Dana Goldstein

Love on the High Line

Seen in Central Park

Experimental Photo Set

Following up on my last post about my new camera, here is my second experimental self-portrait set with my new prime lens. For these I again used the remote control shutter release. The aperture is opened all the way up to 1.8, which means there is maximum depth of field and maximum light entering the camera. I am really happy with the result of the hair in these images -- you can see the detail, while my face is gently blurred.

Returning to Photography

Photography runs in my family. My grandfather Frank, who I call Papa, is a wonderful photographer who worked his whole career in photographic retail. He met my grandmother, Carol, on a packed New York City subway car in 1949. He had a camera slung around his neck and its long lens was poking into my grandmother's chest. She was 18 and totally gorgeous. People compared her to a young Lucille Ball. Right before he got off the train, Frank asked Carol for her phone number. She took a chance on this tall, skinny, handsome photographer guy and blurted it out. Later, her mother told her she was crazy for announcing her phone number to a subway car full of strangers. But my grandfather turned out to be a very nice boy, and he repeated that number to himself until he got a chance to write it down. A week later, Frank and Carol had a date. The rest is history.

It's such an amazing story, and even if it's been exaggerated through the years, I still love every detail!

All this is a very roundabout way of sharing my family's interest in photography, and my rekindled interest in what used to a major pastime of mine. My Uncle Waye, Carol and Frank's younger son, is a professional photographer. During my childhood, my dad took beautiful photos on our vacations and blew them up into huge prints for our house that guests would always remark looked professional. And my cousin Claire, who's 16, is a really talented artist and photographer. You can see her work here.

I first began taking photo classes at my local community college during summers in high school. I worked my way through two semesters of black and white and one semester of color. This was the olden days, when everything happened in a dark room. A few years later, when the whole world seemed to transition at once to digital photography, I bought a little Canon Elph, thinking I'd continue using my film SLR for "real" photography. But who really wanted to deal with film anymore? Not me.

A few weeks ago, thanks to generous Chanukah contributions from my dad and Uncle Gerry, I was finally able to purchase my first digital SLR camera. After a lot of research, and with the help of my uncle Wayne, I settled on a Canon XSI. I had actually gone ahead and purchased a Pentax K200 from Amazon when I realized, through further reading, that the Canon, though it didn't have the weather-resistant body seal of the Pentax, had a live view function, similar to the screen you use as a viewfinder on a compact digital camera. I find this ocassionally useful for framing difficult shots, especially with a tripod. The live view function combined with the Canon's rechargable battery and lighter weight sealed the deal for me, and I ended up returning the Pentax and spending just a tiny bit more for the Canon.

I am pretty thrilled with my purchase, especially since I got, as a gift from my mom, a wonderfully versatile portrait lens. It is a 50 mm prime, which means that although it can't zoom in or out, it lets in a lot of light, allowing me to shoot indoors more often without a flash.

By now I've probably bored everybody out there who isn't a photography hobbyist. But in any case, I'm going to post some sample monochrome self-portraits here. Self portraits can feel kinda vain, but they're a great way to get to know what a camera can do at your own pace and in peace and quiet. For this first series, I used the camera's remote control shutter release to photograph myself shaking my head "no" with shutter speeds of half a second and a full second.

More experiments in the next post.

Homemade Sour Cherry Sauce over Full Cream Vanilla Yogurt

This could not have been easier. Start with very ripe sour -- not sweet -- cherries. Remove the stems, then cut each cherry in half and remove the pit. Dump into a pot, add a few tablespoons of water, and turn the stove onto medium heat. As it thickens, stir and add sugar to taste. Serve hot over cold yogurt or ice cream.

You can do this with pretty much any fruit; it's a great way to use fruit up when it's getting over-ripe. My roommate Eva and I whipped this up in a few minutes to satisfy a week night sweet tooth. Obviously, it can be made healthier by using low-fat or non-fat yogurt.

On Mount Pleasant Street

Super Tuesday is just too suspenseful. Gotta think about other things.

Around and About Meridian Hill Park

Jeanne d'Arc

Jeanne d'Arc II

The secret staircase...to the creepy public restroom.

Masonic temple, with Unitarian/Moonie church in the background.

Sights By My Office

If this billboard is supposed to make me feel less guilty about guzzling this tooth-staining crap, it's not working.

The best vegan dinner under $5 in D.C. -- Julia's Empanadas. Meaty specialties available. This is the Farragut North/Dupont Circle branch. The old standby is on 18th Street in Adams Morgan. And a new Julia's will open soon on 14th Street in Columbia Heights.

A Twilight Walk

In commemoration of finally coming home from Iowa, I've photographed a typical walk down my street in Mt. Pleasant, Washington, D.C.'s most charming neighborhood. Enjoy.

In other news, I've decided to officially make this blog -- more often than not -- a place for photography. TAPPED takes up more and more of my time and energy when it comes to political blogging, and I hope you're visiting me there daily. Over here, I need to relax!

Members of Americorps painted this mural, dedicated to the children of Mt. Pleasant, on Kilbourne Place betwen 17th Street and Mt. Pleasant Street.

Kilbourne Place boasts the best view in the city of the gorgeous National Cathedral. Believe it or not, I have a very similar view from the balcony off my bedroom. If you're planning a trip to D.C., I highly recommend you take a guided tour of the Cathedral, which took almost a century to build and features stained glass windows depicting not just biblical scenes, but also important moments in American history.

D.C. is well known for its colorfully embellished brownstones, like this one.

Klingle Road, if functional, would connect Mt. Pleasant to Cleveland Park and Woodley Park, two affluent, Upper Northwest neighborhoods on the other side of Rock Creek Park. Some MTP-ers want the city, as promised, to keep the road closed and create a recreational trail through the woods in its stead. Others relish the convenience the road would bring to the neighborhood. Much of the shopping on Mt. Pleasant Street itself is geared toward the Salvadorean immigrant community, so some folks in the neighborhood are looking for an easier way to get to stores that cater to  middle class white people. Since I don't own a car, I'm quite fine with the trail idea, since walking through the park is already how I get around.