June to July

Hi,

Sorry, long time no blog. I realize that my last two blog posts were about the Black Lives Matters protests in Washington DC. It is such a large subject to document and I really wanted to frame the posts in a way that wasn’t political but my experience at each of the protests I had gone to. But after a while, I was not sure how to transition away from that. I had gone to more protests and wanted to share the images, but I did not know how to present the images in a different way. One thing led to another and I sort of felt like I was in a creative rut. So I just didn’t write any blog posts and barely went out to create more pictures to share.

BUT I’M BACK BABY! After spending some time for myself and reflecting on the type of work I want to create, I found myself getting more excited about capturing images and sharing them.

But to automatically switch gears from the protests posts to my favorite road trips from Washington DC, seemed a bit of a weird transition. Don’t get me wrong, I have my favorite road trips blog post about 70% done already and that will probably be the next post after this one, but I figured this blog post can give a little update of what has happened since last time I blogged…

Juneteenth, 2020 had threats of rain almost all day. So I decided that I would try to go into Washington DC as early as I could in the day and I would leave when the rain started to come down. In hindsight I should have waited out the rain because it didn’t last too long and there was so much activity going on afterward, either way, I’m still happy with the images I captured.

Protestors walk past a police car

Bicycle protest rolling by

I have gone to the Black Lives Matters Plaza sporadically since Juneteenth, but I haven’t seen as much activity as I did in the beginning of the month.

At the end of June, Andrew and I decided to make a quick trip to Rehoboth Beach. It’s been a fun summer tradition for us and we usually just do it all in one day. It was nice to be out in the sun for a little while. If you are wondering, almost everyone on the boardwalk was wearing a mask. I’d say there was only 10% that weren’t, either because they were eating on the boardwalk or their own personal reasons. But it was a different story on the beach. I saw one couple out of the many that were on the beach wearing a mask.

On the way home, I could not help but notice the amazing sunset that was happening while I was driving. I had to quickly come up with an idea for a shoot location and found my way on to the rooftop of a Metro parking garage. It was an unexpected location but I think it turned out well considering the circumstances. Andrew and I were among 3 other people who were on the roof. The other family was sitting on a completely different part of the garage, so it felt like we were there all by ourselves. I think the isolation, really shows through in the images.

This past 4th of July was a bit of a different one for me. Instead of going to the National Mall as I would normally do, I spent it with family. We had a backyard barbeque and some small fireworks for the kids. It was a lot of fun without the pressures of parking, finding the right point of view for the show, and working on someone else’s schedule.

Fireworks at home

When fireworks get to be too loud

And for the rest of July, I tried my best to wake up for sunrises or make it out to capture the sunset. On some days I would be pretty good about checking the weather and making sure its the kind of environment I want to capture. Most of the days turned out to be a bust. On those days that turned out to be a bust, I could really feel my creative slump. But I kept on repeating to myself that I had to push through it, find those creative juices, and keep going out.

Luckily, summer thunderstorms have been popping up and they have been fantastic! I got to spend an evening this past week capturing one of them. Although there was about a 20 minute period of crazy rain, I was able to stay dry while capturing the weather from the Lincoln Memorial. If you’re ever shooting dangerous weather like that, be close to safe shelter. I’m really hoping to have more soon!

So that’s where I’ve been in the past month or so. And I’m still pushing myself to get out there more.

I hope the summer has been treating you well so far. If you have any suggestions for what kind of blog posts you’d like to see in the future from me, please let me know! 

<3