Trees take root in Haiti
Children help line up seedlings at a Trees for the Future nursery in Gericher, Haiti. Read more and see more photographs on Bread for the World’s blog.
Ice cream in Pisa, Italy
I know, I know: This is a post about Pisa, Italy, so where’s the picture of the Leaning Tower?
Pisa is so much more than its most famous landmark. It’s a college town, home to the University of Pisa, which has been educating students since the 12th century and which once employed Galileo Galilei as a math professor. It’s a walkable little city split by the Arno River and lined with cobblestone streets and colorful homes.
But the tower – just “tower,” as the natives call it – well, my how it dominates most peoples’ conception of the city. Which is why I posted this photograph from Pisa before I posted any Leaning Tower pictures. Those are coming, of course.
Carnegie Institute wedding starring Megan + Adam
Megan and Adam are married!
These two chose the gorgeous Carnegie Institute in downtown Washington DC as their wedding venue. I’d passed the building a thousand times before, never imagining that the structure hid a huge, light-filled atrium – a lovely setting for exchanging vows and beginning married life. In the hours before the ceremony, Megan kept saying, “I can’t wait to be married to Adam! I just love him. I’m so lucky!” I love it when brides and grooms talk about each other this way. When Adam and Megan are together, she smiles and laughs even more than usual, which is saying a lot because Megan is hands-down the most laughter-filled bride I’ve ever met. Adam isn’t quite as outwardly expressive (as we all learned from Danny, the best man, during his hilarious toast speech) but you can see by the way he looks at her that he’s incredibly happy.
What a great privilege it was to photograph Megan and Adam’s wedding. I’m so happy for them!
A big thank you goes out to my colleague Amanda Lucidon, who worked with me as a second set of eyes. Scroll halfway down for some of her fantastic pictures.
Hair by Carina at Bang Salon Metropole
Photograph by Amanda Lucidon
Photograph by Amanda Lucidon
Photograph by Amanda Lucidon
Photograph by Amanda Lucidon
Photograph by Amanda Lucidon
A procession of the Virgin Mary through Cusco, Peru
There she is: a purple-enthroned picture of the Virgin Mary, parading through the streets of Cusco. A Peruvian friend said these Virgin Mary processions take place all the time. Marissa said she sees parades almost every week. I imagine how much a parade a week would enliven my life and hope I wouldn’t take it for granted.
Raining & singing in the Pantheon
When my mom and I visited Rome, I couldn’t wait to visit the Pantheon. You see, not only is the building 2,000 years old, it also has a hole in its dome. When it’s sunny, light streams through this oculus; when it rains, water falls through. I could see storm clouds building in the distance. Maybe, just maybe, I’d be lucky enough to see it rain in the Pantheon? My mom said she was ready to go. I stalled. “Oh, look at those pretty engravings over there! Aren’t these crosses over here shiny?” Yeah. What I really wanted was rain, rain, rain. And finally, it came. And it was magical. The rain fell in slow, sparkling sheets. Most everyone stopped what they were doing and stared up at the dome. Flashes popped and cameras clicked. A couple umbrellas snapped open. A red-and-white chain kept visitors out of the direct path of the rainfall but many people still got wet. Oooh. Ahhh.
While at the Pantheon we were also lucky enough to hear a choir performing inside. A Catholic church group from Manhattan, Kansas (my birth city!) were walking from famous public building to famous public building in Rome and singing their hearts out for free. So lovely.
Cutie pie’s third birthday
From Laura Elizabeth Pohl on Vimeo. Song “Sweet Darlin’” by She & Him.
Women Photojournalists of Washington exhibit during FotoWeek DC
The photographs in this slideshow are part of “Launch,” the Women Photojournalists of Washington‘s 2nd annual juried exhibit. (Can you guess which picture is mine? Hint: it’s kind of a patriotic photograph.) If you’re in the DC area, be sure to come to our opening reception at Honfleur Gallery on Saturday, November 7, right at the start of FotoWeek DC.
Airports around the world
Shenyang, China
What I love about an airport is knowing I could end up anywhere in the world from there. Sometimes, on my way to my gate, I stop and read the departure monitors. I like imagining where I would travel if I weren’t heading to my current destination: “Buenos Aires would be fun; I’ve never been there. Cleveland would be like another world. Plus I could visit the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Oooooh – Singapore! I could visit Sooz and Barry. Well, maybe next year. I should go to my gate now.”
The second thing I love about an airport is watching the people. Before 9/11 kept non-passengers from going to airline gates, I used to hang out at National Airport in Washington DC and watch people walk out of those tubular disembarking hallways and into their loved ones’ arms. Or not. Sometimes people came out, looked around for someone who wasn’t there and walked out to the main terminal halls. Budding writer that I was, I wrote down descriptions of these reunions (or non-reunions) and built short story scenes around what I saw.
In the past couple months I’ve spent a lot of time in airports. Which means I’ve also taken a lot of pictures in airports: the people, the buildings, the atmosphere. Some airports are like art museums, with sculptures and paintings and light displays (I’m thinking Detroit.) Some airports are like shopping malls, with people milling about the duty-free stores, picking out chocolates and perfumes and trinkets they don’t really need (I’m thinking Seoul-Incheon and London Heathrow.) It’s all incredibly fascinating. And so I’ve decided to start a photo essay on airports. Looking at the photographs I’ve posted, it seems that right now I’m interested in the architecture and the color in airports but I don’t really have a theme or an idea where this will lead me. We’ll see.
Detroit, USA
Detroit, USA
Seoul-Incheon, South Korea
Washington DC, USA
Candace and Steve’s wedding in Newport News
This past Saturday I had the pleasure of shooting Candace and Steve’s fantastic wedding in Newport News, Va. It was the first traditional, African-American wedding I’ve ever photographed, but I don’t have any pictures of the broom-jumping ceremony. Or the laughter after the groom’s father’s speech. Or the moment the groom broke down during the vows. It’s OK, though, because I was the designated video shooter. My friend Sean Holder (whom I met on the Project Bangladesh trip) and his second shooter Brandon Cordon did the heavy lifting for still photography. I did manage to squeeze in a few frames, however, so here they are. Enjoy!
Massage by Marissa Gandelman
If you live in DC and you need a massage then you really should consider getting a massage from my friend Marissa. Everyone I’ve recommended to her has loved her. Marissa’s professional, caring and most of all, knowledgeable. And until the end of September, she’s offering 60-minute package specials.
These are some photographs I shot for her website earlier this year. I had a fun afternoon photographing three models in the beautiful window light of Marissa’s massage studio. Ahhh….revisiting these pictures makes me want a massage.
From fashion factory to farm in Yanji, China
Sometimes you start your day interviewing a Korean fashion designer in her factory and you end your day picking corn and hot peppers with her at her small farm about an hour outside the city. Johanna and I spent a full and fun day with Ryu Sung-ok but the full report will have to wait until later. I need to go to sleep because we’re getting up at 2:45 am to join Ryu and her employees on a very early picnic. We’re still not quite sure why this outing starts before sunrise. It should be interesting!
Yanji Church
While out for a walk today I happened upon Yanji Church, which was fined $7500 by the Chinese government in 2005 for harboring North Korean refugees. I didn’t come here to find North Korea refugee-related stories but they seem to find me anyway.
Back to school: Columbus Collegiate Academy
Columbus Collegiate Academy in Ohio holds classes in the Seventh Avenue Community Baptist Church. (I like this photograph but I see it as an almost; should I crop out the boy on the right? I wish I’d taken this photograph just one-quarter of a second earlier! I want more of the cross, less of the boy. Ahhh….)
Bicycling around Washington DC
She waited for the light to turn, the setting sun casting a long shadow in front of her.
Nineteen seconds, eighteen seconds, seventeen seconds….
The crosswalk light counted down the time left before plodding pedestrians would start annoying drivers. She usually ran through low-trafficked intersections like this when she was on her bike. Something told her to wait out this light.
Thirteen seconds, twelve seconds, eleven seconds….
No oncoming cars. No people. Just a lone bicyclist heading north. Even from this distance it was easy to see he rode a bike with ridiculously large handlebars, the kind that should have pink streamers flowing out of them. He looked like he belonged at the beach: no helmet, open shirt, flip flops. She wondered what he cradled in his right arm. Dinner? Books?
Five seconds, four seconds….
She looked at him. He looked at her. They locked eyes and smiled.
One second….
American University journalism students blog about….me
One of the things I love almost as much as creating stories, taking pictures and shooting video is teaching. As one of my professor friends says, teaching is not only a way to impart knowledge but a way for a piece of you to live on in your students – and in the world – after you’re gone. A good teacher and his or her lessons will stay with you forever.
This is all just a long-winded and slightly sentimental way for me to say that I had a blast teaching photojournalism and Photoshop basics today at American University’s School of Communication journalism boot camp for new journalism grad students. All three dozen students are required to blog about each day of boot camp like it’s a news story, which means there are pictures and more pictures (a funny one here) and video and word stories and bits of written stories about….me.
I felt so weird being on the other side of the camera/video camera/microphone (though it’s not the first time.) Right at the start of class there was this funny, paparazzi-like moment when seven or eight students stood up almost in unison to take pictures of me talking. My first thought was: whoa! My second thought was: at least they’re standing up instead of sitting down to take this picture! And now, having seen the pictures and the video of me talking, my third thought is: I need to improve my posture. Ha!
Anyway, the students were all fantastic. They asked a ton of good questions, especially about photojournalism ethics. The few students I had the chance to talk with one-on-one are thoughtful and hopeful about the stories they’ll be telling during grad school. I’m heartened to see so many eager people entering the profession, especially at such a difficult time in the industry. I hope I’ll run into them all again someday.
Urban gardening in DC
I knew I had to meet Ed Bruske, a pretty well-known urban gardener here in Washington DC, when I read a short bio of him that said he was “in the process of turning his front yard into an edible landscape.” An edible landscape! Just what would that look like in the middle of the city?
This morning I had the pleasure of finding out. Since 2005, Ed has raised vegetables, herbs and flowers in his front yard. This summer’s crop includes beans, tomatoes, garlic, okra and kale. “You can grow just about anything in the city and that may come as a surprise to people,” he said. “The vegetables and fruits that we grow don’t know where they are. They don’t really care. As long as they’re getting enough sun and enough nutrients out of the soil, they’re perfectly happy.” Neighbors haven’t always been happy about his mini farm in the city (“embarrassing” and a “feeding ground” for rats are just two descriptions posted by a commenter on Ed’s blog in 2007). But he said sentiment has recently been more positive, especially since Michelle Obama planted a White House garden.
Ed said his garden was the catalyst for a lifestyle change for him, his wife and his nine-year-old daughter. The family recycles or composts almost everything. Ed even collects his neighbors’ grass clippings and fallen leaves for the compost pile. In one week the family sometimes doesn’t throw away enough refuse to fill a kitchen-size trash bag. “We’re deeply involved and conscious now of where the things that we consume go and changed our lifestyle accordingly.”
The garden and the lifestyle changes that have come with it remind Ed of his childhood in the suburbs of Chicago, where his father tended rhubarbs, strawberries and tomatoes in their backyard. “I have those actual memories of being a kid with a salt shaker, sitting in the tomato patch, eating tomatoes fresh off the vine. Those memories were kind of vivid to me and this [the garden] kind of brought it back.”
(An aside for the photographers/videographers out there reading this: Earlier in the morning, I was just pulling my cameras out of my bag and missed a shot of Ed eating tomatoes fresh off his own vines. He didn’t do it again the whole time I followed him before our formal interview. Then Ed told me this vignette about being a kid and eating tomatoes and I was even more bummed I missed the tomato shot. I only hoped it would happen again. In my last ten minutes with Ed, I shadowed him around the compost pile and through the garden and you can imagine how thrilled I felt when he reached out and ate a couple small tomatoes off his vine. This time I was ready with my video camera. The lesson? Patience, patience, patience; humans are repetitive beings. Especially when tasty tomatoes are involved.)
What a great morning! I’m definitely not a green thumb but I feel inspired to try growing a plant or two at home. A big thanks to Ed for sharing his time, his garden and his knowledge with me.
Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW)
I’m treasurer of this pretty awesome and inspiring group called the Women Photojournalists of Washington. We held our quarterly membership meeting this past Sunday.
Top picture: Jenna Isaacson Pfueller listens to our panelists talk about balancing work and family.
Middle picture: Our speakers were (left to right) Karen Kasmauski, Juana Arias, Mary Calvert, Annie Griffiths Belt, Aude Guerrucci and Barbara Salisbury.
Bottom picture: Our meetings are fun!
Flying!
Just another day in DC: here I am flying over 9th & H St. this morning. (Photograph by Leslie Sargent)
Leslie and I had a FANTASTIC time at Trapeze School today! I felt like I was back in my competitive gymnast days. Our 10-person class started with a 15-minute primer on how to hold the metal bar and the importance of listening to directions. Then, just like that, we were climbing up to the 23-foot high trapeze platform one at a time to swing and flip. The scariest part was leaning off the platform to grab the bar. An instructor held on to my safety belt while I reached for the bar. Then he said, “Ready….hep!” and I jumped off. Wheeeee! I’m not sure what I’m doing in the picture above: either getting ready to pull my legs up so I can hang or getting ready to do a back flip dismount. I regret that I didn’t bring one of my professional cameras. Next time I will. Yes, I’m going back!
(Photographs below, from top: Leslie reaching for the bar, me after being caught, the catcher.)
Memorial Day at Arlington Cemetery
Mike Lefcheck (right), a Marine veteran from Michigan and head of the 40&8 Voiture 1153, comes to Arlington Cemetery every year to give away American flags on Memorial Day. He hoped that this year, he and his fellow 40&8 members would be able to hand out more than the 10,000 flags they passed out last Memorial Day.
Waiting for Obama to arrive for a speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Perfect
DC has been incredibly beautiful these past two days, deliciously warm and sparkly and clear, like life is perfect.
A penny saved is a penny earned
Tonight I continued working on my story about Leslie, the woman who collects change she finds on the street. After more than two years of doing this, she’s got her search method down pat.
- Walk near parking meters, street curbs and bus stops; people are likely to drop change there and not have time to pick it up.
- When scanning dirt, look for something perfectly round since “nothing in nature is perfectly round,” she says.
- Be willing to step out in traffic but remember to watch for oncoming cars.
As a photographer I consider myself a fairly observant and aware person but I’m telling you, Leslie has hawk eyes. There were times she’d yelp in delight over spying a penny and I wouldn’t see it until she held it in her hand. Clearly, this is an acquired skill.
Leslie’s intake this evening: 32 cents. Plus, I found a penny, too! I have to admit I was pretty excited.
Happy birthday, Mom!
Mom….my most loyal blog reader, the only person who calls to check if I’m eating more than cereal for dinner, the one who worries (or gets annoyed) if I don’t answer my cell phone on the first ring, the woman who instilled in me a moral conviction and an adventurous attitude….happy birthday!
(Above: That's me photographing while snowshoeing through a snowstorm. Picture by