For Mothers Day my entire family convened at my brother’s home in the suburbs of Washington, DC. I made a long weekend out of it and spent Friday and Saturday as a tourist in our nation’s capital. The weather was amazing, and I was lucky to happen upon an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art of the photos of Allen Ginsburg. I’m not particularly fond of his poetry, however his portraits are quite good. He added extensive handwritten captions to the photos, which to me dulls the excitement of the images by explaining who is in the photo, what the situation was, and what was going on at the time. This turns the otherwise compelling portraits into documentary photos and ruins the stories the viewer can create on his own. However, this document of the time was Ginsburg’s purpose, and it succeeds in that regard.
My back is still in a lot of pain from a herniated disk, so I didn’t take my normal camera equipment along with me. Instead I shot with my Canon G10, using it for the first time as my primary camera instead of just for note taking. I understand that this model is a top choice of photographers as a walk-around camera, because it has some heavy features packed into a compact, point-and-shoot unit. Still, I was frustrated and inhibited in making the kind of photos I would have liked. Spontaneity is impossible with the lag between pressing the shutter button and the camera’s taking the picture. And there is an infinite-feeling period between taking a picture and the camera’s readiness for the next shot. Still, I’m pleased with some of the images I made. There’s a sample of them in the slide show below.
Close Crop 