Svetlana Horvat Show
09/26/10 Serbian designer Svetlana Horvat showcases her upcoming Spring/Summer 2011 collection for the first time Sunday night at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. before presenting at Paris Fashion Week. The show was produced by www.planetechic.com
General Mattis
09/22/10 USMC General James Mattis, Commander of CENTCOM, receives the Inaugural Churchill/Roosevelt Lion-Heart award at a gala at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC on Wednesday evening.
The Boating Party
09/18/10 Cruising on the Potomac River Saturday afternoon aboard The American Spirit to celebrate Jason Dorn’s 40th birthday.
[A toast to the birthday boy.]
[The presidential yacht Sequoia floated by as the sun set.]
[Tim, Jason and Molly solve the world's problems.]
Fenty Loses
09/15/10 There was no joy in Mudville last night at the old Curtis Chevrolet dealership on Georgia Avenue, home of the Fenty For Mayor campaign headquarters.
Campaign staff and supporters waited impatiently for the votes to be counted in the DC Democratic Primary. Polls stayed open later than planned and the Board of Elections said there were problems with voting machines at some polling places. A large and boisterous crowd at 9 p.m. had dwindled significantly by the time Mayor Fenty came out to thank them at 1:30 a.m.
Fenty complained about the slow count and said the race was not over.
About 20 minutes after talking to the press, the Board of Elections came out with a new count. These numbers showed challenger Gray beating Fenty 53% to 46% with over 90 percent of the precincts reporting.
DC Primary Day
09/14/10 DC Mayor Adrian Fenty arrives with his family at Melvin Sharpe Health School Tuesday morning to vote in the DC Democratic Primary. His political future hangs in the balance. Four years after winning every Ward in the city, pre-election polls show him far behind his rival, DC Council Chairman Vincent Gray.
Ferragosto 2010
09/13/10 Images from yesterday’s Ferragosto street festival on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx - “The Real Little Italy of NY.”
Photograph From 09/11
[I took this the morning of September 11, 2001. Senator John Kerry (D MA) joins the crowd evacuating the US Capitol - you can see the women are getting car keys out of their purses - as the Pentagon burns in the distance.]
09/11/10 I was in a taxi that morning going up to Capitol Hill to cover an historic hearing – the new First Lady, Laura Bush, was to testify before a committee that included her predecessor, newly minted Senator Hillary Clinton. Just as we pulled up to the Russell Office Building, the radio announced that a small plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. They guessed that a pilot had suffered a heart attack. “Keep your head down!” the cabbie joked as I got out.
Later, inside the hearing room, I got a call from my brother Tim (an editor at Reuters) to tell me a plane had hit WTC. I told him I’d heard that already and he said no ANOTHER plane and both planes were commercial airliners. This is the point when things became crazy and everything hit fast forward.
The hearing was canceled. Many of the other photogs left immediately for NYC. Laura Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy came out and talked about the loss of life in NY. As they were doing this, the Pentagon was hit. Pandemonium. The smoke could clearly be seen from the window of the building we were in.
The Secret Service took Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton out in separate convoys. They had their Uzis drawn. There was a bomb scare at the Capitol building which was being evacuated. I went there.
Cell phones had stopped working – a recorded message saying “All Circuits Are Busy” came on after dialing. The one time this had happened to me in the past was trying to use a payphone in the moments after President Reagan was shot 20 years before. I was filled with a feeling of dread. My cousin Sharon lived a couple blocks from World Trade Center and I could not get through to her.
The rumors flying were a mixture of truth, partial truth and flat out false. I heard that the OEB was on fire; that the State Dept was burning as was the National Mall. The Metro was said to be unsafe. When eventually I heard that the WTC towers had collapsed, I thought “bullshit.” I didn’t believe it. The rumor at the top of my mind was of a hijacked plane still in the air and headed for DC.
Dozens of people were milling around by the Senate swamp. There was a guy who had a mini TV working off the cigarette lighter in his car and the news was on. The Senate chaplain gathered some people together in a huddle and began praying. Senator Byrd was walking around and chatting with no police protection. At the time, he was President Pro Tem of the Senate – #3 in terms of presidential succession after the Vice President and the Speaker of the House.
I remember thinking “I’m here to take a photo if a plane flies into the Capitol dome but why in the hell are these people just standing here? It’s coming!”
Just minutes after that thought, a Navy fighter plane passed overhead and caused a sonic boom. This triggered a total, absolute panic on the ground. People were running and screaming with no idea where they were running to or what they were screaming. I remember looking at people’s eyes through my lens and their pupils were wide with terror.
Bag Monster Sighting
09/06/10 Andy Keller from Chico, CA casts himself as the Bag Monster to increase support for the banning of plastic bags. He brought his 45,000 plastic bag installation to DuPont Circle on Monday afternoon to make his point.
The 45,000 bag display represents how many plastics bags a typical individual uses during their lifetime. Keller’s Bag Monster costume is made out of 500 plastic bags, the amount one person uses in a single year.
Mass For Mother Teresa
09/05/10 Sisters from the Missionaries of Charity order attend a packed memorial Mass Sunday afternoon in honor of Mother Teresa at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC on the thirteenth anniversary of her death. After Mass, the US Postal Service unveiled its commemorative Mother Teresa postage stamp.
[Nuns handing out Holy Cards with an image of Mother Teresa on one side and a prayer on the other.]
Fenty At Broad Branch Market
09/04/10 With just ten days remaining until the DC Democratic Primary, Mayor Adrian Fenty made an early morning campaign stop at the Broad Branch Market in Ward 4. After a short speech, he led the crowd to the nearby Chevy Chase Community Center polling place. Early voting began last week and the Fenty organization hopes to use it to score a come from behind victory when the votes are counted on Primary Day.
[Broad Branch Market sits on the corner of Broad Branch Road and Northampton St. NW]
[The Mayor arrives with Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of DC's public schools. Her tenure (and whether she will continue to serve as Chancellor if Fenty is defeated) has become a major issue in the campaign.]
Scanner-ography 1: Purple Flowers
09/04/10 There’s a weed with purple flowers growing in my backyard. I picked a bunch and put them on my flatbed scanner with a shoebox covering them to make this image. I met a photographer a few years ago who “shoots” with her scanner, not a camera . She has a spectacular portfolio of flowers and she taught me the shoebox trick.
Up Goes The Grand Chapiteau
09/02/10 Cirque du Soleil raised their blue-and-yellow Grand Chapiteau (Big Top) at the Plateau at National Harbor this afternoon. Their new production, OVO opens Thursday, September 9th for a limited engagement until Sunday, October 2.
Arriba Fenty!
09/02/10 DC Mayor Adrian Fenty makes a campaign stop at at Haydee’s Restaurant in Mt. Pleasant Thursday morning where he received the endorsement of the Washington Hispanic newspaper.
Fenty was praised as being a great “Alcalde”- a word which always reminds me of Zoro.
