…so between friday morning and saturday afternoon, it snowed…and snowed…and snowed. I was tempted to just stay in the warmth of my room, edit some videos, and get over my cold. But like the branches of trees weighed down by the accumulating snow, I bent to the pressure of the kid in me calling me outside to play.

As a young teen, my “play” used to consist of snowball fights and sledding down hills; today, on this snowy day at least, it consisted of exploring and photographing my outside surroundings. I bundled up like the little brother in ‘A Christmas Story’, got my camera and ipod, and proceeded to trudge around and document the snow’s affect on the parking lots, streets, and woods near my complex. Along the way, I met some new folks, caught up w/ my old friend Teri (who was also taking pics), and got some pretty cool images in the process.  Near the end of evening, I found myself telling Teri, “just a few more pics, just a few more pics.” When dusk arrived and we were heading back home, I pointed out the change in colors along the horizon. Though my feet were cold and my fingers near frozen, I had to explore a little more. Teri had had enough so she went back to her sisters while I walked towards a spot that I thought might provide some good photo opps.  When my fingers got so numb that I couldn’t turn the settings on my camera, I knew it was time to head home. I thought about singer Dub El and his “art hurts” saying. I was definitely hurting. But I couldn’t wait to get home and look at the images I had captured.

While time, tastes and priorities have changed the way I “play”, it feels good to know that there are still things in my “adult” life that make time stop for me; still things that make wet feet and painfully cold fingers things I “fight through” just so I can see what beauty lies beyond.

…those who didn’t make it in watch from outside the church…

this summer i rolled up to nyc for a lighting class. took the china town bus and came across this cutie who saw my camera and started talking to me about photography. we chopped it up for a bit, built some rapport, and found out she was rolling up to nyc w/ her boyfriend.  being mindful of how it may look that his girl was talking to me, i made a point to include him in our convo. asked them if i could take their picture. they seemed surprised about why i would want to take their picture but agreed nonetheless. gotta love what having a camera can do as far as connecting strangers, eh?  here are some that i dug.

Dr. Cornel West doing a book signing for a young girl at Busboys & Poets…

…always down for a good hiphop show, I went to catch luda perform @ Ibiza in DC a couple weeks ago…

the pic below is my mom’s dog ‘winston’ …aka ‘lil’ bit’…

…and below is my sister’s dog ‘georgie’…been house sitting for the fam the past week…happy 60th bday mom!

…i know…i know…it’s been a minute since i last posted…been real busy w/ other work…video work…it’s the editing that takes most of the time….this past weekend was pretty productive…on friday, i shot one of my boy’s wedding in annapolis w/ the help of my good friend jefry…got to sleep around 3 am and had to turn around and go to the ronald reagan building and film willie colon’s performance…yeah, i know…whoah woe is me…willie and the band killed it…i always love filming live music…all genres…afterwards i had to get some food in my belly (GET IN MY BELLY! – a la fat bastard from austin powers) …had a taste for some curry goat from sweet mango’s so i get in the car to drive over there and i happen upon a truck blasting ‘thriller’ by michael jackson (RIP)…the driver had a serious mustache going on and was rockin’ a blue turban and hanging out the door while dancing…now as strange as that scene may appear, and as curious of a person i consider myself,  i normally don’t let anything get in the way of my food…but this time i did…so i turned the car around and pull up to see what was up….and to my surprise i was met by the smell of some delicious smelling curry…turns out the the truck sells indian food (i tried the spinach and cheese w/ basmati rice sample for $2 and it was so worth it)…ended up talking to the guys and filming the scene of events that took place while there (will post up later this month when i get the time), got my food from sweet mango’s and left DC…i had a lot of work to do and didn’t want to get stuck in the 4th of july traffic…later on that evening, i ended up going outside to see if i could shoot some fireworks but only came across a few…ran into this cat Cole (sp?) and his stepson and took a couple pics…

…went to check out the group love is all (pics to come) at the black cat and got hipped to these guys who opened and did their thing as well…i love falling into good music….