Day 248/365 - At Artomatic

Tonight was "Meet the Artists" night at the Artomatic exhibition in Washington, DC and since I hadn't been yet to check out the show, I figured I'd go. Several of my Flickr contacts had works on display and I wanted to see their walls. Going also gave me a chance to finally meet Stacey (who brought delish pasteles), Ramune (who brought yummy chocolate peanut butter crispy squares), Kerrin (who brought zesty tomato and mozzarella skewers), and Lindsay (who brought Kevin -- who, given that he's a Kevin, is naturally a treat in and of himself). It was great to meet all of them and to meet up again with some of the Flickr folks I hadn't seen in a while.

The show itself was quite enjoyable. It occupies eight floors of an unfinished office building and is essentially an artistic free-for-all. There's something of everything there, and something for everyone. Rather more nakedness than I was anticipating, though. Apparently it's fairly easy to get women to pose nude for you. Based on Artomatic, it seems that all you need do is buy a nice camera, tell a woman the photos are for artistic purposes, and then 'bang!' -- her clothes fall off. Too bad I shoot mostly buildings, places, and objects. Just my luck.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 212/365 - A Glorious Afternoon

Today, for the first time in over a week and a half, we had blue skies and sunshine. I was damned if I was going to let it go to waste while I toiled away in my office all day, especially given that the rain is supposed to return this evening. So I decided to take the afternoon off. Come 12:30 I turned off my computer, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door.

I decided to spend the afternoon in the Dupont Circle section of Washington, DC. On the subway ride there I ran into JW, who had snuck away from her office to meet up with Samer for lunch. It was a great day for escaping from offices. On the subject of lunch, I opted to take mine sitting on the patio of the Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. I went for the jerked chicken salad, a glass of Riesling, and a slice of blueberry pie. Yummmm on all counts.

Once I finished with lunch, I ambled over to the Phillips Collection to finally see the Morandi exhibit I've been meaning to check out for a while. Morandi was an Italian painter who worked from the 1920s through the 1960s and who specialized in still lifes (on a random note, why is it 'still lifes' and not 'still lives'?). His still lifes are very stark and simple and feature a muted palette and abstract backgrounds. Morandi didn't paint the standard 'bowl of fruit' still lifes. His paintings were of small arrangements of commonplace household items, the artifacts of everyday life.

The focus in his work is always on containers or vessels of some sort -- vases, cups, bowls, tins, pitchers. With the exception of a few paintings of flowers, the containers are always empty. It's as though they are waiting to be filled with whatever the viewer wishes to project into them. For all their stark simplicity, there is something very zen, patient, and contemplative about his still lifes. It was an interesting exhibit. I really need to take an art survey or appreciation course one of these days so I'll know what the hell I'm talking about.

Given the rare dose of sunshine, I couldn't spend the whole day cooped up in an art gallery though, so after taking in the exhibit I headed to the small park at the center of Dupont Circle and sat in the sun near the fountain to read for a while. After about an hour I got a little hot, so I popped into a Starbucks nearby to get an iced coffee and sat there and read for another hour or so.

It was a glorious afternoon and to make matters even better, when I got home I discovered that the Nikon D90 I ordered had been delivered! I had been thinking about replacing my DSLR for the past 4-5 months and earlier this week I finally decided to do so. I've only had my D80 for about 15 months and I got a lot of good use out of it, but its performance in low light and mixed lighting environments was really frustrating. I had originally been leaning toward getting a D300 until I read an on-line review that said the D90's performance was just about as good, but it cost several hundred dollars less and featured newer technology. So after checking with Marie to get her firsthand account of using one, I switched my sights to the D90.

Now I'm just waiting for the battery pack to charge up so I can start playing with my new toy.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 149/365 - Supporting My People

Local news and information website DCist.com has a 'Photo of the Day' feature wherein they highlight the work of a local photographer. In order to solicit photos for that feature, as well as to provide illustrations for the site's articles and other features, DCist has its own photo pool on Flickr. Additionally, they run an annual "DCist Exposed" photography exhibit.

This year's show is being held at Flashpoint, an arts incubator in the Gallery Place section of Washington, DC. It closes tomorrow, so tonight I made sure I swung by Flashpoint on the way home from work so I could finally check it out. Quite a few of my Flickr contacts have works on display in the exhibit: Erin, Brian, Marie, Pat, Phil, and Angela.

There were some really amazing photos in the exhibition. I put a few of my own entries in, but I didn't get selected for the show. Oh well, guess I'll just have to work at taking better pictures this year so I can make it into next year's exhibition.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 45/365 - Pictures at an Exhibition

This afternoon I went over to Georgetown to check out the exhibits at the main FotoWeek DC gallery. There were some really amazing photos there. I saw some stuff that gave me some ideas I wanted to try. They had one cool exhibit that featured massive enlargements of photographer's contact sheets. That exhibit mentioned how, with the advent of digital photography, contact sheets are a bit of an endangered species. I still have some of my old contact sheets from my high school and college photography classes. I had been thinking about pitching them, but now I think maybe I'll hang onto them.

I was walking around the gallery today taking loads of photos of people looking at photos. At one point I think I got 'mistooken' for a working photographer. I was leaning over a railing taking shots of the lower gallery area and some girls that were coming up the stairs heard my camera going 'tchkuh, tchkuh, tchkuh' and got all excited because they thought they were going to end up in some artsy photographer's photo. One of them told the others to play it cool and just keep walking so it wouldn't mess up the picture.

Little did they know they were just going to wind up on my Flickr page rather than in a gallery. It's a sort of sad substitute for fame, but it beats nothing I suppose.

(With apologies to Mussorgsky's ghost for the theft of the title.)

(Taken with my Nikon D80)