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Off-Topic: Pro-Bono DC Photo Opportunity

June 13th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Uncategorized

A slightly off-topic post for my fellow DC photographers… The Deputy Director of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of Amnesty International USA contacted me last night about photographing an event for them on June 25th. Obviously, I’m not going to be able to do it so she asked if I knew anyone else that might be willing.

From the email:

“I am writing because, as you may have heard, we are bringing a replica of a Guantanamo prison cell to DC from June 25-29. We will be having a couple of events on June 25th that we’d like to document. First, we’ll have a visual protest at noon where activists will be in orange jumpsuits and we’ll being staging them around the cell replica. We may also have some celebrity or world leader types there (still awaiting confirmations). Then at 6pm we’ll have a concert. All of this is happening on the National Mall just across the street from the Washington Monument.”

This is a very low-pressure thing. They’re just looking for someone with a decent camera and decent photography skills to document their protest. I usually do these things free of charge because it’s a cause I believe in and it helps to build my portfolio. Having said that, they won’t be able to pay you for your time but you’ll have all the access you need to take photos. This might be a good photojouralistic opportunity. Likely uses of your photos will be in fundraising and/or on their website. You will get full credit for the photos you take.

The reason they contacted me is because I am a member and I attended the 2007 Annual General Meeting in Milwaukee. While I was there, I photographed as much of the event as I could.

Anyway, I thought some of you might be looking for something to photograph this month… If this is a cause you can get behind and you like photography, it might be worth your time to help them out.

If you’re interested, please contact Cecili Williams (cwilliams@aiusa.org). She is the Deputy Director for AIUSA’s Mid-Atlantic Region.

Tags: amnesty-international, dc, opportunity, photojournalism, protest, volunteer, washington, washington-dc

A brief Delhi photowalk (and a protest)

May 30th, 2008 | 6 Comments | Posted in Featured, My Photos, The Traveling Photographer

We arrived in Delhi today a little after noon. We checked into our hotel, the New Delhi Shangri-La. This hotel is fantastic! What a nice way to spend our last day before heading back to the States.

I was fairly tired out and was looking forward to just lounging around and preparing for our journey to Agra tomorrow but I couldn’t resist walking around a bit near the hotel. As I was wandering around, I could hear someone speaking somewhat angrily through a megaphone nearby. I decided to follow the sound to Sansad Marg Road. Here, the Delhi police had blocked the road because of a protest. I maneuvered a little closer and began talking to one gentleman to find out what all the fuss was about.

The protest was being staged by a Pharmacists’ Union in an attempt to raise their wages. They feel that their pay is not keeping up with other degree-holding fields. The gentleman then asked me if I was with the international media and I told him that I was a freelance photographer and then asked him if it would be OK if I could wander into the crowd to take some photos. He appeared more than happy to help me. He gestured with his hand for me to lead the way to where I wanted to be. We approached the crowd, ducked under the line around the demonstration, and dove into the crowd. He helped part the way for me until we arrived at the center where a man was speaking angrily into a microphone. I spent a few minutes taking some shots and then began backing out so I could get some more crowd shots.

After the protest, I began walking back to the hotel… It was time to relax a bit before our long journey to see the Taj Mahal tomorrow.

A few photos from today below:

Tags: delhi, india, new, protest

Friday Link Love

May 16th, 2008 | 7 Comments | Posted in Of General Interest

It’s that time of the week again… Time for me to share some of the interesting photography happenings around the web from the last week. Also, please note that “Friday Link Love” might be taking a short vacation as I continue my travels. I leave for India this weekend and I’ll be gone for two weeks. While I will certainly be blogging and posting photos while I’m there, I may not have the chance to post the weekly “Friday Link Love”. However, if anyone wants to volunteer to put together some links every week and send them along to me, I would certainly be grateful. Of course, you will get full credit and a link to your site.

Anyway, enough with the formalities, let’s get to the links!

- Thinking of being a wedding photographer? Photo District News has posted the results of an extensive survey of wedding photographers and their incomes. Definitely worth a read if you’re thinking about jumping into this field. Hat tip: David Ziser of DigitalProTalk

- Any LA photographers in the house? If so, consider checking out this Photographers’ Rights Protest on June 1st.

- Thinking of being a photojournalist? ProPhotoLife has interviewed photojournalist Colin Summers on how he managed to break into the field.

- The Photoshop Roadmap has a gallery of 40 free special effects Photoshop actions available for download.

- CameraPorn has published a great list of 60 Photography Links You Can’t Live Without!

- A new site Panoye has been launched specifically to be somewhat of a Flickr for panoramas. Cool stuff!

- I know we have some DC photographers here… A reader of the site, Gyuri, has notified me of FotoWeek/DC which is happening in November.

- Also, if you’re in DC, don’t forget to go down and check out Artomatic! It will be running until June 15th.

- A reader and frequent commenter on the site, Broderick, has recently launched his own photoblog. He already has some fantastic images up there so go check it out and give him some love.

That’s about it for this week… If I left anything out, let me know in the comments!

Tags: links, photojournalism, photoshop, protest, rights, wedding

One year ago this month… January 2007

January 31st, 2008 | 2 Comments | Posted in My Photos

Since the primary focus of this site is to help me learn and improve my photography, I thought it might be nice to look back, once a month, to re-evaluate some photos from a year ago. Here then, are some photos and collections from January 2007… About one month after I bought my first SLR. (Click each photo for full-size image):

6 January 2007

On January 6th, I spent the day walking on the mall in Washington, DC and spent the night walking through Arlington, VA. One of my favorite shots of the day was the candid photo you see to the left of a man reading a book on a bench. It was abnormally warm that day for January, and this gentleman decided to take advantage of it.

The main reason I went down to the National Mall that day was because the clouds were laying very low early in the morning and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity. Even though the sun had burned many of the clouds away as the day progressed, there were still some amazing opportunities with what was left, as illustrated to the right.

At night, when I returned to Arlington, I decided to experiment with photographing neon signs in the Clarendon/Courthouse area. It was actually much harder than I had expected. If I’m not mistaken, I had deliberately underexposed the shots so as to make the background and non-neon elements darker, thus highlighting the neon tubes. To the left, you’ll see an example. Not perfect, but getting there.