inside a studio, inside the Quarter

Delta Blues...

A roofless warehouse on a pier along the Mississippi just, south of the Ninth Ward...

Corrugated canvas, a side view...

PERLA, a tanker nestled up to the levee...

word views...

During an early morning walk in the Uptown District, I saw a shadow tattoo in a shop window.

A wall full of letters, and "b-e-e-r" stood out for early morning customers.

Yesterday while driving through Gretna, Louisiana on the way back from Dim Sum...a fleeting glimpse of Spanglish

The Big Easy (views from Le Vieux Carré)

Vignettes from the street...

Here are a few more, and a beignet lagniappe...

...soaring

Yesterday began with a sparkling sunrise.

So we visited the nearby hills, and Ari took to the air.

Still Storming...

winter storm...

It snowed almost a foot last night.  This morning, he bounced around when the snow eased up a bit.

Simba plowed through it all...face first, for a while.  Then the winds picked up and it started to snow more heavily, so we took a break.

co(m)mutations...

A few days ago, I enjoyed driving into the city on a cool foggy morning.  The monuments lost a bit of their luster in the watery haze, and the landscape took center stage.

Here a tree partially obstructs a view of the Holocaust Museum (left) and the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing (right).

canine phase lines...

Major League Puppy...

Tug-o-Puppy...

Shadow Puppy...

...above the street

A commuter waits at a bus stop along Independence Avenue in Washington DC.

דרײדל

...חנוכה שמח

סביבון


‎

office views...

I moved into a new office today.  Rumor has it that this federal office building was once an Army psychiatric hospital, and today those vibes resonated louder than usual. I kept an eye on the hallway expecting someone to walk past my office wearing a hospital gown. Weird day. (Not much I can do about the view over my shoulder.)

a colorful playdate...

Simba met up with Bella today.  Bella is a two-year old Bulldog/Pug mix that lives in the neighborhood.  (This weekend was Simba's first experience with snow, and as it turns out he is a big fan of the flakes.)

They became instant buddies, and the lady Pug/Bulldog ran circles around him.  Midway through their romp, they were joined by another neighbor's four-year old Golden Retriever. 

A few hours after the excitement, he is fast asleep.  Nice.

circular opposites...

[11/28/2009, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington D.C.]

kinetics...

 After an afternoon at the museums, we headed back to the car. 

Most of us walked, but she decided to jump.

Just before, she had jumped over the moon.

 

A few minutes before, she had jumped in front of the this sign.

And after all that jumping, she decided to skip....

documentary photography at it's best...

This is re-post of Burn Magazine's "The Dark Light of This Nothing" by Erica McDonald, a moving photo-documentary essay dripping with nostalgia. Go ahead listen to the voices from Brooklyn and their lament. Enjoy.

...just crickets

 

They were inside the door of the outdoor shed at my parents' home, motionless...

...their striations mimicking the grain.

...on the PETA Blog

They asked if I could send them copies of the photographs. So I did, and their bloggers chose one of them for their official post. Take a peek at the PETA Blog posting.

on the streets of DC...PETA

I stopped, introduced myself and asked if I could take pictures. They said, "Sure." After taking these few photographs I walked away and heard some of the onlookers cracking jokes about "eating steak" while giggling.

The irony was overwhelming. PETA members dressed as monkeys were quietly sitting in their cages, calmly engaged in their performance mode of protest. Onlookers, many from the nearby office buildings (cages of a different sort) were aping and miming primate simulations of their own...snickering, gawking, parading, pointing at the cages.

[November 19, 2009, on the corner of 4th and D Streets, SW Washington DC, NASA Headquarters.]

BBC News|In Pictures|Your World|Grey

Grey is one of my favorite hues. I admire its ability to evoke nostalgic textures and patterned moods. This morning I ventured into a familiar site and smiled. Click HERE to see the full gallery of photographs selected this week, mine is number 4.

...equus ex machina

I have walked by this carousel many times. On a recent November evening, it still lay in the shadows of the Smithsonian Castle, a herd of suspenseful restraint.

I don't know why, but I enjoy carousels out of context...without music, and without riders, off-season.

Standing next to them, you can almost hear the motionless gallop.

dogmatizations...

Those eyes, or in the case of this photograph...that eye. It invites so many ascriptions. It entices one-sided conversations. I ask him questions, and make up answers. I pose leading questions and make up my own follow-ups. Then he shifts, and reaches for a chew toy, the eye framed in a new context. I laugh. I laugh at myself for humanizing him.

So I reverse course and over-correct, naturalizing myself...cloaked in canine codes. A bark here, a friendly growl there. He stares back unwilling to share his chew toy. I laugh at myself again, and enjoy his indifference to my theatrics. We go for a walk and it's his turn to perform.

grey...day...shuns

A few days of rain dampened the landscape. A few leaves have yet to fall. The beautiful game shined under surly skies as the kids took sides and re-enacted a scene being played the world over. Nearby, emerging friendships snuggled up to each other.