WHNPA Din Din
05/31/09 I had a ball last night at the White House News Photographers Association’s 88th Annual Awards Dinner. The audience was as loud as I predicted in my previous post but they did quiet down for the President’s video tribute to photogs. There was some grumbling about the Prez not being there but everyone is confident that he will show up for one of these shindigs before his time in office passes.
A couple of my friends were award winners and it was cool to see them get their due. You can see all the winning entries here.
Here’s the group I was hanging with at one of the Reuters News Agency tables.
Hip To Be Square
05/30/09 Medium format photography gives you a big square negative instead of the rectangular one you get from 35mm film. Shooting square is a different way of looking at things. Composition changes drastically. I usually print borders on mine to show the image has not been cropped but is in fact square.
San Francisco Bay 1997
OK Corral Tombstone, AZ
Most of these images were taken with a beautiful 1940s twin reflex Mamiyaflex camera my uncle Thomas gave me. It used to belong to the Hollywood producer/agent Leland Hayward. Tom was one of his lawyers. Hayward was an avid photographer (among other things). I’ve seen his work and he was talented. He photographed most of the major stars in tinsel town in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s at one point or another. They were his friends and clients. It’s an odd feeling to look at his pix and think that they were likely taken with the same camera I’m now using. At some point though he got tired of photography and gave all of his equipment to my uncle. I have Hayward’s darkroom which includes a magnificent German enlarger with a mirror inside that must be 2 inches thick.
Ellis Island Ferry
Ruined Bridge, Rock Creek Park
WHNPA Awards Dinner Tomorrow Night
05/29/09 Looking forward to this:
Always great swag (usually photo gear with the White House Photographer’s logo stamped on it) and it must be one of the most raucous black tie events in DC every year. The Correspondent’s Dinner is much more placid, for example. The audience is so loud that no one can hear the speeches. Watch it on C-SPAN. I just tried without success to find on YouTube the video of Joe Scarborough hosting the event a few years back. Hilarious. He gets more and more angry at how noisy the crowd is as the evening wears on. At the finish of the program, he said something like “Good Riddance!” or “I’m never doing this again!” I can’t quite remember what he said because I was loudly talking to people at my table.
The other very funny thing about the evening is the slideshow that plays during dinner with the award winning images. Without fail, every table of photographers will have one or two or ten people say “I shot that same exact image” or “I have a better version of that photo.” Hah!
Art Buzz Fully Fotographic On Fourteenth & T
05/28/09 Busy week! Wednesday night I took part in “Art Buzz Fully Fotographic”, an event designed to “showcase the works of DC’s top artists” and raise funds for the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative’s Arts for Every Student (AFES) program. The event was held at The Source Theater at 14th and T which is a really cool space for a group show. It appeared to me to be a very small venue for a theater. Someone told me that it seats 100 but I’d be shocked if it did. My brother Mike works around the corner on U Street and came along to help me set up. It would have been very hard to do by myself and it was great to have another set of eyes. Thanks Mike!
I was torn about what to show but eventually decided on 3 portraits and two “travel” images. Two of the portraits I had printed 24 x36 by master printer Gerard at the Photography Center of Bethesda – he did them on a metallic sheen paper which really made them pop. I cannot recommend Gerard highly enough. He runs the best photo lab in the entire DC/MD/VA region. Finally, I had them framed in a rush job by the always reliable Allen Custom Frame. Here’s one:
Portrait of Roxana.
The model came out for the event with some of her friends and was happy to hear viewers “Ooh!” and “Ahh!” over her likeness.
Portrait of Christie. I shot this only a couple weeks ago at one of my Open Studio shoots but it may be my favorite image of 2009 thus far.
I also had t-shirts made with the image of Roxana printed on back. Everybody likes a great t-shirt, right?
Here’s my niece Fiona modeling one.
Here’s one of the travel images I had on display:
It doesn’t do it justice to see it on the computer screen. The colors look faded here to me but the important thing about the print is that it’s HUGE. I tell people that it is “sofa-sized.”
The best part of the show was the fact that a lot of friends I have not seen in a long time showed up. I handed out a lot of business cards and promo material; was interviewed by a reporter from I’m not sure where; schmoozed; drank wine and also got some job proposals for future work. Fun evening. I have to close by saying thanks to my friend Jade Floyd who organized the whole thing and roped me into participating.
Memorial Day Weekend ’09
05/26/09 I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend. I spent it at my favorite place on earth – my family’s farm in the Hudson Valley with a bunch of my nephews and my brother Tim. Besides chores, it was a weekend entirely filled with boy-approved activities like fishing and looking for frogs down by the pond, driving fast on twisty country roads, fireworks, dinner from the local pizza joint and shakes from Del’s Dairy Creme.
Wide-mouthed Bass my nephew Paddy caught in our pond.
A turtle that was taken home.
And now it’s back to work! Today I’m picking up prints at the framer’s and getting prepared for tomorrow’s night’s group show:
ART BUZZ – Fully Fhotographic @ Fourteenth and T
where I’ll have 5 of my photographs up for sale and about which I’ll write more later today.
134th Preakness Stakes
05/16/09 What a thrilling 134th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Racetrack in Baltimore on Saturday! A filly named Rachel Alexander came across the finish line ahead of the field – the first female horse to win the race in 85 years. But the bigger story was the question a lot of spectators had on their minds: will this be the last time the 2nd Jewel in racing’s Triple Crown will be held in the state of Maryland? The syndicate which owns Laurel and Pimlico racetracks is bankrupt and an offer has been floated to turn the property into a shopping center. The downturn in the economy has certainly taken a toll. I noticed a couple major financial institutions in the state that had had tents in the VIP area of the infield last year were not around this year. Attendance in the decidedly non-VIP section of the infield was down drastically because of a ban on containers. The track banned alcohol from being brought in and the resulting crowd, which often swelled to 90,000 rowdy and sun burnt souls, was off by maybe half that number.
Rachel Alexander in the post parade before the race.
The finish.
Jockey Calvin Borel on board Rachel Alexander celebrates after winning the 134 running of the Preakness Stakes.
ZZ-Top Concert
When I think of horse racing . . . I think of beach volleyball?
Mud spattered jockey Mike Smith – who finished 2nd in the Preakness on board KY Derby winner Mine That Bird – describes his run in the Preakness immediately after the race.
Stakes barn hours after the race.
Morning Workouts
05/15/09 I got up very early Friday morning and drove an hour North to Baltimore to see the horses who intend to run in tomorrow’s Preakness Stakes do their morning workouts. I am not a morning person but this is a very fun thing to do. It’s like being backstage at a play before opening night. There is tension and expectation in the air. Everyone looking at these animals is trying to figure out who will win the big race. The multi-million dollar horses are handled like nobility. I heard two grooms washing a horse after his morning run and one said “This horse gets treated better than I do. I’d like to get a hand bath sometime!” and the other groom said “Too much information, OK?”
Pioneerof the Nile* running an early morning workout at Pimlico racetrack.
[*Pioneerof the Nile? Is that a typo? No, it’s run together purposely to conform with thoroughbred naming rules laid down by the Jockey Club. The Jockey Club registers approximately 37,000 thoroughbreds annually in North America and records their names, pedigrees and identification number (tattooed on the inside of the upper lip) in the American Stud Book. Thoroughbred names are submitted by the owner of breeder and assigned by the Jockey Club, which limits them to 18 characters, including spaces and punctuation. That forced breeder and owner Ahmed Zayat, to run “Pioneer” and “of” together when naming the son of Empire Maker.]
Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird gets a bath after his morning workout. My friend, the great Reuters photographer Molly Riley, has her eye to the camera in the background.
Preakness contender Papa Clem gets a bath following his workout.
Trainer Bob Baffert chats with the exercise rider on board his horse Pioneerof the Nile after an early morning workout at Pimlico racetrack.
“Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” premiere
05/14/09 “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” premiere at the National Air and Space Museum.
Owen Wilson
Amy Adams plays Amelia Earhart
Robin Williams
Mizuo Peck plays Sacagawea
Ricky Gervais
Christine Taylor with her husband Ben Stiller who stars in the film.
Newsbabes & Jeff’s B-day
05/13/09 Game 7 of the Washington Capitals vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins was Wednesday evening and I wanted to see the game so my coverage of the 2009 Newsbabes Bash for Breast Cancer to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation at Lotus Lounge was brief. I got there early enough to catch everyone outside posing for pictures with signage (although the liquor store next door was somewhat distracting) and did a quick drive-by shooting. A bunch of friends who arrived later angrily demanded my return via text messages, but by that time I was watching the hockey game with my brother Tim and our buddy Tommy at a hotel bar around the corner.
That’s Channel 9′s Angie Goff with Teddy Roosevelt.
It was a bad night for local sports as the Caps sadly got thrashed and the National’s Ryan Zimmerman’s hitting streak was snapped at 30. We left the bar and headed up 14th Street for a birthday party at Cafe Salsa for my friend Jeff Dufour. Jeff co-writes a gossip column in The Washington Examiner called Yeas and Nays. We used to work together at The Hill Newspaper where I was Photo Editor for a number of years and Jeff wrote a Capitol Hill centered gossip column called Under The Dome.
Jeff gets a kiss from his lovely girlfriend Jayne.
Not a surprise for a gossip columnist’s party, but I spent most of the party swapping gossip from the last campaign with a well connected lobbyist of the Democrat persuasion who had some funny Hillary v. Obama stories I’d never heard before.
Sweet Charity
05/11/09 8th annual Sweet Charity event at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel where award-winning chefs demonstrated their mastery of cocoa and couture with wearable creations at the Des Alpes Chocolate Fashion Show featuring 15 models dressed in chocolate and edible accessories.
Proceeds from Sweet Charity will go to help the Books From The Heart program to provide books to children living in poverty who have few or no books of their own.
My friend Kate was wearing a giant 15 pound cake on her head for the second year in a row and looked a tad uncomfortable backstage but no one seeing her on the runway was any wiser. She’s pictured below with my friend Staci.
2009 White House Correspondents’ Dinner
05/09/09 One of the dirty secrets of the Corro Dinner is that a lot of reporters who regularly cover the White House do not get to attend the dinner because their news organizations take their seats and give them to big wigs at the company or to their ad people as perks. I heard a lot more grumbling about that this year because it was Obama’s first as president and the corporate VPs all wanted to be in the room. It makes for great bragging rights on the golf course, I guess. Many more celebs came out as well because of the new President’s popularity. It’s odd how this stuffy dinner has morphed into an Oscar party.
At any rate, here are some images from this year.
Busy Photo Saturday: Lovely Czechs, Dec’s 1st and Corro Din Din
05/09/09 Started this morning by visiting my friends Liba and Andrea. They both work at the Czech Embassy which was hosting an Open House and they were dressed in traditional costume. Great to see them as they are both very cool and funny. Liba had stayed out too late the night before and was hurting a bit. Not that you could tell. Andrea had her grandmother with her. It was a little early to start drinking but who can turn down a free Pilsner Urquell or two?
I left the lovely Czechs abuptly though because I had to make it to my nephew Declan’s 1st Holy Communion at Blessed Sacrament Church. He looked snazzy in coat and tie. That’s him below with his friend whispering in his ear. He told me he thought he looked “like the guy in “Burn Notice.”
My sister Kelly hosted a party at her house for Dec’s celebration which was a lot of fun because my nieces and nephews were all running around like crazy and lots of friends were on hand as well. Soon, however, it was time to gird my loins and throw on the tuxedo for the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner which is the glitzist bash in DC every year. I’ll make a separate posting for those pix.
“Poliwood” Premiere
05/08/09 DC is a sucker for celebrity. Maybe the high school scenario best explains the phenomenon - DC being the land of former high school student council/chess club members yearning to hang with the cool kids and the cool kids being the Hollywood types. At the same time, the cool kids want to show that they are not just vapid egotistical shells. Washington validates them. Sooner or later they come to town to testify before Congress on behalf of their “cause” often appearing in non-prescription glasses to add gravitas (a trick I think they learned from watching Ginger on “Gilligan’s Island”).
Occasionally the mutual love-in comes to an abrupt halt when someone rudely points out that the king has no clothes. That listening to what an entertainment personality has to say about politics or their “cause” is akin to asking a circus elephant his thoughts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. My favorite example of this breakdown of the Hollywood on the Potomac Axis happened back in 2002 when Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio) blew up at the thought of Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson testifying in front of his committee. ”It’s just a joke to think that this witness can provide members of the United States Senate with information on important geological and water quality issues,” Voinovich told the AP. ”We’re either serious about the issues or we’re running a sideshow.”
And speaking of sideshow, we come to the Washington, DC premiere of Barry Levinson’s “Poliwood” which the press release breathlessly describes:
“It’s a documentary where politicians are the celebrity, celebrities attempt to untangle policy, and media reports it all. POLIWOOD features a trip through one of history’s most climactic elections with Anne Hathaway, Alfre Woodard, Spike Lee, Sting, Tim Daly, Kerry Washington, Matthew Modine, Dana Delany, Will I.M., Mos Def and other notables on the trail with Levinson.”
The premiere was held, strangely, at the Navy Memorial Theater on Pennsylvania Ave. It’s an interesting venue (it’s underground and filled with war memorabilia) but the air conditioning wasn’t working well and it got muggy and sweaty quickly. The press was put into a pen around which the celebs were escorted by their handlers like hot walkers at the horse track. A reporter friend of mine working freelance for one of the entertainment magazines was mortified to be given a list of specific questions by the mag’s editors tailored for the celebs expected to attend. These questions ran along the lines of “How do you keep your tush toned?” and “What is your best dieting secret?” To add to her discomfort, the celebs – by virtue of being in Washington – were expecting serious questions and were annoyed because they were not being asked about politics.
After I got the pix I needed, I headed off to another event and left without attending the screening.
Photos © 2009 by Patrick G. Ryan
Teacher Thank-You
05/04/09 The National Education Association held a “Teacher Thank-You” event on Capitol Hill and one of my photos subsequently ran on page 1 of the 05/09-05/15/09 issue of the Washington Afro-American.
Dorothy at ’96 RNC in San Diego
05/03/09 Jack Kemp passed away yesterday. I remember when Bob Dole selected him as his running mate just prior to the ’96 GOP Convention in San Diego. Kemp was popular with the rank and file party faithful but there some head scratching over the political algebra Senator Dole had used to come by his choice. What did Kemp bring to the ticket? Surely his home state of New York would not be put into play. Was Dole trying to prove his conservative credentials? If so, why? No conservative was going to wind up voting for his opponent – President Bill Clinton. Ultimately the conventional (pun) wisdom held that Dole realized he looked elderly in contrast to Clinton and he needed somebody younger on the ticket. Not so young looking as Dan Quayle who was the butt of constant jokes but maybe Kemp – though himself no spring chicken – would exude just enough virile ex-jock charisma Dole would need to defeat Slick Willie.
It was my first political convention. I’ve been to either the Democratic or Republican (or both) conventions ever since. There is something insane but necessary about them. The original purpose of these week long parties has long since vanished but they are to political schmoozing and wheeling dealing what Mt. Everest is to the climber. The organizers in San Diego were afraid that the ceiling of the convention center was too low for a really good balloon drop. Grown men and women talked about this worriedly for days. Newt Gingrich hosted a BBQ party with country musician Travis Tritt for entertainment and I remember thinking how weird it was to see Newt in blue jeans. I was in the hall when Rep. J.C. Watts gave one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard but no one in America saw it because the networks had returned to there scheduled programming. I recalled Watts’ speech when I was in the hall in Boston at the DNC in 2004 and an obscure politician named Barack Obama gave his keynote speech.
Below is one of my favorite pix from the RNC San Diego convention. “Dorothy” was a delegate from Kansas to the RNC. I stuck it in one of my notebooks because it captures that “Let’s Make A Deal” zany quality of political conventions well. I’ve kept photo notebooks for many years. I use those bound, lined School Composition books to make lists and record impressions of the things I am photographing. This blog is an attempt to transfer the notebooks to digital form. Image © 2009 by Patrick G. Ryan
Steve Pyke Talk At Portrait Gallery
05/02/09 Here’s an iPhone photo of New Yorker staff photographer Steve Pyke giving a talk at the National Portrait Gallery. He’s showing the contact sheets of a session he did with Black Panther Bobby Seale and talking about how he chose the image to his left as his final edit.
From the program:
“Born in England and now based in New York, Steve Pyke first won notice for his distinctive, close-up portrait style in the 1980s, with editorial work for the music press and magazines such as Britain’s popular style bible known as The Face. Pyke’s photographs have since reached a wide audience through their publication in magazines around the world and their exhibition in museums and commercial galleries. Explore the art of the Portrait Gallery exhibit, Portraiture Now: Feature Photography, with the artist, Steve Pyke, who will give an exclusive tour of his process and his portraits.”
It was an informative chat. Pyke talked about photo selection and the role of his Creative Director at the New Yorker in helping him decide on approach and editing. It’s very important to him to crop in camera so many of his prints have black borders on them to show they’ve not been cropped. He talked about coming up with some ideas before a session and seeing if they work. For the portrait of Henry Kissinger below, for example, he used as a background a painting called “Dr K” by Jan Frank which is composed of dozens of Kissinger’s hallmark square glasses. The painting did not fit into the space where the portrait was shot so Pyke placed it on its side which gives the effect of glasses raining down behind Kissinger.
Pyke just published a book of still lifes and is currently working on a book about “photography and memory.”
Elephant On DeSales
05/01/09 Early Friday morning, I had a shoot downtown covering the board meeting of a charitable foundation and I produced pix that would only be of interest to the client – folks sitting around a large conference table and a few grip and grins. I spent a couple hours back at my office photo editing and catching up on email, etc before returning downtown to drop off a CD with the images to the client. Then I sauntered a block or two over to an event sure to produce some compelling images. Here’s an excerpt from the press release I read the night before . . .
MEDIA ALERT/ PHOTO OPPORTUNITY –
The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel Hosts Traditional Indian Wedding Complete with an Elephant Procession WHO: Washingtonians Shilpa Maheshwari and Neil Agarwal will be wed at The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, and will have a traditional Baraat ceremony with the groom arriving on an elephant as he and his family proceed down DeSales St. NW.
Highland Park Challenge
04/22/09 The management team at Highland Park Apartments (located conveniently above the Metro in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of DC!) contacted me about doing a photo shoot. But they came up with a twist. Not only would my images show off the cool interiors but in order to make things “look happening” I’d be shooting at night in the midst of a party thrown for their residents and prospective renters. This was a fun challenge. I’ve shot a lot of parties before and I’ve done fashion shoots and architectural photography but here I’d be doing all three at once. The shoot would also be a fixture of the party so in a sense I was performing. The building is brand new with a lot of visually attractive spots for photo set ups – like a metallic floating staircase, a “model” apartment and a mailroom with dozens of dangling bulbs. I hired three of the most gorgeous models I know – Kate, Dionne and Liba along with my favorite stylist Indrid Ellmore to pull the whole thing off.
