Two Things Challenge: Shiny / Dull

This week's Two Things Challenge was Shiny / Dull. I've chosen a couple of pictures I recently took at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria. This is Alexandria's industrial art space where you can not only see the work of various artists, sculptors, photographers, and jewelers, but you can also see them at work. I think the two pieces I've chosen are a good mix of shiny and dull.



What do you think? Want to see how others interpreted this challenge or would you like to join in? Visit 2 Things Challenge and be a part of the fun!

Sticking the Landing

Sticking the Landing : Washington National Airport

August has been uncharacteristically pleasant this year--moderate temperatures most days, low humidity, blue skies. It's almost weird. But I'm not complaining. Normally at this time of the year, we're all melting into the pavement with temperatures in the 90s and humidity at 90% or more. Hazy, hot, and humid is usually the standard descriptor, but not this year!

Landing in blue

In recognition of the great weather, I went out for a few hours yesterday evening and again tonight. I decided to head over to Gravelly Point north of Washington National Airport and try my hand at timed exposures of planes landing. These are a couple of the 35 landings I captured.

Summer sunset : Gravelly Point : Arlington, Virginia

The evening also featured a beautiful sunset. Note that beautiful blue sky and pink-tinged clouds. Normally, sunsets in August are sort of a yellowish color because of the humidity. I think I like this better!

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 08/08

Boldly Go

The United States Air Force Memorial and Honor Guard

Today's entry is for Benjamin and his dad, Kirk, who is stationed at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. I met Benjamin and his dad, along with his mom and sister, while I was out photographing the United States Air Force Memorial in Arlington this past weekend. Benjamin was intrigued by the angles and set-ups I was choosing and he and I had a lovely conversation.

Boldly Go...

I featured a couple of photos of this memorial earlier this summer, but it was a day of double entries and didn't get quite the play I'd hoped it would so I'm featuring new photos here today. I took nearly 100 shots of this memorial and, with each successive snap, I grew to like this modern tribute to our men and women in the Air Force. When it was first erected, I confess, I hated it. Thought it was a dog. A monstrosity. But, as I've spent time photographing it, I've gained a measure of respect and appreciation for it and now think it's a nice addition to the Washington area skyline. Aesthetics aside, it's a fitting tribute to the men and women who have and are protecting our nation's airways.

The USAF Memorial at Night : Timed Exposure : Tungsten Setting

To see my original entry about the United States Air Force Memorial, go here. To see a few more pictures, visit Standing Room Only. And, for even more photos of this new memorial, visit my galleries at ImageKind.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 08/08

Benched

Benches for resting and enjoying a view of the Potomac on the
George Washington Memorial Parkway--a popular running, walking, and biking path.

Yesterday, my dad come over from the States to help me with my landscaping project. It's a damn good thing he did, too. Otherwise, I'd be nowhere near where we are this morning. We worked our tails off! So much so that this picture of these benches on the George Washington Memorial Parkway look quite comfortable. This popular running, walking, and biking path lies parallel to the Parkway and runs from just above Washington all the way to Mt. Vernon--14 miles from the capital city to the plantation of America's most beloved leader and first president, George Washington.

But, no rest for the wicked, as they say. It's 6:00 AM as I post this. Dad is on his way over again. We're going to work together until around 8:30 and then I have to bug out for a few hours. I have tickets to President Lincoln's summer cottage on the grounds of the Old Soldier's Home over near Rock Creek Cemetery. After that, it's off to the States and Tyson's Corner in Virginia where I'm attending a pen show at the Sheraton. Then it's back home to pick up where I'll be leaving off and helping Dad some more.

I'll be bringing you pictures from the cottage, the pen show, my landscaping project, and the Montgomery County Fair, as well as a new venture I'm undertaking in portrait photography, all next week!

Whew! What are you doing this weekend?

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential

Discovery

Discovery Communications HQ:
Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road in Silver Spring, Maryland

For a number of years, the City of Silver Spring, Maryland, was an industrial, rundown blight. Then, in the 1990s, Discovery Communications located their headquarters here and the area began a period of revitalization that has resulted in a downtown that is attractive and enjoyable. I was down there the other day to shop at Whole Foods and Panera and couldn't resist snapping this picture. To see a photo of Silver Spring every day, visit this City Daily Photo Blog. I think I've said this before, but one of these evenings, I need to go down and take pictures of this building at night. It's pretty cool all lit up.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 6/08

The Dairy Godmother

The Dairy Godmother--a Del Ray/Alexandria institution

About a year ago, while watching the local PBS station WETA, there was a little video about a custard shop called The Dairy Godmother (how great is that name?!) in Alexandria's Del Ray neighborhood. I kept saying I was going to go there and then I'd forget. Well, the other day, the video ran on WETA again and this time I wrote down the name of the place and made a commitment to go. Last Wednesday found me and some friends in Del Ray enjoying frozen treats at this wonderful little independent, woman-owned business!

Liz Davis: The Dairy Godmother herself!

The Dairy Godmother is to Del Ray what Ben's Chili Bowl is to D.C.--and worth every lick. If you like frozen custard or creative sorbets, this is absolutely the place to go! And, if you have a four-legged friend, owner Liz Davis also sells goodies for the pups. If you stop in, be sure to look for Liz and say hi! She's a down-to-earth woman who exudes joy in what she does and who has created a neighborhood space of lasting value. Believe me, I'll be going back very soon!

The Dairy Godmother is located at 2310 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia, and is open seven days a week.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 07/08

Pink

Runner : Sligo Creek Park

Yesterday morning, I went walking in Sligo Creek Park and snapped this picture of a runner coming over a footbridge. I also took some cool pictures of a tree fungus, some wildflowers, and a dad pushing his kids in a double wide stroller. But this is the one I chose for today's purposes.

Sligo Creek Park is a lovely expanse in Montgomery County that stretches from Takoma Park northward to University Boulevard in Wheaton. It has paved trails, playgrounds, exercise stations, tennis and basketball courts, and a public golf course and is a lovely place to walk, run or bike. Like its counterpart, Rock Creek Park, Sligo Creek Park is an oasis in the midst of traffic and suburbia and a beautiful place to get away from all the hubbub.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 07/08

Pairs

Yesterday evening found me in Silver Spring with some friends to see Batman: The Dark Knight. (Side bar: Heath Ledger is very good in this, though I'm not 100% sure I'd call it an Oscar performance. Ledger aside, save this movie for your Netflix queue. I don't think it was worth the $10.25 price tag.) While I was waiting for my friends, I leaned up against the wall of the theater, rested my camera on my arm, and started snapping pictures of people in twos. They didn't have to be a couple, they just had to be two people together. This picture was my favorite of the eight or nine I took before everyone showed up.

And, one of my readers asked if I wouldn't try posting only one picture a day here. Apparently, I was making it difficult to choose one really good one out of several. Hence, only one picture here at DCC today. If you want to see a couple more of my pairs pictures, visit Standing Room Only!

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 07/08

DCA

Washington National Airport: The departure level.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

Washington, D.C., is accessible via air from three airports: Washington-Dulles International Airport (IAD) in Loundon County, Virginia; Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia; and Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport (BWI) near Baltimore, Maryland. The closest of the three is National Airport, just across the Potomac River and about six miles from downtown. The other two are each nearly 30 miles from Washington. Today's photos are from DCA.

L: View of DCA's air traffic control tower from the arrivals deck. R: Heading into the clouds.
(Click on images to enlarge.)

Opened in June 1941, DCA is home to 12 carriers providing service to 74 domestic destinations and connections to several international airports within the U.S. There are no direct international flights from DCA. In 2007, 18.7 million passengers traveled through DCA. It is the third busiest airport in the D.C. Metropolitan area.

View of Runway 19 looking south from Gravelly Point.

After Sept. 11, DCA was the last airport in the nation to reopen and for a time there was some discussion that it might never reopen given its proximity to the capital city. Fortunately, reason prevailed in the former of senators and congressional representatives who use the airport for its convenience and easy access. Located at the north end of the airport is a park called Gravelly Point. It is here that you can find people parking their cars or unloading a picnic basket and enjoying the sights and sounds of planes taking off and landing.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 6/08

Masonic

George Washington National Masonic Memorial, Alexandria, Virginia

About seven miles south of Washington, D.C., on the Potomac River lies the port city of Alexandria, Virginia. One of the oldest cities in the United States, Alexandria was a bustling seaport in its heyday. It was also the halfway point between the new U.S. capital in Washington and Mt. Vernon, the home of America's first president, George Washington.

Washington was, like many of his contemporaries, a Freemason. He became a member in 1752 in the Fredricksburg, Virginia Lodge and remained a Freemason his entire life. In 1793, he and fellow masons laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. Washington also belonged to the Alexandria Lodge and, four years after his death and shortly after the death of Martha Washington, the lodge began to receive items belonging to the Washingtons. Wanting to ensure the safety of these objects, Freemasons from all over the country banded together and created a memorial association.

Side view of the memorial

In 1923, construction commenced on a memorial temple and was completed in 1932. Located in Alexandria, the George Washington National Masonic Memorial is home to many important artifacts related to the life of Washington as a soldier, farmer, president, and mason. The Masonic Memorial is also home to two lodges: the Andrew Jackson Lodge and the Alexandria Lodge.

The memorial is open for tours seven days a week and includes a final stop on the 9th floor observatory where visitors can enjoy a million dollar view of Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 2/08

Boundaries

SW3 Boundary Marker for the District of Columbia

In 1791, our nation was still young, but not so young that there wasn't some controversy about where the capital city for our new country should lie. Prior to that year, eight cities had hosted the U.S. Congress and two--New York (1785-1790) and Philadelphia (1790-1795)--served as the official capitals of the United States. During Philadelphia's tenure, debate continued to arise regarding a permanent location. It was understood that whichever state ended up with the national capital would be disproportionately powerful.

SW3 Boundary Stone Plaque placed by the Daughter's of the American Revolution

President Washington issued a proclamation in 1791 giving the boundaries for a capital city--or federal district--that would not be part of any one state. By June of that year, all of the landowners had signed agreements and a 10 mile diamond (100 square miles) had been designated out of land from Virginia in the west and Maryland in the north, south, and east.

In a quiet corner of a church parking lot is this unassuming object--
the SW3 Boundary Marker for the original border of the District of Columbia.

These photos show the SW3 boundary marker, which lies in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church of Alexandria. This area and all of the portion that was in Virginia was retroceded back to the Commonwealth in 1847 leaving Washington, D.C., 61 square miles--it's current area. Today, many of the boundary markers are in decay or have been destroyed, but a map on the D.C. Daughters of the American Revolution website shows where they all are and I'm going to make an effort to photograph as many as possible in the next few months.

If Washington, D.C., was a state, it would be smaller than Rhode Island, but is part of the fifth largest metropolitan area in the U.S. In terms of population, more people--588,292--live in its 61.8 square miles than live in the State of Wyoming where 493,782 people live in 97,818 square miles!


Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 2/08

Target

Target in Silver Spring, Maryland

In 1902, George Dayton built a department store in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, called Dayton's. For 60 years, Dayton's was a fixture in Minneapolis. In 1962, the company opened a retail location in Edina, MN, and called it Target. (Real Target aficionados pronounce it Tar-zhay.)

Today, Target is the 5th largest retailer in the United States behind Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, Kroger, and Costco. Target and Wal-Mart are direct competitors and customers are divided into one or the other camp. When it comes to ads, Target's are the hippest! (Okay, to be fair, I wanted to include a Wal-Mart ad, but I honestly couldn't find any on YouTube. I found a lot of parodies, but no ads. Sorry.)

This is the Target in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is about 10 miles from where I live. In about a month and a half, a Target will open in the District's Columbia Heights neighborhood (about 3 miles from my home) and will be joined by several other big box retailers.

Here's a fun tidbit: the red shirt/khaki pants ensemble Target employees wear is affectionately called "The Target Tuxedo."

Photo: D.C. Confidential, 1/08

Yonder

Air Force Memorial at Night

My original intent with this picture was to capture the Air Force Memorial at night. Located across the river and near the center of the picture is a lighted, three-pronged, stainless steel sculpture that depicts an aerial formation known as a starburst. This is the Washington area's newest monument to the military. It's in Arlington, Virginia, directly across from Arlington National Cemetery.

Original intentions aside, what I ended up with was a picture that captured the memorial, but also has the added benefit of some really cool lighting on the trees in West Potomac Park. I failed to notice--or perhaps more correctly, I failed to fully appreciate the potential effect--the street light behind the tree on the middle left would have on the overall composition of the picture. Again, an example for me of a happy mistake that yielded a far more interesting picture than expected.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 12/07

Spicy

Cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon. There's Vietnamese, Chinese, Indonesian.... Who knew, right?

Not only that, but it's "fancy" too!

Like the sign says: Spices A - Z. If you can't find it in the retail store, you're sure to find it in Penzey's catalog where the inventory is even larger.

If you enjoy cooking and you like to keep a good stash of dry spices around, your purveyor of choice should be Penzey's. Recently, the spice trader has started opening retail locations around the country. Case in point would be two locations in the D.C. area--one in Rockville, Maryland, and one in Falls Church, Virginia. (The pictures here are from the Rockville store.)

This store has ten or 12 kinds of peppers, five kinds of cinnamon, six different grinds of sea salts, curries galore, four kinds of basil, taco seasonings, salad dressing mixes, and even hot chocolate! There's something here for every connoisseur, backyard BBQ'er, gourmet hobbyist, and stay-at-home mom/dad.

I spent $65 on eight bottles of spices and seasonings, as well as a gift pack as a birthday gift for a family member.

If you like to cook, head out to Penzey's. You'll love it!

In Rockville at 1048 Rockville Pike
and in Falls Church at 513 W. Broad Street.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential (09/07)

Best Buns

Best Buns Bread Co., 4010 28th Street South, Arlington, VA

Inside Best Buns

Located minutes from downtown is the Arlington County neighborhood of Shirlington, Virginia. The area includes an arthouse cinema, numerous restaurants, retail, and apartment and condominium living. It is also home to WETA 90.1 FM. This morning, my brother called and asked if I'd like to go out at lunchtime to Best Buns Bread Co. I couldn't say no. This is the only bakery in the D.C. area I've found that makes a sourdough loaf comparable in crust, heft, and flavor to what can be found in San Francisco. They also make great scones, cupcakes, muffins, cookies, and sandwiches.

Best Buns is part of the Great American Restaurants' chain in the D.C. area that includes the Carlyle Grand, Mike's American Grill, the Sweetwater Tavern, and Coastal Flats. If you're in the mood for good food, any one of these will satisfy. And if you love key lime pie, Mike's, Sweetwater's, and Coastal's serve the best key lime pie I have ever eaten outside of Florida!

Zip: 22206

P.S. This one is for my friend, Zanne. We waited here for the Gunfighter one Sunday afternoon and the three of us had a lovely time!

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential (Janet M. Kincaid, 07/07)

Atypical

Most of the architecture you find in homes in the D.C. area is largely influenced by early European architecture. Compared to other parts of the country, it's heavily traditional. Mostly Federal, Georgian, early Colonial, New England, some French Provincial--loaded with brick and columns and porticos and high ceilings and trim, etc.

Occasionally, though, you run across a home in this area that defies the traditional norm. A case in point is this home. Located in Takoma Park, just off of Sligo Creek Parkway, it features cinder block construction with large windows and abundant open space. As a friend of mine said the other day, "It looks like it belongs in Marin County, California, or somewhere on the West Coast. I wonder if it's lost?"

Zip: 20910

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential (Janet M. Kincaid, 06/01)

Today's Potatoes Are From Rigby, Idaho

Little cheeseburger with bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickle, ketchup, and mayo,
a side of fries, and a Cherry Coke, Five Guys, Silver Spring, MD.

Having lived in California and eaten at In-n-Out Burger, it's a thrill to find a fair equivalent to the aforementioned. Welcome to Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries! These guys make a fabulous burger and rockin' fries. What would make this joint 100% perfect would be if they'd add milk shakes to the menu, but hey, you can't have everything. This burger, which soon found its way to my stomach, was cooked at Five Guys' newest franchise in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Five Guys was started in 1986 by--well, five guys--who wanted to make good, quality burgers and fries. The Washington Post calls Five Guys' "the Willy Wonkas of burgercraft" and they consistently receive high marks in Washingtonian Magazine and Zagat Survey. For a long time, the only Five Guys' restaurants were the original burger stand in Alexandria, Virginia, and one or two other locations in the D.C. area. Several years ago, they decided to franchise and now, you can find Five Guys as far north as New York and all the way down in Florida to the south. They're slowly moving westward, as well, with locations in Tennessee and Ohio. The next time you're in D.C., stop at Five Guys and have a burger. Oh, and the wipe board always says, "Today's Potatoes Are From Rigby, Idaho."

Be sure to check out this anecdote from my trip to Five Guys in Rehoboth Beach and play along!

Zip: 20904

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential (Janet M. Kincaid, 05/07)