Helen & Joel’s Wedding at the Newton White Mansion
The rain cleared and the sun came out just in time for Helen and Joel’s beautiful wedding at the Newton White Mansion in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Thanks to the very talented Amanda Lucidon for second shooting this wedding with me.
Congratulations to the newlyweds!
Helen & Joel’s engagement pictures in DC
Helen and Joel really couldn’t have picked a more stunning fall day than today for their engagement pictures. What a fun and beautiful afternoon we had walking around Meridian Hill Park, the National Mall and the Tidal Basin for pictures. Oh, how I love living in DC with all its wonderful places to photograph.
Tim and Kaoru’s wedding at the Carnegie Institution
For once I was a guest at a wedding and not the official wedding photographer. Of course, I couldn’t help but take some pictures. I used both my professional camera and my iPhone. Here’s to Tim and Kaoru!
DC’s little earthquake
Thankfully, only church spires, frames on walls and books on shelves appear to be casualties of today’s 5.8 magnitude earthquake. I’ve got two out of three.
I Street Bike Social makes DC that much more fun
When I ride my bike around DC alone, no one claps for me. No one cheers. No one dances. Because that would be weird, right?
Well, things are a little different when you’re one of about two dozen riders in the I Street Bike Social. People on the sidewalk clap. And they cheer. And yes, they dance. Certainly, it helps that the ride leader has a stereo system hooked up to his bike. It’s surreal to be pedaling down K Street at night, all lit up by semi-empty lobbying offices, while “Stayin’ Alive” booms from in front of you and cyclists surround you.
It’s also so freakin’ cool. I think we must’ve looked like a small parade that lost its way.
Most people seemed to be new to tonight’s bike social. There were several riders like myself who came alone. There were also some random bicyclists we picked up along the way, which added an air of whimsy to the ride. See in the picture above the two guys riding away from the rest of us? They were heading somewhere else and decided to join the fun. Cheers all around, as I recall.
Jordan, our ride leader, started this bike social for his employer BicycleSPACE after seeing a similar bike ride in Boulder, Colo. Here in DC, we started out at the BicycleSPACE office at 4th and Eye St. NW at 8 p.m. – close to sunset – and then wound our way through H Street, Capitol Hill, the National Mall, Foggy Bottom and Georgetown. A light breeze blew and the temperature was just right as we coasted around. DC is beautiful at night. We had some mishaps with the contraption carrying the stereo but Jordan played some good tunes: Adele, Rhianna, Outkast. I tried boogeying on my bike but that’s actually kind of hard if you don’t want to crash. Which made me realize I had never listened to music while riding my bike.
As I mentioned before, other people seemed surprised and really pleased to see us. We weren’t doing anything special, but somehow, being part of the group made us all look special. By the time we took a break by the Potomac River, the sky was dark and I gratefully drank from my water bottle. After about 20 minutes, we headed up K Street. I broke off at 11th St. to go home. Two hours of leisurely biking was enough for me.
For all the fun I had, I think the name “bike social” is a bit of a misnomer. It’s not like all us bicyclists were talking and laughing and socializing all the time. I did chat with a cool woman who just moved here from Wisconsin three weeks ago. I also talked with a nice gal wearing a bike helmet that looked like a houndstooth ball cap. But for the most part, those conversations and the whole night gave me more of a sense of community. People seemed to simply enjoy being a part of this small band of bikers, taking over one or two street lanes at a time – even in Georgetown. Which is kind of crazy if you’ve ever been in Georgetown.
Can’t wait for next week!
Andrea & Cristina get married in Washington DC
Andrea (left) and Cristina (right) sign their marriage certificate.
When you see Andrea and Cristina together, you wonder how the right to marry could be denied to two people who love each other and are so entirely committed to each other. Andrea and Cristina live in Maryland. Same sex marriage isn’t legal there. But earlier this year, it looked like it might become legal. On the day the Maryland House of Delegates was voting on a same sex marriage proposal, Andrea and Cristina visited a potential wedding site in Maryland. The went in giddy that marriage would soon be legal for them. They left the site disappointed that the same sex marriage proposal had been left to die.
This incredibly upbeat and funny couple regrouped and decided they would marry in Washington, D.C. Same sex marriage became legal here last year. But where to hold the ceremony? Andrea and Cristina’s friend Gillian lives in a beautiful home in Washington, D.C., so they asked if they could hold their wedding there. Gillian (who’s also my friend) was incredibly touched by their request. Of course she said, “Yes!” And that’s how I came to find myself at Gillian’s last night, photographing one of the most emotional weddings I’ve ever attended. Everyone cried. And I do mean everyone. Including me.
Congratulations, Andrea and Cristina!
Cherry Blossom Parade
Above: The most beautiful but least interesting floats in the parade.
Below: Crowds, crowds and more crowds! Lots of kids were equally scared and excited by the revelry. I love DC.
The Price of Immigration for Bread for the World
Part of my work as multimedia manager at Bread for the World involves producing poverty- and hunger-related stories that humanize these issues. It’s not easy. I think people suffer from ennui when it comes to seeing pictures and reading stories about poor and hungry people. It’s like, “Oh, another hungry child. Another poor, homeless man. I feel so bad.” And then people move on.
The response has been different with “The Price of Immigration,” a story that I worked on earlier this year with my colleagues Molly Marsh, Ivone Guillen and freelance multimedia editor Brad Horn. The idea was to show the life of an undocumented Mexican worker in the United States – to show that he is a real person with real dreams, hopes and feelings.
The immigration dialogue in the United States tends to characterize undocumented workers as unwanteds who steal American jobs and must be kept out with a border fence. In most cases, these people have come to the United States because they couldn’t support themselves or their families back home. A border fence will not prevent them from trying to help their families. Just think: If the United States were plunged into poverty and Canada loomed as a source of jobs – any jobs – wouldn’t many Americans do whatever they could to get to Canada and make money to support their families back home?
My colleagues and I spent five days getting to know “Jose,” the main subject of this story. It was challenging to photograph and film him in a way that didn’t reveal his identity. There are several photographs and video clips that made it into the final edit but I had to exchange out at the last minute because some of my co-workers thought they could identify “Jose.” From the day I started researching this story to the day I published this video was almost four months. It takes time to produce a good story. I think this one is pretty good. Though, of course, there are quite a few things I’d do differently. But that’s for another blog post on another day.
What follows is my original text that ran with the video on Bread for the World’s blog.
++++++++++
Jose likes soccer. He likes his car. And he loves his family, which is why he left Mexico for the United States when he was 17, started working, and now sends home about 20 percent of his pay to support them. Like many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, Jose came here for opportunities that don’t exist at home.
“We’re not criminals,” said Jose (not his real name). “We just come here to seek a better life.”
Indeed, economic necessity is the reason people risk their lives to work in the United States. And contrary to rhetoric that immigrants steal American jobs and drive down wages, immigrant labor is essential to the U.S. economy, as research shows:
- The Arizona economy would shrink by $48.8 billion, or 20 percent, if all undocumented workers left the state, according to an Immigration Policy Center study out last week.
- Immigration improves employment, productivity, and income but needs adjustments that respond to the economic cycle, states a 2010 Migration Policy Institute study.
- Hispanic immigrants contributed $9.2 billion to the North Carolina economy in 2006 and created 89,000 spinoff jobs, according to research by Dr. James Johnson, professor at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan Flagler Business School.
Jose is one Hispanic immigrant contributing to North Carolina’s economy. He moved there five years ago, found a job, and joined a church. My colleagues Ivone Guillen, Molly Marsh, and I first met Jose at his church this past January, and we found him to be very kind, polite, and open to talking with us. We could tell he missed his family. He showed us pictures. He shared stories of life back home.
Listening to Jose speak and watching him live his limited life in North Carolina (we spent five days with him), you just think to yourself, “You don’t leave people you love unless you must, because economic and social circumstances force you to go.”
Thinking Day | A cross-cultural food experience
One of my best memories of being a Girl Scout in Jeddah was celebrating Thinking Day. This was when Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from other countries living in the city got together for one big hoe-down. Okay, not exactly a hoe-down, but one big cultural exchange.
The day began with a procession of scouts from each country carrying that country’s flag. I always wanted to carry the United States flag. I thought it would be fun to march around in my green uniform and hold the flag straight up. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t drop it. I never got to find out. Instead, I sat on my school gym floor with hundreds of other scouts as groups of girls glided by with flags, including those of India, the United Kingdom, France, Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Girl Scouts fascinated me the most as they appeared to have run to the fabric store and wrapped themselves in bolts of gray cloth from head to toe. Well, except their faces, thank goodness.
What does any of this have to do with these photographs here, apparently taken in the present time, at my present home, without anyone wearing a Girl Scout uniform? (Though that would be kind of cool.) Well, Thinking Day also involved food. And the other night, as Dulce (from Mexico), Ting-Ya (from Taiwan) and I (half from South Korea), cooked foods from our countries, I remembered Thinking Day. How lucky am I that more than 20 years later, I keep having interesting cross-cultural experiences with my friends?
Ting-Ya showed us the massive amounts of preparation that go into creating a Taiwanese dish. I showed them how to make kimbap. Pictured above is the very first one I’ve ever made without my Mom’s assistance. And Dulce made an American salad with ingredients all the colors of Mexico’s flag. Now I’m thinking of throwing a Thinking Day-type dinner party, where everyone brings a dish from a different country. Yum!
Home in Washington DC
After all the traveling I’ve done for work in the past three months (also, here and here), it’s nice to be home for a while, snow and all.
Night walk down Massachusetts Avenue
10th Street.
One night in mid-November I decided to walk from Union Station to Dupont Circle via Massachusetts Avenue. It’s about two-and-a-half miles, and I usually walk portions of this route during my daily daytime routine. As I walked I thought about how the two-and-a-half miles as a whole is a walk I never would have done when I lived in DC 13 years ago. Back then, Mass Ave. between Union Station and 11th Street was decrepit with little reason to stroll at night, unless you wanted to be mugged. Since then, all the downtown neighborhoods adjacent to Mass Ave. have blossomed (or fallen to gentrification, depending on your view.)
Walking along Mass Ave. last month, I was surprised by how many things I saw that I never notice during the day: a sticker on the ground, a shadow on the wall. I became especially enamored of the trees, which glowed in the street lights like sea-dwelling plants you’d never want to tangle with. (I’ve posted only one tree picture here so you don’t get bored by all the other ones.) I might make a habit of walking down all of DC’s main arteries at night and photographing what I see.
3rd Street
8th Street
5th Street
4th Street
14th Street
4th Street
(Above: That's me photographing while snowshoeing through a snowstorm. Picture by