of his drunken friends.  And his eyes?  His poor eyes.  They should be well distracted by beautiful girls packed into their dirndls.  Now if you’ll please excuse me, I’m going to go cry in my currywurst.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘top’
courtesy of ‘volcanojw’

Proving that photography doesn’t have to be about the equipment and that a good eye is at least as important, here’s a fantastic shot taken with a plain old iPhone camera.

Just as in comedy, timing is (almost) everything. Jenn‘s timing is impeccable, catching the escalator rider stepping off, silhouetted against the sky. The timing is especially difficult when using a phone or a point and shoot camera because of shutter lag.

And because timing isn’t everything, the lines, the sky, and the escalator form a nice frame and lead your eye to her reflection.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘DC Streets’
courtesy of ‘pnzr242’

The few elements of this photo that shine out from the darkness tell us everything we need to know: a man,  a train station, a grim expression, head bowed. We’ve all been there, isolated as we trudge from the Metro to the office or back again.

Photography is a game of precision timing and people and light. The people who wander the city’s streets with cameras in hand thrive on the rare moments when all three come together at the exact same instant the shutter clicks. You can get high on the feeling of success in those moments; in them you fall in love with your city, your commute, your camera, everything, all over again. Sure, absolute success is a little about luck, but it’s also about having an eye for the small moments that add up to great pictures. It’s about seeing great light and a great scene and lying in wait for the right subject to come along. Flickr user PNZR242 relied on skill and a little bit of luck to catch such a moment at a Metro station last week.

The man and the moment may seem stern, but in timing them just so perfectly, the photographer managed to raise the bar a little bit for everyone who lifts a camera to their eye and hopes to capture some magic.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘255/365’
courtesy of ‘dracisk’

Summer is still there, still hanging on, but fall is coming. This leaf, heavy with rain water, is the height of summer.

This photo by dracisk is a good example of why I love black and white photography. The color in this might be great. Bright greens, I’m sure, and the water magnifying that, too. But the photographer chose to make this a black and white. And it stands out.

The details are sharp, the lens fading off toward the bottom. The curve of the leaf takes your eye to the corner, and the leaf’s arrow like structure bring you back to the area of focus. I could look at that leaf for a long time.

Featured Photo
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Featured photo

Photo courtesy of
‘Katy in the surf’
courtesy of ‘MudflapDC’

Labor Day weekend is traditionally recognized as the End Of Summertime. School starts again, the weather (reportedly) begins to cool, and collectively we put away the swimsuits and get down to the business of life. In their quest to document summer’s last grasp, our pool of photographers did not disappoint: Many went to the beach and found some great ways to capture the atmosphere. Continue reading →

Featured Photo, Life in the Capital, We Love Arts
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Mod Madness at the Textile Museum


All photos by Max Cook

When the hustle and bustle of the modern world has a stranglehold on our sanity, we are quick to look for an escape maneuver.  Between the demands placed on us from all angles, the constant task of making ends meet, and the humdrum of our daily routines, we long for something different to speed up or slow down the tick-tock of the invisible metronome.  This is why we jump out of airplanes on purpose, take trips to faraway places, lose ourselves in books and movies, and find other creative ways to exercise the right side of our brains.

Along with this instinctive desire for escape, we often long for the days of the past, for a time when life seemed simple and had fewer complications.  Perhaps we covet the lifestyle of our parents’ generation or the days of our youth, the days before global warming, STD’s, and high fructose corn syrup.  We are nostalgic by nature which is why vintage clothing has always been (and always will be) so popular, why we buy classic cars, watch black and white movies, and collect antiques.  This is why we smile when we see a girl ride by on a 3-speed Raleigh bicycle, carrying flowers or groceries in the wicker basket, why we indulge in cheeseburgers and malts at silver roadside diners, and why we love the intangible feel of old grainy photographs.  This is why Mad Men is one of the hottest shows on TV today, and why Frank Sinatra songs will always make us want to slow dance with our partner.  While we can’t wait to see what the future holds, we will always keep one foot in the past.

I often think it would be great if for just one week, or even one day, we could all stop typing, stop texting, stop Twittering, and stop e-mailing.  Instead, write a letter, have a formal dinner party, go on a picnic, read the newspaper, and discuss things over coffee.  It appears that I’m not alone in my thinking, as last week hundreds of dreamers, escapists, and exhibitionists descended upon the Textile Museum for the second PM at the TM, an event called MOD MADNESS.  Presented in partnership with The Pink Line Project, well-dressed attendees were treated to interactive gallery tours by WE ARE SCIENCE, DYI silk screening by the Washington Printmakers Gallery and Kristina Bilonick, and live jazz by the Pete Muldoon Quartet.  I was there with my camera and for three short hours, the metronome stopped.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘View from Balcony of the SAAM, Washington, DC’
courtesy of ‘B Jones Jr’

DC often has a small town feel. You constantly run into friends and friends of friends while wandering around. And everyone seems to know everyone.

Once in a while, the city even looks like a small town. Look at this shot by Bill Jones. It’s taken from the commanding and beautiful Smithsonian American Art Museum building, looking down upon the Hotel Monaco and the Spy Museum. All of these, big buildings, big businesses. And yet. They aren’t tall buildings. They aren’t wide intersections.

This looks like it could be any small town in Colorado, or Pennsylvania. Replace the modern cars with horses, and it could be any town in the wild west. But it isn’t. It’s just another intersection in our town. Our small town.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘pinhole apt’
courtesy of ‘maria jpeg’

I had to look twice to figure out what I was seeing in this photo by Maria Izaurralde. It seems that she’s turned her apartment into a camera obscura.

In order to capture the otherwise dim image, Maria used a DSLR and an exposure of about eight minutes. The hotel and Thomas Circle overlaid upside down on the walls of the room is accentuated by the pictures and umbrella. And the figurine taking a kick at one of the windows is a nice touch. It’s worth looking at large.

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Featured Photo


Hottest Day of the Year by Matt.Dunn

Ah, DC, your perseverance never ceases to amaze me.  Just when I start thinking that you’re a bunch of wimps, you go and do something to prove me wrong.  It seems that no matter what gets thrown your way, you fight back.  You’re fighters, not lovers, and on top of that you’re rich and smart!

Is Congress still refusing to give you a vote and treating you like second class citizens?  No worries – I know you’ll find a way to get up in their grill and make yourselves heard.  Is Metro raising its fares on you during tough economic times?  Hah, you’ll show them.  Is Mother Nature churning out record temperatures and throwing storms at you that knock your power out?  Bring it!  You just take your clothes off and ride around on a diesel powered, air conditioned bus.  Is Matt Dunn shooting you with his old school cameras and lighting you up with his fill flash?  Well, it appears you have no answer for that, but it’s OK.  Really.  It’s OK.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘Looking Into the Past: Newsie, Willard Hotel, Washington, DC’
courtesy of ‘jasonepowell’

Sometimes, when you hit upon an idea, it just hits all the right buttons.

This photo is one of several that Jason Powell has put together. He takes old pictures, often from the Library of Congress, prints them out and then photographs them lined up with the modern-day location. It’s simple and it’s genius.

For this shot, the famous Willard Hotel serves as the backdrop to what the original picture describes as a “pugnacious little chap” who was selling the paper at the ripe old age of nine. Click through for more details, and make sure to check out the entire set.

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Featured Photo


They’re growing pink toenails by MudflapDC

There are hundreds of things that I’d like to do and places I’d like to see in the surrounding area, but I always seem to forget about them or put them off for another day, another year.  Well, you know how the rest of that story goes.  Soon another year has passed and my list has gotten even longer.

One place on my list is the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Maryland.  Known for the sea of sunflowers that bloom every year, it’s a photographer’s dream.  However like other photogenic scenes, the sunflower fields have been shot to death which makes it challenging to come up with a unique view.  Despite the lack of sunflowers in this photo, the addition of (shut up, brain) shiny pink toenails moves this place even higher on my list of places to visit.

A unique view?  I’d say MudflapDC has succeeded here.

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘Folk Life Festival 10 – Sky Dancers and the Sun – 07-05-10’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

Under the beating hot sun, four members of the Téenek of Tamaletón in Mexico fly around a pole. They do this as part of a ceremony called the “Danza del Bixom Tíiw,” to honor the Lord of Corn. The Smithsonian Folk Life Festival brought them here to do their sun dance.

Most people taking shots of the dancers will tend to go closer, trying, perhaps, to capture some motion blur as the dancers go by, or to freeze the action in place. WeLoveDC Flickr contributor Brian Mosley decided to go wide, capturing the dancers, the big blue sky, and the sun and it’s rays. Wander over to his stream to look at it big and see other images from the festival.

If you’ve got a few minutes, you should also take a look at the video that the Smithsonian put out. It’s fascinating.

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Featured Photo


TWEE 4571 by Yospyn

A few weeks ago I asked our readers if they could help me name this mysterious new street artist, but in reality I knew the answer all along.  These wheatpastings that went up overnight along 14th street were deliberately placed as part of Jeffry Cudlin’s show at Flashpoint, BY REQUEST.  The idea behind his show was to challenge local artists to create the ideal work of art, at least as determined by some of DC’s most influential art minds.  The catch?  He had to be a part of every piece.  In some cases his involvement was completely obvious, say for example, the 23′ long nude photo of him that you’ll either love or be terrified of.  However to please the tastes of Pink Line Project’s Philippa Hughes, local artist Cory Oberndorfer transformed Cudlin into a fictional street artist from Nova Scotia named TWEE.

I had the honor of accompanying Oberndorfer and TWEE one late night to witness and document the evolution of DC’s newest street artist as he pasted his bittersweet characters along 14th street.  The mission was simple.  Scatter some art that Hughes was sure to love along a street that she travels every day.  It would only be a matter of time before she became curious, and the gamble paid off when she posted a picture on Facebook the very next day asking, “Been seeing these along 14th Street. Who is it?”  ObernTWEEfer had nailed it.

At the show’s opening at Flashpoint, Hughes was completely shocked to learn that the pieces she’d been seeing were made specifically for her, and that the queen of art gossip had just been played.  It was a great social experiment that went off without a hitch thanks to the deviously creative minds of Cory and Cudlin.  BY REQUEST will go down in history books as one of the most outlandish, well-marketed, and beautifully executed shows in DC.  Well done, Mr. Cudlin.  I mean, TWEE.

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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘a summer romance’ by ‘Blinkofanaye’

At 5:00 on any given Friday afternoon in the summer, Jazz in the  Garden is just getting started, and space quickly becomes scarce as hundreds of worker bees flock for a little wine, maybe a pitcher of (surprisingly potent for what you pay) sangria, a picnic and some tunes. It’s a grand way to spend an evening, even if by hour two you’re hot, sticky and a little closer than you’d like to be to the sweaty stranger who drank too much of that sangria.

Or you could do what this couple did: carve out a nice, cool space for themselves where the crowd couldn’t get to them. Sure, the police will come along eventually and escort you away (to the boos of the crowd), but in this moment, for these two people, none of that matters. All they feel is that cool, forbidden water on their feet, and all they see is each other. It takes a certain kind of guts to walk into a fountain and, ahem, dance like nobody’s watching. That’s the kind of guts we could all use more of.

We’re lucky Flickr user Blinkofaneye caught the moment so perfectly, with the fountain water glistening and half the crowd in the background oblivious to the scene unfolding right in front of them. He also caught the pair a moment later, hands entwined, proud smiles on their faces, and really, can you blame them? (Hat tip to Tracy Clayton, who tweeted the incident as it happened and also captured it and posted a play-by-play of their dance.)

Fashionable DC, Featured Photo
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The Seersucker Social in Photos


All photos by Max Cook

This past Saturday was a crazy day in DC.  Despite the sweltering heat, dedicated soccer fans filled Dupont Circle to cheer for their favorite teams.  Hoards of people filled the streets to watch or partake in the Pride Parade.  However my choice of torture was to participate in the Seersucker Social.  What was supposed to be a delightful, dandy of a bike ride through Rock Creek Park was actually a hot, sweaty, feat of endurance.

As a witness to the Tweed Ride last fall, I was determined not only to photograph the Social, but to participate in it as well.  While my normal summer attire consists of shorts and a t-shirt, I purchased some seersucker pants, a matching belt, and a madras tie to add a little flare to the ensemble.  Had the temperature been 65 degrees and the humidity low, I would have been fine, however with temps in the 90’s and the humidity of a Vietnamese jungle, I was miserable the second I stepped out of my door.  That’s not to mention the fact that I had borrowed a friend’s vintage Goodyear, bazillion pound, single speed bicycle that I had to push uphill to the finish line.

Are you tired of me complaining yet?  Good, because I’m done.  Once I had taken a bath in the restroom sink at Hillwood Estate and drank a gallon of water, I was rejuvenated and ready to start documenting the affair.  This was my first visit to Hillwood and let me say that it’s straight out of the movies.  With stately buildings, manicured lawns, and acres of beautiful greenery, it was the perfect setting to socialize with other seersucker-wearing sweat bombs.  The sun soon hid behind some clouds, refreshing (amazing) drinks were served, and music began to play.  As for the rest of the afternoon, well, I’ll let my photos speak for themselves.

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