Category Archives: Washington DC

Black and White, Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Public Sculpture, Federal Reserve Building

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The Federal Reserve Board of Governors buildings in Washington DC have an incredible art collection inside. Most of it is not accessible to the public, as it is displayed throughout the working areas of the facilities. There is, however, an exhibition space inside one of the buildings that can be viewed by appointment – The Federal Reserve Art Collection. There are some pieces, however, that are on permanent public display. There is a gorgeous fountain that operates from April to November-ish (depending on weather) and on the north side of the Martin building, there is the baseball sculpture and the Italian bronze Discus Thrower sculpture. It’s not entirely clear from my reading that the baseball sculpture, entitled Full Count, is part of the Federal Reserve collection, but I believe it to be so from this article. The Discus Thrower, however, is not. It is a replica of the Discobolos of Myrmon, an ancient Roman bronze, given to the people of the United States by the nation of Italy in commemoration of the United States’ assistance in returning Nazi looted art after World War II.

Here is the discus thrower statue. He stands atop a marble column head carved to mimic an ancient Corinthian capital. The discus thrower is located in a city park which also houses a tennis court.

Discus Thrower, Kelley Park
Discus Thrower, Kelley Park

I have two different takes on Full Count – one in color and one in b/w, each from a different perspective. The color image is viewing the sculptural group from over the pitcher’s shoulder. The white marble building in the background is the Martin building of the Federal Reserve.

Full Count, from the Pitcher's View
Full Count, from the Pitcher’s View

The black-and-white image is my take on just the pitcher, from a profile view. Both were shot on the same rainy, overcast day.

Pitcher, Full Count
Pitcher, Full Count

I think the two images side-by-side really brings out what I was talking about yesterday regarding emotional impact of an image in one medium vs the other. There’s no judgment value being placed on that difference – each one has its own equally valid resonance, and there’s no need to prefer one medium over the other, just as joy and sadness are equal emotional partners.

All three images were shot with my Tele-Rolleiflex. As I’m getting used to shooting with it, I’m really liking the images it makes. It just takes a bit of practice to get to know when to use it and how best to use it to take advantage of its strengths.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Badass Scooter

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I had stopped in this wine and beer shop on my way home from work yesterday to pick up a six-pack of Mahou, a Spanish beer I have been dying to find since I had one on a very hot afternoon in Salamanca years ago, and as usual, I had the Rolleiflex around my neck. The owner’s eyes lit up when he saw it and we had a long chat about photography in between his customers. I mentioned that I do all my own darkroom work, both black-and-white and color. He remarked that he never did get into color, but was very much in love with black-and-white. This brought to mind the old Edward Weston quote, “there are things you can say in color that you can’t say in black-and-white”. Very true- the two media have different emotional resonance frequencies. This photo is a great example of the difference.

Badass Scooter
Badass Scooter

It’s a cute scooter that when photographed in color, is white with a medium-blue splash on the rear fender, and reads as cheerful and fun. In black-and-white, it has a much more serious edge to it, and it reads almost macho, for a scooter. Like a member of the Sons of Anarchy wouldn’t feel compelled to commit suicide if forced to ride it. Thus the semi-ironic caption – “badass scooter”. No scooter ever really is menacing, but in black-and-white, this one is respectable at least. I’m sure some of my motorcycle enthusiast friends will disagree with me on this and tell me in no uncertain terms that it is impossible for a scooter to be butch.

This was also a lens test of sorts for my new-to-me 1959 Tele-Rolleiflex. I wanted to see not only how smooth the out-of-focus areas are with it, but how much telephoto perspective compression it gives – the “3-D effect”, in other words. I’d say it pops more than the standard, but it’s still subtle as the lens is not even twice the focal length of the Standard lens (135mm vs 80mm for the standard).

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Lion-head Bollard, Pennsylvania Avenue

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I shot this as another test of the Tele-Rolleiflex, to see what it could do as far as separating the background and foreground. This cast-iron bollard with the dual lions’ heads is on the sidewalk outside ProPhoto, one of the last remaining real camera stores in DC now that Penn Camera/Calumet is gone.

Lion-Head Bollard
Lion-Head Bollard

ProPhoto is tiny. They relocated from their old store location on I Street to new digs on Pennsylvania Avenue, and cut their space by 2/3rds. But the important thing is that they’re still in business, and now at least the photo paper stock they do carry is all in-date. The most critical thing for me is that they have a repair service on-site, and their repair tech is qualified to work on Rolleiflexes.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

More Architectural Details, World Health Organization Building

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Outside the WHO building, there is a series of flagpoles, most in bronze, with a few at the far end that appear to be bronze-ish aluminum (probably modern replacements). I wanted to capture something of the receding-to-infinity effect of the line of them. All winter they’ve been barren, but yesterday for the first time I’ve seen them flying flags of all the American nations (from the US and Canada through the Caribbean nations to Argentina). I will have color images of that coming soon.

Flagpoles
Flagpoles

I think I need to go back and re-shoot the handrail, as the near end seems a touch out-of-focus when it should be totally sharp. Part of the reason for this is that I’m still getting used to my new-to-me Tele-Rolleiflex (it has a 135mm Zeiss Sonnar f4 lens on it, as opposed to the normal 80mm Planar f2.8 on my standard Rolleiflex). The Tele has a shallower depth-of-field, and it also has a relatively far minimum focus of about 7.5 feet.

Handrail
Handrail

Perhaps my favorite shot of this series- I love the repetition of the columns and the arc of the building with the related but contrasting vertical stripes.

Columns
Columns

A different view of the columns, from behind.

Underneath the WHO
Underneath the WHO

As a side note, I keep short-handing the name of the building to the World Health Organization, but in reality it is the World Health Organization/Pan-American Health Organization building, but WHO/PAHO is a bit unwieldy, and the full name even moreso.

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel, Washington DC

One-off: The Washington Monument

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Washington Monument
Washington Monument

I don’t think this one needs much introduction or commentary.

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Commuter Diary – part 10

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This time, instead of being so infrastructure-focused, I thought I’d try being a bit more people-focused in my Commuter Diary. It’s one of the hardest things about this project – adding in the human element, getting a little less first-person in the experience and showing the other people using public transportation, while keeping it abstract. There’s a natural tendency when photographing people to want them to be absolutely sharp, clear, and obviously the main subject of the image. Well, when you’re throwing sharp, clear and objective out the window, how do you photograph people?

Riding the subway always involves a descent, a passage, and a re-emergence. It’s a normally terribly un-heroic journey that bears a very vague passing resemblance to the hero narrative of Joseph Campbell. Unless of course you’re claustrophobic and/or agoraphobic, whereupon riding the subway is an anxiety attack waiting to happen, and surviving the ride is a transformative experience.

Here is the descent into the underworld:

Crowded Escalator
Crowded Escalator

The passage through:

On The Train
On The Train

Emerging on the other side, returning to the daylight and the world of mortal men, the escalator ride up is both salvation and alienation, because who would understand or even believe your having done battle with a steel dragon and survived?

Morning Emergence
Morning Emergence

These are some first attempts at bringing the “experiential” style of photographing that I’ve been doing to bear on people. There have been a few attempts at doing pictures of individuals this way but they, at least to me, really don’t work. Maybe I’m being too rigid in my thinking, or maybe I’m dead on the money. Time will tell.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

World Health Organization Details

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A few more from the World Health Organization building. These I cropped more than I normally do for compositional purposes. I mostly compose and print full frame, but in these cases, including everything the camera saw didn’t match what I was thinking and feeling when I shot the image.

With the Curves image, I wanted the reflection of what’s across the sidewalk from the building showing in the black granite slabs, but I didn’t want much of the vegetation in the background to intrude and directly conflict with the geometry of the building. The grass in the foreground stays in because it is bordered and bounded by the curved lines that echo the shape of the building and the can lights above.

World Health Organization Curves
World Health Organization Curves

I was mostly interested in the organically shaped column supporting the building, and the dynamic angles of the superstructure it points to. Keeping in too much foreground robs the energy of the image, and including more of the superstructure overweights the top.

WHO Column, Angle
WHO Column, Angle
Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Washington Monuments

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As part of a monthly (well, bi-monthly, in reality) group photography exercise, I and the other participants go out and take pictures on a theme. Whoever picks the theme judges the submissions, and the winner gets to pick the next theme. The current group theme is “Stone”. Therewith, here are two entries I submitted. I still have until the end of the month of April to submit, so I may get out and take a few more that are perhaps more literal.

Lincoln Memorial Column
Lincoln Memorial Column

My first submission is this column and the plaza beneath it on the side of the Lincoln Memorial. I went for a challenge of the white marble because white-on-white is tough to photograph well.

WW I Memorial, Washington DC
WW I Memorial, Washington DC

This is a tight shot of the Washington DC World War I memorial. Did you know that there is NO national WW I memorial? There is a national Korean War memorial, a national Vietnam War memorial, and a national World War II memorial, but the WW I memorial on the National Mall is for veterans and the dead of WW I from the District of Columbia. It is on the south side of the National Mall, between the Korean and WW II memorials, tucked back in the trees, and overlooked by most tourists and visitors, and probably even most natives of Washington DC. I like the elegant simplicity of the WW I memorial – none of the architectural and symbolic bombasticism of the WW II or the stilted drama of the Korean War monument. I hold this one up with the Vietnam wall as one of the best. It is very much a piece of its time – the end of a psychological era when death could still be dignified.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

World Health Organization Abstract part 2

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A different perspective on the World Health Organization building, looking up from under the cylinder at the tower. Not quite as abstract as the other two, but nonetheless.

Eaves, World Health Organization
Eaves, World Health Organization
Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

One Light On

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Another scene I see near my office every day. Easier to capture in the wintertime when it gets dark early.

One Light On
One Light On