ONGOING: China isn't just about thousands of perfectly choreographed dancers celebrating the Olympics. It has punk culture too, and it's beautifully captured in "Sound Kapital: Beijing's Music Underground," a show of photographs at Govinda Gallery.
Check out the visual evidence of the rebellious kids of China. It looks like American punk, but it hasn't been taken over by Hot Topic. Yet.
» Govinda Gallery, 1227 34th St. NW; through Nov. 28, free; 202-333-1180.
Photo courtesy Matthew Niederhauser
MONDAY: It's not really clear why a bunch of people from National Public Radio (including host Jacki Lyden, pictured) are talking about photography ... but they are. Maybe mankind has learned to transmit photos through the radio, and nobody told us.
A panel of photographers and NPR journalists will speak about digital storytelling as part of a Fotoweek DC event. To attend, RSVP to pictureshow@npr.org.
» National Geographic, Grosvenor Auditorium, 1600 M St. NW; Mon., Nov. 9, 6:30 p.m., free; 202-857-7700. (Dupont Circle)
Photo by Bill O'Leary
THIS WEEK: Photographs aren't just comment fodder on Facebook — they can be art too. FotoWeek DC starts Saturday, bringing with it all kinds of fun (and free) events, photography classes and some very high-profile photographers.
As part of the "NightVisions" event, would-be shutterbugs are encouraged to go out and snap anywhere in D.C. between 6 p.m. on Saturday and 6 a.m. on Sunday, then bring their handiwork into the FotoWeekDC studio in Georgetown (3338 M Street NW). Professional editors will be on hand to pick the best shot each photographer takes. Those chosen will then be printed, hung up and included in a digital slideshow that will play all week long. To join in, e-mail the Fotoweek crew at nightvisions@fotoweekdc.org.
Fotoweek will also mark the debut of FotoWalk, a 300-yard-long public gallery in Crystal City which will be open through March.
» Sat., Nov. 7-Sat., Nov. 14. For other event information check out Fotoweekdc.org.
Written by Express' Sarah Mimms
Photo by Dayna Smith for the Washington Post
WHETHER YOU'RE A DEWY-EYED romantic — or you just have dollar signs in your eyes — setting your sights on wedding photography can be a sweet way to marry talent and extra cash. You can flirt with the prospect at the Washington School of Photography's daylong workshop on how to shoot high-quality, unique engagement photos and couples portraits.
Everyone from newbies to seasoned photographers tag along with professional photographer Duane Heaton to photograph a real, live, smitten couple. Along the way, the group navigates the secret nooks of Georgetown as well as the quirks of portrait photography. "It's really simple to take a photo of somebody, but I try to teach my students to create something that's 'about' the subject," Heaton explains, which means capturing the dynamic and personality of the couple in each frame.
» The Basics: A maximum of 10 students, instructor and couple meet near the waterfront for "Georgetown Walk," Heaton's twist on the traditional engagement photo session. The 6.5-hour workshop (which includes a break for lunch) is crammed with hands-on opportunities to snap photos of the subjects in a string of unusual settings, from alley crannies to a boarded-up loading dock, with each location presenting a different lighting challenge. Students are to bring extra memory cards and a long telephoto lens, which gives the couple space to act more naturally.
PHOTOGRAPHER JONAS BENDIKSEN says that you can't speak in generalities about the four urban slums he's lived in and documented since 2005.
But there is one striking generality you find in his immersive new show about slum life, "The Places We Live," at the National Building Museum: From Nairobi to Mumbai to Jakarta, corrugated sheet metal is a building material of first resort among slum dwellers. In Bendiksen's landscapes, metal roofs heave and jam together to the horizon, cresting like waves of a dull, rusted ocean.
People who live in slums are resourceful — the filth around them would seem unfathomable if someone were not out there fathoming it, beneath pirated power lines, in search of wire or plastic to turn into currency.
When the Corcoran Gallery of Art opens "Edward Burtynsky: Oil" on Oct. 3, it will be opening a show that curator Paul Roth calls "perfect for Washington."
"A couple years ago, we did a traveling Ansel Adams exhibition, and I wanted to make it unique to Washington, D.C.," said Roth, the senior curator of photography and media arts. "So we decided to focus on Adams as an environmentalist and invited a photographer who does landscape photographs with an environmental slant to come in and talk about their work in the context of Adams' work."
The artist who came in was Burtynsky, and, Roth said, "He told us he was working on putting together 10 years' worth of work on the subject of oil, which I thought was perfect for Washington, along with places like Saudi Arabia or Texas."
Continue Reading "Refined Close-Up on Crude: Edward Burtynsky on the Role of Oil" »
THIS WEEK: It's an annual tradition — the best work of young German photographers goes on display at Goethe-Institut. "Gute Aussichten: Young German Photographers 2008/2009" runs through Sept. 2 and deals with subjects ranging from nature to the city to foreign countries (including Iran, above left) to the sexual lives of the elderly.
» Goethe-Institut, 812 7th NW; through Sept. 2, 202-289-1200, goethe.de/washington. (Gallery Place-Chinatown)
Photo courtesy Goethe-Institut
THIS WEEK: The Newseum has it tough: In order to entice anyone to actually pay for a D.C. museum, its exhibits have to be approximately one million times better than anyone else's. But its display of wartime photojournalism — "Our World at War," 40 images captured by five of the best lensmen working in news today — may be worth the staggering admission price.
» Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW; through Sept. 7, $20 museum admission; 888-639-7386. (Archives)
Photo by BIll O'Leary/The Washington Post
THIS WEEK: The Embassy of Canada is pleased as pie to announce its showing of "Karsh at 100: Portraits of Artists." Interested viewers can head right to the embassy to view Yousuf Karsh's portraits, which showcase a series of 28 famous artists by one famously lush and perceptive Canadian photographer. Do the names Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol and Marian Anderson ring any bells?
» Embassy of Canada, 501 Pennsylvania Ave. NW; through Dec. 18, free; 202-682-1740, canadianembassy.org. (Archives)
Photos by Yousuf Karsh/Embassy of Canada
ALMOST EVERYBODY has forgotten part of West Madison Street in Chicago except Jesus, the congregation of the Bibleway John 14:6 Ministry and the photographer Camilo José Vergara.
You likely won't find a more tenacious man with a camera than Vergara, who has been shooting the leftovers of American cities for 30 years. Over that time, he's turned special attention to the little city churches that fill up old shops and houses and, if nothing else, he's got a buried message for the mainline faiths, where collections are going dry: We're over here.
In a new show, "Storefront Churches: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara," at the National Building Museum, Vergara says he wants to catch these churches in an even light, but he's done a lot more. In more than 80 framed prints and 100 slides, his focus on architecture has taken him to faith at its most provisional behind signs lettered by hand to warn or uplift, ecstatic murals with often fierce-looking depictions of Christ (including one of "The Real Last Supper," in which Jesus and his boys are black), stenciled crosses and crucifixes and even a mail-order steeple to call the wayward to God. In these repurpose-driven lives, a former Honda dealership, an old furniture store and a Taco Bell each converts to an ark equally well.
Continue Reading "Heavenly Lights: Camilo Jose Vergara's Storefront Churches" »
Addison Road