Finally got around to downloading my last card after getting trapped in DC by a cancelled flight last week following the inauguration. Nothing says “I love the airlines” like sitting on the runway for an hour before being turned back to the terminal. And then two hours of waiting in line to rebook another flight. All things considered, though, DC always treats me well and these minor inconveniences sometimes come as a nice break, a little extra time to breathe before getting back to a life-less-glamorous, one of taxes, bookkeeping, bills, overdue invoices, and a small heap of unanswered emails.
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A couple extra pictures from the inauguration that didn’t have a home in that body of work.
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In the end the only thing left was the trash blowing around in the dust of the National Mall, the final scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. Empty bottles, shredded newspaper, chairs, mittens, food scraps, things discarded along the way by the crowd. It was as if something had exploded, a giant trash compactor burst, its contents carried aloft in the frigid, winter air. To each side of the dusty strip, the stoic sentries of the old guard stood watch, unmoved, their classical colonnades and wide marble steps almost indifferent to the wasteland left behind by the departed people.
Come tomorrow, the trash will be gone and the political machine, no doubt, will go on as it has always done, unflinching, unrepentant, and from behind the doors of those stone buildings.
But out on the mall, in the steerage of our nation, the explosion was real. Our culture rumbled forward a bit, like a fault running through the earth, the slow motion of the bigger swell inched to tipping point and, with the 35 words it took for Barack Obama to be sworn in as the nation’s 44th president, everything changed.
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Polaroids from the National Mall during the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation’s 44th president.
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Polaroids taken around the U Street corridor. Washington, DC.
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Did a little wandering around U Street today, right below Howard University. U Street has been described as the soul of DC, the heart of black nightlife, a corridor cutting an east-west path across the center of the city peppered with restaurants, bars, and clubs. At the intersection of 14th and U, just below Howard University, Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the iconic blue and red Obama print, has created an installment which draws crowds of people looking to have their pictures taken in front of the giant Obama print. Up 14th, just below Howard, I found Omar Bah, 6, the son of immigrants from Guinea and Morocco, waiving from behind an Obama mask to crowds passing by his parents’ restaurant. Took a handful of Polaroids and a few color photographs before wandering back towards my spot on the floor in Columbia Heights. Initially came back with the intention of going back out to shoot some more in the evening. After a few weeks on the road and faced with the prospect of a pre-dawn morning tomorrow, I think I’m going to call it a day and refocus myself for the main event.
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From the Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial this afternoon. Polaroids from the same event below. More to follow tomorrow.
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Started photographing around the mall today. Estimates are putting the crowd that attended the pre-inauguration celebration at about a half-million people –roughly twice the number of people in attendance for Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. The event featured Obama speaking on the Lincoln Memorial following a handful of superstar acts. Garth Brooks to Mary J. Blige and everything in between. For an event that is completely saturated by press, it seems to me like the more interesting facets of the story are the people who have come from around the country –and the globe –to be a part of this event.
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