The Cameras They Carried at DCist Exposed

The Nikon D80 took a winning shot of cornfield recalling the quiet aftermath of a disaster. The rockabilly moment was captured in the RAW with a Canon EOS 5D. An iPhone snapped an ingénue Jean-Luc Godard certainly would have adored in 1962. While on News Year’s Eve day, another winner left her shoot thinking she had wasted her time, but later found a keeper on her Canon Digital Rebel XT. 

“I remember very clearly wondering if I should take my camera with me,” Yonas Hassen said, the day he snapped his winning photo. Hassen, a Washington native, was among the 47 winners who earned a place at the 2010 DCist Exposed Photography show with his image of a Catholic religious precession, "Senor de los Milagros," marching backwards though Adams Morgan.

Hassen’s advice; “Always have your camera on you, always. You never now what you’ll come across.”

That shutterbug Golden Rule – stay alert, camera at the ready – was the one constant of the 4^th DCist photography show at the Long View Gallery last Saturday (running March 6 through the 21^st). They carried their Canon EOS 5Ds, their Nikon D80s, or their Digital Rebels XTs wherever they went, otherwise each had their particular approach to shooting pictures.

Edward Hoover, originally from Texas, knew precisely what he was looking for at a Silver Spring tavern. After roughly 500 shots on high speed his “Dancing at The Quarry House” realized an equal parts grainy Johnny Cash-like image with "Impressionist" lighting sources.

“I think it’s the nature of digital; people tend to shoot from the hip, and they tend to shoot very quickly,” Hoover said at the Long View opening, noting the history between Impressionism and photography. “Impressionist tried to quickly capture the scene as it happened, like photography, which was coming into its own at that time. And I kind of see it that way. It’s trying to capture the light as opposed to just the person.”

Kai Harth, on the other hand, wasn’t looking for anything particular the day he shot “Generations” in Georgetown—maybe just a bit of serendipity.

“I like to walk around with my camera and see what I can catch,” Harth said, who moved to Washington two years ago from Frankfort, Germany. “And I saw people waiting for the bus across the street.”

How many shots did it take to capture the moment? “Probably from that scene it was three or four,” he said. “Sometimes from walking around for an hour you get a hundred shots, and sometimes you get five.”

Sometimes it’s fifty. Driving out toward West Virginia along Route 42 on an on-again-off-again stormy day, Melissa Nyman grabbed her Nikon D80, walked out into a cornfield, and shot a distant combine harvester as storm clouds rolled in--an image evoking something like war photography or maybe the aftermath of a disaster.

But Nyman doesn’t overthink her work.

“I just try and think of it in terms of what’s already been done,” she said. “I’m pretty invested in the history of photography and try to learn from that as I go forward. I try not to make it just about myself.”

At a Towson University swim meet, Jimmy Morris of Gaithersburg, Maryland sat in the pool with his camera to catch a friend warming up.

To snap “Breakout,” Morris submerged his Canon 50-D in a waterproof bag. “I started above as he started to get ready to dive in,” said Morris, who took altogether 20 photos. “And then as he came at me I started to lower myself to where I was half in and half out of the water.”

Meanwhile, Sarah Baker kept “12” simple.

“I took it with my iPhone,” she said of an image recalling the cinema verite of the French New Wave.

“I really like that if you don’t have camera with you, you always have "camera" with you all the time. I think it made me be more creative,” Baker said, explaining "12" was part of series of projects with her cell phone. “I didn’t have to be bogged down with a big camera.” 

Keeping it simple works, but so does complicating things to discipline the eye. Lately, Ramune Rastonis, who grew up in Virginia, has been working "backwards." Not literally. She started shooting photography with a Digital SLR and has lately double backed to 35mm film, even playing around with medium format film with her Holga “toy camera.” 

“What I like about film is that I have to think more about each photo because I don’t want to spend a ton of money developing ten rolls of film and hope I have a couple of good shots,” Rastonis said. “So I take a little more time with each photo.”

That meditation translates into taking time with her Canon Digital Rebel XT as well. Last New Years Eve day, she was at Great Falls sometime after a heavy snow.

“I saw the reflections in the broken ice, and I kind of played around with different focus points,” she said. “I really liked how it looked, taking the photo of the reflection and having the ice out of focus.”

Despite her patience, Rastonis didn’t think she had much until she returned home, found the image, and posted it on DCist. It drew a little attention and then made photo of the day. Taking the hint, she smartly switched out her entry before the Exposed deadline closed. 

“Apparently, it was a good decision,” Rastonis said, shrugging but also smiling. “Who knows, if I hadn’t maybe the other photo would have been chosen.” 

A pink panel discussion on collecting photography for the emerging collector will be held on Tuesday March 16 from 7 to 9PM at the Long View Gallery, 1234 9th Street, NW.

Speakers: George Hemphill, Gallerist; Leena Jayaswal, Associate Professor at American University; Max Hirshfeld, Photographer; Philippa Hughes, Moderator.

$8 in advance and $10 at the door.  Purchase advance tickets HERE.