Butch - Portraits of Neighbors, Ledroit Park

Elm Street's caretaker, Butch. One day I'll need to ask him about his moniker.

Carolyn - Portrait Study #1

My friend Carolyn came over for an impromptu shoot on Friday. What a lovely opportunity to try out some new things! I’ve done quite a bit of work with friends and neighbors, and I’ve been making a point to try and get the people I know into my “studio” (living room) on a more regular basis. My goal is to make the tag “Portrait Study” a more regular occurrence on this blog. If there needs to be a Study #1 I think this is a good place to start!

Here are a few of my favorites:

DIY Instagram? Not Exactly.

If your phone is "dumb" like mine, you can still create your very own, beautiful, low tech Instagram photographs. All you need is a film camera (In this case a Nikon F3 - but any old point and shoot will do) and a roll of expired Kodak Gold Max 400 - preferably one that has lived in a shoe box since 1998, when you graduated and moved into that $400/month Adams Morgan group house OR, if you are 19, one that has lived in a shoe box that your mom has owned since 1991, when rent was only $200/month.

Extra points for getting the print shop to scan your film full frame and without removing the dust.

To illustrate the effect, here are a few shots from a pumpkin picking day last fall with neighbor Martha and her daughter Eddy. I know, not very instant, but isn't the memory of a cool fall day a nice discovery now that the DC summer heat is here for a while? Can you think of a better use for an old roll of film?

Individual results may varry.

And of course there were pygmy goats.

Darryl - Portraits of Ledroit Park Neighbors

Looking out the window last week, I saw my neighbor Darryl getting his hair cut on the sidewalk, so I grabbed my camera and ran outside with 4 shots left on an old roll of film. “If you're going to do that on the sidewalk I'm going to need a photo,” I remarked.

Darryl was born and raised in Ledroit Park, and he takes a lot of pride this fact, and he has a certain “old school” mentality that you really just need to respect. I’m sure the haircut is just another demonstration of this thinking. He loves the elders in the community and always has a story about growing up in the neighborhood. On that day he told me about his high school football team and the asphalt practice field they played on. “We were the toughest kids in the city, and no one wanted to play us,” he told me

On previous days Darryl pointed out some faded, barely legible text scrawled in spray paint on one of the houses on the block. Today you would probably not notice the words “Soul Brother” as you walked down the sidewalk, but Darryl remembered when houses were tagged during the MLK riots in the hopes that certain houses would be spared.

Emma and Morgan - Portraits of Neighbors

I've always wanted to photograph my neighbor Emma ever since we moved into our house six years ago.  She's one of the elder Ledroit Park residents and has always been really wonderful to us, collecting packages when we aren't home and watching the street when we are away, and I like to think of photography as a way to say thank you, show respect or just 'hello'.  But, any time I've ever gone to get the camera or had it and pointed it in her direction, she has always dismissed the idea with a chuckle or a smile and then a backwards wave of her hand.  When the weather turned last week she was out on her stoop with her dog Morgan and I saw a chance - knowing that she loves her dog ! and if I told her it was a photo of her with her Morgan she would say 'yes'. And of course the dog didn't always do what she was supposed to be doing, so I was able to make a photo of just Emma too!

I had initially wished that the image was in color ... it's what I had in the camera on that day.  She had lots of colors on, pink sox, yellow shirt, red flowered slippers, but I think there is something a bit more dignified about not reavealing all of that - probably the reason she doesn't like having her photo taken these days.