Photographer Paul Sharratt shot this using film on the DC Metro. Join the LOOKDC group.
Subway Dancers © 2010 Paul Sharratt
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Barnes Dance in Chinatown. Join the LOOKDC photo group.
Barnes Dance, Chinatown © 2010 Matt Dunn
I know tattoos aren’t for everyone but I find many of them to be works of art. Like this one. It is the grandmother of a local DC resident (who you may have seen from time to time at Wonderland). The grandmother still lives in DC and it is going to be one of my summer projects to interview her. While the weather warms up, like last year, this will be a weekly feature.
Ed. Note: If you hate all tattoos and think they are ridiculous please just scroll past this post. Thank you.
From MPD 2D:
“Over the past several weeks, there were several robberies in the lower part of the Second District in which a lone suspect approaches individuals withdrawing money from ATM machines, and forces them to withdraw additional funds while threatening to harm them. Several of the victims stated the suspect was armed with a knife. There is a flyer attached to this notice recently prepared by the First District after a robbery that occurred in the 600 block of Massachusetts Avenue, NW. We believe this same suspect is responsible for other similar robberies in the Second District.
Please use caution when using ATMs and be aware of your surroundings. As always, if you see anyone matching this description, or if you observe anyone acting suspiciously, please call 911 immediately
Danny Harris is a DC-based photographer, DJ, and collector of stories. In September, he launched People’s District, a blog that tells a people’s history of DC by sharing the stories and images of its residents. Every day, People’s District presents a different Washingtonian sharing his or her insights on everything from Go Go music to homelessness to fashion to politics. You can read his previous columns here.
“I was born in Dayton, Ohio. My Dad was an aircraft engineer at the Wright-Paterson Air Force base. He eventually got a job on some new thing called computers and we moved around a bit before settling in the D.C. area in 1965.
“By hit or miss, I became a photographer while in college in Connecticut. When I came back to the area, my work was taking me all over the city and I started seeing these shrines to people who were killed on the streets. To me, it was like watching someone’s heart bleed in public. There is a huge amount of emotional content in them. They are homemade folk art and very specific to D.C. From my relatively small research, there have been shrines recorded back to the early Middle Ages in Europe. The instinct to build shrines varies from place to place, but they are immediately recognizable no matter where you are.
“I started documenting the shrines two years ago and have been to over 200. Many of them are very modest, just some police tape and a teddy bear, but others are huge. I have seen panties and condoms, but typically it is plush toys, balloons, and liquor bottles. I think that a lot of these items represent someone’s hope for the deceased and for the community. Maybe it is a hope for a better, safer, and heavenly place for the deceased and a call against violence in the community.
“When newspapers were strong, you could find information about every shooting in the Washington Post. Now, someone getting shot doesn’t make the paper. Three or four people have to get shot before that becomes news. I still drive around looking for the shrines and also use the area police resources to keep up with what is happening. I think that I have been to almost every shrine in the area since I started. I do not document the vigils out of respect for the families, but I take photos of the shrines to capture crime’s aftermaths and how it affects people. I am interested in documenting and sharing the healing aspects of shrines and how people try and rebuild themselves using this folk art.
“Doing this is part of my own way of keeping my priorities straight. I think that our job in life, if we have a job, is to learn and enlarge the consciousness of ourselves and others. I do this with no support, but because it is the right thing to do. I would like to bring this work into a public awareness program and to people who can make use of it, like survivors of street violence.
“As one guy said to me at one of the shrines, ‘No matter how bad you are, no one deserves this.’ When someone is murdered, you don’t just kill a person. You are also killing their entire family. Life is a short, complicated, and mysterious gift. Some lives end too soon. I can’t imagine ending this work unless the murders disappear in this city.”
Read more about Lloyd Wolf’s work here.
Portrait of Smithsonian botanical illustrator Alice Tangerini by photographer Melissa Golden. Read the full story of the shoot on Melissa’s blog the Golden Hour.
© 2010 Melissa Golden
I hadn’t seen this style where there is some stained glass on the sides and the number in the middle. The one above is particularly mint.
I don’t know what it is about ceiling fans and balconies but I imagine that is how the other half lives.
Today’s phenomenal garden of the day (see below) also had a couple of cool lawn decorations mixed in amidst the foliage.
Photo by PoPville flickr user iván.sciupac
Highlights for Thursday, May 13th – Sunday, May 16th
Tonight…
Choose from a wide selection of free events in DC including: an evening of music and history featuring Songs from the Civil War era at the National Archives 7pm, Power Point Karaoke, where you improvise to slides, and happy hour at Wonderland from 6:30-8:30pm, or an Energy Efficiency Workshop at Greater Goods 8pm-9pm. Hear some Live Music at Ebenezer’s Coffeeshop near Union Station, 7:30pm-10pm, 3 bands for $8, or swing by Bossa in Adams Morgan to dance to the music of House of Soul, 10pm -1am, $3. In Old Town Alexandria, VA you can see Musician Mateo Monk play at the Anthenaeum, 7pm, $10. Also in Old Town, you can attend a free Art Opening for Teresa Oaxaca’s new works with live classical duo at the Art League in the Torpedo Factory on the Waterfront 6:30pm-8:30pm. Reminder that The Phillips Collection stays open ’til 8:30pm every Thursday night and visiting the permanent collection is donation based and The Studio DC, which opened last weekend in Dupont, is still offering Free Yoga classes thru Friday.
Continues after the jump. (more…)