Italy isn’t all about ancient structures – while there are historical and architectural marvels aplenty in the center of the city of Rome, modern architecture happens too. At the Garbatella Metro station, this enormous viaduct that carries a four lane road over the railway tracks soars into the sky like a giant DNA strand or a dinosaur skeleton bleached white in the sun.
Viaduct, Garbatella, RomeViaduct, Garbatella, From Below
Everything about this bridge was designed with an artistic conceit, even the railings that surround the suspension cable anchor points – they undulate like the bridge form itself, like a ribbon or a snake winding its way between the cables.
Railings, Garbatella Viaduct, Rome
Even the safety barrier between the lanes on the roadway has been thoughtfully designed from an aesthetic as well as functional perspective.
From my trip to the Mercato Centrale in Florence. It’s challenging shooting in someplace like the Mercato Centrale because it’s very crowded, and the lighting is generally miserable- overhead fluorescents mixed with neon mixed with halogen and now mixed with LED spots. One of the things that helps pull it together is a great film – Kodak Portra 800 to be specific. It’s very fine-grained for a film that fast, and it, like the other films in the Portra family, does an incredible job of handling mixed lighting sources. No special filtration was used to color-correct these images.
Just another little snippet of my neighborhood in Washington DC: the Satellite Room, a small bar/club on the back side of the 9:30 Club.
Satellite Room
You can see behind it the massive structure of the Atlantic Plumbing building, which will house a new outpost of the Landmark Theaters chain in addition to residential condos. Landmark Theaters specialize in independent, foreign and classic films, and this will be their third location in DC itself, with an additional location in Bethesda and one in Baltimore. Just another sign of the massive gentrification of the area – ten years ago it was a rare-for-DC industrial area with a few bombed-out row houses scattered between. Now it’s high-end theaters with bar service and million-dollar condos.
Satellite Room
Clubs like the 9:30, the Satellite Room and Town helped pioneer the neighborhood making it desirable as a location to visit. With the more recent addition of Nellie’s (just across the street on 9th where U Street turns back into Florida Avenue)
Nellies Sports Bar, From Florida Avenue
and The Brixton, even the former dive bars have been cleaning up their acts and getting wine lists and 18 year old Scotch.
As seen in my neighborhood. Wheat-paste cutouts are becoming a new form of eco-friendly/sustainable/non-destructive graffiti. In this one, Kim Jong Un’s face has taken up residence on the wall of a building near the 9:30 Club.
Kim Jong Un Wall
Just because it’s gone hipster doesn’t mean graffiti has lost its edge for political and social commentary. Kim’s collar proclaims him “Smear Leader”.
A sidewalk in Georgetown on M Street, with the waning sun going down and casting very long shadows on a late summer evening. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why the title is “69 Seconds”.
This was from the weekend before Labor Day, when it was still hot, the sun stayed up longer, and it still felt like summer wasn’t going to end. This boy was playing in the fountain at the Georgetown riverfront park. He stepped out to take a break and basked in the sun to dry off. I can remember that kind of in-the-moment joy of lying on a warm rock after swimming in cold water, just being there and experiencing it, without a thought for the past or the future. I need to do that again some time, soon.
Two very similar shots of the same building. One in soft, diffuse light, the other in strong directional light. While both are about repetition of shapes and patterns, the one remains representational, the other, abstract.
Balconies, GeorgetownBalconies. Georgetown
And the difference between these two shots is about two hours. They were taken on different, but weather-wise similar, days, but one was taken around 4pm, the other around 6pm.
Key Bridge is one of the most iconic structures in Washington DC and a major attraction in its own right. It spans the Potomac between Georgetown and Rosslyn, and carries a tremendous volume of traffic between DC and Virginia every day.
The view of the underside is one most people never get, of this or any bridge for that matter.
Under Key Bridge
Key Bridge is chock full of strange hidden nooks, like this service door to something in the infrastructure. Despite being sealed off behind chain-link fencing, people have managed to get in and graffiti it.
Service Door, Key Bridge
The prototypical view of Key Bridge, from the West side. I’m fascinated by how someone managed to get to the bottoms of the piers and graffiti them. You’d have to either have a boat, sail up to the foot of the pier, then climb up 20+ feet from the waterline, or somehow rappel down from the pedestrian deck of the bridge. Not a recipe for success on either front, as I’d imagine you’d be spotted very quickly and arrested.
Key Bridge, Evening, West Side
Here’s a view of the underside where the bridge crosses the C&O Canal.
Canal, Under Key Bridge
This is the tower of the old Trolley Barn, which used to house the streetcars that plied DC in the late 19th/early 20th century. Now it is office space on the upper levels. The view is from under Key Bridge, where the on-ramp to the Whitehurst Freeway (really just an elevated bypass to get around the street traffic of Georgetown) splits off of Key Bridge.
The “Quiet Zone” sign is somewhat ironic, as it is on the edge of the George Washington University campus and three blocks from the GWU Hospital. It does seem to work, at least when I’m in the area, as I don’t see roving hordes of GW undergrads partying it up on the street, but it of course has zero impact on the ambulance sirens.
Quiet Zone
The “Open” arrow is outside Nellie’s Sports Bar, the first gay sports bar perhaps anywhere. What is a gay sports bar? Well, it’s a gay bar that has lots of very large flatscreen TVs, all of which are tuned to various flavors of ESPN, and it actually sponsors a number of teams in various gay sports leagues around the city. The “Open” arrow is a found object they re-purposed and fixed up to put outside the bar.
Nellies Is Open
This is the sign for the Backbar, part of the famous 9:30 Club. The 9:30 Club is a major rock-n-roll venue and has been around since 1980. It used to be located much further downtown, at something like 9th and F streets, but maybe 15 years ago moved to the current location which is roughly 9th and V Streets. They host major acts for a “small” venue – Billy Idol, Jimmy Somerville are two I can remember off the top of my head.
I’m a big fan of the Maryland Renaissance Festival, where people get dressed up in all kinds of reasonably (in)authentic garb and indulge in the fantasy of being in another place and time for the day. Costumes range from Renaissance royalty to fantasy characters inspired by Lord of the Rings and other sci-fi/fantasy stories.
While I often get tarted up in my own RennFest costume (I pass for a lesser lord of the Realm in my velvet doublet and tights), it was hot enough out that I decided this time discretion was the better part of valor and I would be better off in street clothes, just taking pictures. I wasn’t as photographically focused as I’d have wanted to be, pardon the pun, as I had a friend in tow who wanted to take in the sights. This was another photo outing where having the Rollei really came in handy, as people would quite willingly (if not eagerly) pose for the cool camera with the two lenses.
RennFest Fairy Girl
Photographing the fairy-wing girl was a hoot- she saw the camera, geeked out over it, and got even more excited when I pulled out my hand-held meter to take an exposure reading: “Are you metering me?? That’s so COOL!”.
I felt so sorry for this poor boy, out selling floral hair garlands from a hand-cart in the blazing sun. Black feathers in your hair, while they do provide some shade for the face, can’t be the coolest thing to wear when it’s approaching 90F / 35C.
RennFest Flower Boy
I did take this one as a candid, since the Maryland Man was so deep in conversation with the lady.
RennFest Maryland Renaissance Man
The living statue was busy posing, like a statue, and would only change or break pose if you put a tip in her cup. A little girl of perhaps five or six years old was enraptured by the statue, and an adult woman who was monitoring the child had to keep admonishing her (in the gentlest and situationally appropriate tone) “Don’t touch the statue- she doesn’t want to be touched”.
RennFest Living StatueRennFest Statue Girl, Profile
Another cast member at the RennFest who was approachable, thanks to the Rollei. He did get a bit distracted by I think a rather buxom young girl in a harem costume passing by just as I snapped the photo, so his expression isn’t what I was looking for.
RennFest Pickle Boy
And yes, if you’re wondering, that’s a Pokemon figurine on his necklace. See what I mean about not hewing to historical accuracy?
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