I've decided to do a few more personal posts around these parts. Because I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who read the blog (thanks guys!) and because, though this is primarily a business tool, it's also something of a diary for me. And if I commit to doing a monthly round-up post, maybe I'll actually get around to taking more photos and downloading them. Big promises! In the meantime, at least I have enough material for a February post.
Also, you may have noticed that February isn't over. This roundup is coming early because tomorrow I head off to New Orleans to cover Mardi Gras. I'm excited but also nervous. And I'm really, really hoping to come back with a lot of really great images. The big plan is to put together a book.
But in the meantime... it's been damn cold. So cold. I'm a warm-weather girl and this winter is breaking me. I'm very happy with the forecasted 60s in NOLA. That is going to feel like swimsuit weather.
This is the Alexandria waterfront, iced over. Craziness!
14th Street near the Black Cat.
The National Botanical Gardens.
A pound cake in a tree. This kind of thing is called a "found object", as is a photograph taken of such.
My neighbor and buddy John invited me along to the George Washington birthday parade in Old Town, Alexandria. It was a very helpful exercise pre-NOLA, as I was able to determine quickly that the real action is the set-up before the parades and not the actual procession. Though in Mardi Gras, there's more of
everything, so this may not hold down there.
The aforementioned John, in front of a pretty blue wall.
Finally, more winter. I decided, on one of those warm days last week, to get my ish together and go for a hike. However, I had not anticipated that most of the snow out in the VA country would still be on the ground - a good four inches in many places on the trail. Where there wasn't snow to trudge through, there was either packed ice or sludge. This was a truly miserable hike, and one for which I should have been wearing boots. In any case, it was some exercise in a winter that has kept me shut indoors whining about the cold.
And that is that. Hopefully I'll come back atcha in March with more good randomness.
In any case! I was kind of all over the place in August this year, but this past week spent four days in Boston. It's a hell of a town, with tons of stuff to see and scads of events going on every day. If it weren't so damn cold nine months out of the year, it would be really ideal for spending a big chunk of time.
I'm good at traveling by myself. It gets lonely, sure, but I get to do whatever I want at any particular moment. A sweet bonus to solo travel is that you can often snag a seat at the bar of two-hour-wait restaurants - just walk on up and they put you in one of the gaps created by more sociable diners.
My trip included karaoke (my go-to is Maggie May), a little bit of drunken debauchery (with the other hostel travelers), plenty of Freedom Trail learning, buying books from the Harvard Bookstore, witnessing a bizarre and fascinating Italian parade that included throwing tons of shredded paper into the street, way too many pastries, way too many indulgent dinners, endless walking, multiple books read, and just a few photos taken.
For me, a photo trip is a distinctly different trip than other kinds of travel. A photo trip is work in a way that I was not interested in working here. So you just get a handful of images, because I only took a handful. Little flavor of Boston, perhaps.
Must go back soon.
D.C. isn't always a perfect place to live, but it is an honor and a privilege to be able to witness history unfold so close to me.
This guy will be in everyone's newspaper tomorrow.
This is an issue I feel passionately about. I can't believe that it's 2013 and we're still debating civil rights. If you want to get involved, consider joining forces with the