I went to Arlington National Cemetery to photograph the burial of fallen soldier, Staff Sgt. Kristopher Shepherd. Friends of mine in the Washington DC Explosive Ordnance Unit attended to show respect for their fellow ordnance man. Shepherd was the 119th service member who died in the current war in Iraq to be buried at Arlington.
I have a habit of stopping in the New Hampshire Mart on 16th St. every night on my walk home from downtown. Last night I bought a can of ginger ale. Usually I buy a pint of half & Half for my coffee in the morning. It's nice to walk into a convenience store and not know what to buy, a problem I didn't have before I quit smoking over two years ago.
This is Regan with a loupe in the color photo lab. Lately, I've been spending so much time in the lab I feel like a model student. Of course Regan actually is a model student. Last summer I saw her in the City Paper modeling for a club that was soon opening. She is always wearing things that it seems no one else could wear properly, like wrist warmers.
Right after I dropped off some film and slides at National Geographic this morning I lost a fight. What started out as an argument ended up as my black eye. At least I was able to get sympathy in the form of attention from girls on Valintine's.
I was watching news from Paris and they are in the midst of celebrating Valintine's Day. I don't know why I thought Valintine's Day was strickly an American holiday.
Today I walked down to the Winter Democratic National Convention at the Washington Hilton to meet with the Vets for Peace. When I arrived Dean was speaking to a room full of cameras. I had a hard time finding the veterans I had come looking for until a man smoking by the door said, "I saw a guy up on the corner with a hat that said Veterans for Peace." I met up with veterans Kevin, Doug, and Ruth. They chose an area of Connecticut Ave with high visibility to bring both the Public and the Democratic National Committee members' attention to their cause. Unexpected attention was recieved from the Reserve Officers' Association of which its members were beginning to gather for their own convention. The signs they held pleaded with Dr. Howard Dean the newly elected Democratic Chair to stop the us of armor piercing depleted uranium munitions. Kevin McCarron, a spokesperson for the Vets for Peace in Washington, D.C. said that being a doctor, Dean should be a standing voice against these weapons whose radiation deformed a young generation of Iraqis born after its use in the first Gulf War.
I have been printing a lot of old negatives from the first year I was in the Marines. I have never seen them in print and I want to try and remember the differences in my photography between now and then. I don't really know what I've come up with as far as an answer to that question yet. But between prints I have a lot of time to stare down the hallway and think about it.
The Uniformed Secret Service seems hard at work lately. This man was being collected at 17th and H Sts NW. After seeming another man being loaded into a cruiser a few blocks down 17th I gathered that this could have been a fight, but who knows. Later one of my instructors, David, was talking about certain aspects of photography, like chance, could be refered to as a kind of magic. I am surprised to say it, but I finally agree with him on something.
The Pope missed Ash Wednesday services because he was feeling ill. I missed Ash Wednesday service with no excuse. I feel a stronger connection with the Pope now though.
