Sylvia and Mike have been married for about a year, and asked me to take their portrait this spring, while all the blooms were coming alive in Sherwood Gardens, near where they live.

The tulips were in full bloom--an amazingly varied array of color. The park was quite crowded, with tons of people flocking to picnic on the green grass. It almost looked like one of those French impressionist paintings from the turn of the century!

Their affection for each other is clear. Of course, it took a little loosening up for them to be less conscious of me, and to relax and enjoy each other. That's the toughest part about being photographed--knowing what to do with yourself or your hands. It's a bit like being an actor trying to portray one's self.

I wish Sylvia and Mike many more years of wedded bliss.

Last Tuesday evening, National Fatherhood Initiative hosted its Fatherhood Awards Gala in Washington, D.C.

I've photographed this event since 2005, and always enjoyed myself. Photographing an event like that presents a technical challenge and unique pressures, similar to that of a wedding: low light, active subjects, and a one-time-only chance to catch the moment.

Taking pictures of people while giving speeches presents a unique challenge: you want to catch the person talking, but not in a part of a sentence where their mouth appears odd or makes them look awkward. And some folks have more dynamic speaking faces than others, which you want to exploit whenever possible. This requires listening to what they're saying, and also reading their body language to anticipate when they might next move their hand a certain way, or even turn their head towards or away from the camera.

Event photography, for me, is people-watching on steroids.

For those who are interested, you can view a small gallery of the photographs, and see for yourself!

This past Saturday, on a gorgeous day in downtown Annapolis, Danielle and Arthur tied the knot at St. Mary's Church.

After the ceremony and the family portraits, the couple, bridal party, and I, wandered through the busy downtown streets. People shouted their congratulations. Young girls, especially, excitedly pointed to Danielle and oohed over her dress.

We dismissed the bridal party, and then I had a few moments alone with the couple in the backyard garden at a historic house. Arthur and Danielle were so very low-key and fun to be around. They were up for almost anything, and took direction very eagerly and naturally.

It's so marvelous to be a part of someone's special day, especially when they're relaxed and enjoying themselves; that energy transfers to the pictures while at the same time helping to make the day a beautiful memory.

Little Zenaida got a baby brother recently. His name is Aiden.

She and mom are adjusting well to their new roles and new demands. Aiden is a beautiful pudgy boy, with his own very distinctive grunt, his hands in perpetual motion when awake. He downs a bottle eagerly.

When I visited them, Zenaida had just woken up from a nap, her hair tousled, but she was very eager to make friends.

Aiden is quite the darling; I'm sure that Zenaida will make a great older sister, and that he'll be a captive audience for her antics.

In college, I discovered a beautiful little plastic camera, called the HOLGA, which enabled me to explore medium format film without investing $500 in an expensive camera body.

Always, my photographs had to involve people. I recruited roommates, myself, my family, and friends, to take part in what would eventually make up my senior art show. This self-portrait that you see here above would go on to be displayed in the Fraser Gallery in Bethesda.

As always, children were a favorite subject of mine, too. Their innocent and unselfconscious kineticism made for great gestures.

And Stephen was a willing experimenter, too.

I love how these photographs stop time, but simultaneously feel like movies because I blended frames together in-camera (simply by not advancing the film properly).

To a degree, I am able to control the outcome of my HOLGA photographs. There's a great deal of unpredictability, of course--where will the light leaks be? what if the film gets stuck in one of the plastic mechanisms? But I have a habit of putting it all together in my head--a series of three shots--before I orchestrate what people do in the frame.

It's beautiful controlled chaos.

I hope to explore other kinds of cameras in the near future, like the Lomo.

I'm very happy to announce that come September, I'll have a showing of my Portraits of Light at the Yellow Dog Tavern in Baltimore, MD!

I had been working on this set as a goofy little side project for a few years, every now and again trying out new light sources and lengths of exposure to find new and interesting textures of light. It's kind of like beach combing, only less intentional. I've gotten into the habit of being on the lookout for creating different phenomena and colors in my frame, and much like my HOLGA work, calculated trial and error has played a part in refining the process.

Earlier this spring, on a whim, I responded to an ad on the Baltimore Craigslist asking for artists to submit their works for consideration to display at the restaurant. Wanting to appeal to a general audience, I thought that my abstract light work would go over better than some of my other projects. Lo and behold, it did!

But a problem surfaced: I had too many photographs to consider to put on the wall! After much deliberation, and the help of some of my friends and blog-readers, I narrowed my set of photos down to twenty-four varied images that I'm going to print on large sheets of metallic paper. Here's a sampling:

So this September, I'll be putting up my work at Yellow Dog Tavern. The restaurant, owned by MICA grads, hosts a monthly wine-tasting/art opening on the second Tuesday of each month! What a wonderful way to foster the artistic community of Baltimore, yes?

In continuation with my old film work, I decided to pick up with the self-portraits again, and use them as a way to get me thinking symbolically about gesture and figure. I picked out remaining colors to examine: white, green, yellow, orange, black, and purple, respectively.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, WHITE:

For WHITE, I decided to whip out the ol' wedding dress. After all, what other white garments could I possibly find in my wardrobe? I love that a wedding dress comes already loaded with connotation; read into it what you will.

The setting is by a window, so the overall ambient light is diffused by the blinds in my living room. A flash (off to the right), was triggered via radio slave to supplement the light and give a little more drama. In post-processing, I added a little vignetting and bumped up the contrast.

As for posing, I chose the first shot, because it appears as though I am flying. And the second, I enjoy the dramatic, quirky cropping, which complements the strange phenomenon of "girl on the floor in a wedding gown". The strangeness is also accentuated by the wide angle of my lens, set to 17mm (normally, it's anathema to put someone's face by the edge of a wide-angle frame shot).

There you have it: WHITE.

By the end of the summer, I hope to have shot all the remaining colors. Green is complete (and forthcoming!). I have well-formed ideas for yellow, black, and purple, and even some potential locations. Orange, however, remains a mysterious challenge for me. We will see what comes from letting it simmer in my brain.

In keeping with my ongoing self-portrait series (see RED and BLUE and WHITE), and in light of the glorious coming of summer, I shot GREEN at a local field near UMBC, near our apartment complex.

What I wanted for GREEN was something that felt grounded and lush, hence, a centered composition and outdoor setting. I associate green with fertility and growth, so it only felt appropriate to include my daughter Ruth in the shot, too. But like the other compositions, I preferred to keep our faces partially or fully obscured, to emphasize a gesture or stance.

I like the darkness of the surrounding greenery and lightness of the figures in this portrait. It feels very natural and earthy in part because both myself and Ruth are barefoot. My feeling is that this is one of the most successfully costumed shots in the series for that reason.

What's been reawakened in some of these series is something that I haven't practiced in awhile: dance, or being on stage. I realize that though I don't so much like my face on camera, I like the feeling of composing simultaneously behind the camera and in front of the camera. You have to visualize the space you're in from the audience's perspective, and that's a beautiful challenge.

Ladies and gentlemen, my choices for PURPLE:

In this set, I decided to take my feelings of dance and movement literally. I struck a few poses that I remembered from my 10 years of ballet as a child. The shadows on the purple wall were a part of what I enjoyed about moving my limbs in unusual angles.

I'm not sure how I feel about the color purple. It has a regal quality, and to me is neither specifically feminine nor masculine. Rather, it is generally elegant and rich. Purple has, of course, been a symbol of wealth. To me, it is a strange, otherworldly color, despite the fact that it's found in nature very easily. Something about it seems odd; unlike red, yellow, white, or green, it's not a color that you would be inclined to eat, I think.

My brother wrote me and said that he noticed this set had the most implied movement in it. He liked "the idea that each color has its own key feature like that"... which has made me have to up the ante concept-wise, and think of what possible "key features" could be contained in BLACK, ORANGE, and YELLOW.

See my other portraits: RED and BLUE, WHITE), and GREEN .