My Birthday & Leap Day, February 29, 2008


For my birthday, George made arrangements for Cafe Citron where two of my very lovely co-workers and my "landlord"/roommate/guy-I-live-with showed up to celebrate. We got drunk and ate a ton of food and danced a little bit but I just turned all of 24 and was tired and wanted to get my drunk ass into bed.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Wednesday, February 27, 2008


I read an article recently (via Photojojo, I think) that spoke about the one minute long after sunset where everything is very interesting. I think I saw that moment last night - the sky was this amazing deep blue. Of course, I had no tripod or anything and so I just tried to hold still and this is what I got. These trees are lit by a streetlight close by.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008


George's housemates' dog Sabrina. She was sitting in the light right until I sat down next to her with the camera. Alas.

Monday, February 25, 2008


You thought it couldn't get worse than yesterday but I spent my entire morning at the DMV and associated frustrating-as-all-hell activities so this is what you get. It's a picture of a screwdriver through a bottle of clarifying shampoo.

Sunday, February 24, 2008


After the flight and the nap and the grocery shopping and the cooking, I didn't feel much like photographing. Nothing at all to say about this beauty.

Saturday, February 23, 2008


Our activity of choice today was the Swamp Cabbage Festival in Labelle, Florida. It was seriously hick but relatively enjoyable. This girl was waiting for the armadillo races to start. It's almost certainly the best portrait I've ever taken.

Friday, February 22, 2008


This is my stepfather Elliot. He's a big guy and I didn't have to squat down to take this one, I just pointed up and clicked. In a perfect world, I would have had a big piece of white cardboard to stick under his face but if you look closely, you can see his eyes anyway. He thought this looked better in black and white so I obliged. Actually, I don't think he realizes this is going on the internet. Hello Elliot!
We went to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary today - 2.5 miles of swampy bliss. Apparently SW Florida is in the middle of the worst drought in 100 years. There was hardly any "swampy" area to the sanctuary but we did see some birds and one alligator that looked bored to tears.

Thursday, February 21, 2008


This is the view from the airplane on the way to Ft. Myers, only totally messed up because this is what Microsoft Picture It! (version 9!) thought the levels were supposed to look like. It was more interesting than the all-blue so I just went with it.

I'm in Florida until Sunday to visit my parents.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008


This photo is not for David because I would have taken it anyway, thankyouverymuch. Most of them came out blurry and then George brilliantly screwed the camera base into the telescope. Those came out relatively clear but my camera is not at all suited for this kind of thing and captured very, very little detail. Perhaps you will see me take brilliant astro-pictures at some point in the future.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008


Today was six and a half hours of meetings and 3 and a half hours of getting ready for meetings. Our carbon credit thing totally fell apart and my photography class still sucks. On the plus side, I've only got one more day left in the "week" and then I'm off to sunny Florida to visit the parents.

Presidents' Day, Monday, February 18, 2008


Mark is my landlord/roommate and his parents have this incrediblye (dammit, I always do that!) house down by Fredericksburg right on Lake Anna. We stayed the night and did pleasant things like play cards and watch movies. This morning, it was absolutely gorgeous and we all sat around in t-shirts on his deck. This rotting skull was right at the entrance to the "boat house" and no one thought it was cool but me.

Sunday, February 17, 2008


I dragged George to a Revolutionary War reenactment which actually turned out to be relatively exciting. Of course, my camera with its below-par zoom and my lack of tripod meant no lively scenes from the battlefield but someone left this redcoat draped over a pup tent.

Saturday, February 16, 2008


The frog exhibition at the National Geographic museum downtown was pretty cool but my pictures came out awful. This is the only one in focus and properly exposed. It appears to be very difficult to photograph through glass.

Friday, February 15, 2008


This picture sucks but what do you expect? My Friday pictures are always crappy.

Valentine's Day, Thursday, February 14, 2008


Valentine's Day with George was extremely chill - he made me dinner and we watched Stargate like a couple of nerds, which is exactly what we are.

This photo is boring except for all the mini self-portraits.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008


This is one block from my office - I snapped it before the light turned. I'm certainly not feeling very creative today. Perhaps it's the mind-numbing USAID rules & regs class I'm taking... it makes me very happy I work with corporate money.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008


It took me almost two and a half hours to get home when my normal commute is 20 minutes. At first, I was pissed they canceled my photography class because of "some drizzle," which was the weather condition outside my office when I got the message. I didn't arrive home until an hour after the class was supposed to begin. It would likely have taken me another hour to actually get to the location.
This was the worst traffic I have ever seen in the area - absolutely crawling for hours. On top of that, I was very low on gas and kept thinking it was going to cut out any minute and I'd have to push the rest of the way. And further, I had to pee so bad I tried to make it in a Snapple bottle and even got my jacket around me and squatted on the damn thing and I couldn't do it!!
What a lovely evening.

Monday, February 11, 2008


Went to a funky-awesome hip-hop show with Colin at the Kennedy Center to experience some more Japanese culture. I got there early enough to score amazing seats on the stairs right near the stage and it was phat. Jigga.

Sunday, February 10, 2008


In addition to Super Asian Blowout Night #2, we made crumb cake. It was fantastically yummy. Says George, "Did you know that crumb cake originated in Japan?" "Oh really?" "No, I was just trying to tie it into the theme."

Saturday, February 9, 2008


For the next week, the Kennedy Center will have the enormously entertaining and strange "Japan! Culture and Hyper Culture" exhibit going on. Aside from two rooms entirely decked out in polka dots, there are daily exhibitions with robots, multiple art installations and pieces and a free concert of sorts every night at 6pm. I love DC.

Friday, February 8, 2008


I don't know what kind of trees these are but they're super-creepy and I love it!

Thursday, February 7, 2008


I had to step out of my IDB conference because I thought I might go crazy and snapped this shot of a church. I find the churches in the middle of DC to be somewhat off. You are walking around amidst all this business and hustle and bustle and then there is a House of God. It's weird.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008



Can't believe I forgot to post this one! Back-dating, you make me look competent.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008


George sat patiently while I took these photos of him. He claims not to be photogenic but that's only because he is always screwing up his face funny when he tries to "look good for the picture." The set actually came out pretty well - more in my Picasa.
It's quite a bit noisier than I would have liked (left the camera on auto-everything) but it was quite dark and the overhead light would have cast even worse shadows. Interestingly enough, I didn't have a problem with noise in my self-portrait shot in much the same way. That's probably because I had the camera resting on a nightstand and a stack of books. I was far too lazy for all that business last night.

Monday, February 4, 2008


These trees definitely know it's Monday.

In other news - my Olympus OM-1 totally works! Got back my pictures from Target and all today and they actually look fine - can't tell there's anything wrong with the thing... besides some bizarre red splotching on some of them and burned-out sides on others. I'm just going to go ahead and attribute that to the developing and vow not to develop important pictures at Target.

This bonus picture is scanned from film:

Yeah it could look better but try Flickr and remember that George's scanner is a piece of crap.

Saturday, February 2, 2008


The truth is, I have a really hard time asking people to pose for photos. It just seems so invasive and I can't imagine anyone being pleased that I would want to take their picture. This guy looked kinda pissed that I took some pre-shots but then he turned his back to me so I fired away.

Friday, February 1, 2008


Again, probably best viewed on Flickr.

I'm stealing a concept from the other people in the group but thought these subjects would work well together.

Welcome to February!