My Photos are Famous!

Ok, I was Googling myself, I admit it. Sometimes I find nice things! A photo I took at my inauguration conference was noticed by the Special Libraries Association a few months ago and they requested to use it on their magazine cover because Mr Powell is speaking at their conference. Hooray! I love it when people are happy with my work. PS: everything on my flickr is under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license unless other wise noted (each picture is labeled as such as well). I love that Creative Common allows me to choose how my works will be used. This is all so exciting!

Inspirational Quote:

Be anything you want to be, but don’t be dull.–Frank Robinson

PunditKitchen As New Media

When I was at the UPIC (University Presidential Inauguration Conference) I attended their panel on the media. There were a number of prominent (and not so prominent) journalists on that panel. Other than that they all believed that blogging is not journalism, it is just re-fried print-news, I did not get much out of that panel. The shining exception was Mr Page, a reporter who was on a panel at my first conference in Washington, NYLC. He allowed some potential for good blogging on be on par with good reporting, and was kind and funny besides.

Perhaps the images below (some of my favorites this week from PunditKitchen, the political humor arm of the lolcats empire) are not breaking stories, engaging in the kind of intensive investigative journalism for which the New York Times is famous. But I think they do serve a journalistic purpose–they both bring viewers attention to images which are not necessarily in wide distribution, and (most importantly to my mind) they synthesize and contextualize emotions surrounding those images. And that is good reporting.

see more Political Pictures

see more Political Pictures

see more Political Pictures

And, in line with my thesis:

see more Political Pictures

PS: I may be using more Buzzword-Bingo words than usual this week because I am helping a good friend edit her cover-letters and resumes for some major production internships. I am also writing my own cover-letters and resumes at the same time.

PPS: For the librarian in the group, here is a great poser

see more Political Pictures

FeelingElephants buzzword-bingo words include: new media, utilize, support, serve, develop, electrify, synthesize, and contextualize.

Inspirational Quote:

“Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John’s, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.” Peter Pan, Chapter 1

Colin Powell at UPIC–interesting, a little bland

Originally uploaded by jdickins_photo

For weeks before attending the over-hyped and under-producing University Presidential Inaugural Conference, I told people I was going to see Colin Powell–oh, and that inauguration thing as well. Ever since reading It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf in middle school, where he describes in passing the intensely practical and centered leadership of then Chair of the Join Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, I have placed Colin Powell among my pantheon of people I would like to be like. (This pantheon includes, Sandra Day O’Connor and my parents).

So my hopes for his speech were quite high as all 5000 UPIC attendees were shuffled, like cattle, into a University stadium.

Too high for the circumstances it turned out. I found his speech generic, with a solid but bland message on leadership. He said leadership requires followership, true leaders do not not metaphorically eat before their subordinates do, not just talking but doing.

His commitment to those who served under him was impressive, but I was not inspired or enthused after his speech. Perhaps, had it not been 8am on a Sunday morning surrounded by 4,999 of my best friends, I could have gotten more out of his speech.

This does nothing to diminish my respect for him, but I don’t feel I learned anything more about him having heard him speak.

Inspirational Quote:

Only the mediocre are always at their best., Jean Giraudoux

“With hope and virtue let us brave once more the icy currents…”–Obama’s Presidential Speech

IMGP0493

Originally uploaded by jdickins_photo

Since the inauguration, I can’t seem to let go of DC. I’ve been reading Politico’s gossip column, Shenanigans. I’ve been to DC to visit a certain someone. I’ve been reading the New York Times–more than usual, and specifically following DC news.

It’s getting bad–good thing I might be spending the summer there (can’t confirm until I have heard from the Google Policy Fellowship).

Here is yet another of my DC photos. I don’t know about his backsliding, but he certainly does speak nicely.

Inspirational Quote:

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” -T.S. Eliot

PS: for a funky take on the DC’s new image, see today’s Little Dead Girls Comic.

My Photo is on the Front Page of the Tartan!

Jessica Dickinson Goodman Photo Credit, The Tartan CMU

I am so excited! One of my photos was used as the front cover image for The Tartan. See screen-shot above. The Tartan has been CMU’s primary newspaper since 1906. They kindly let me use one of their beautiful cameras when I told them I was going to the inauguration. Another one of my photos (shown in A Plethora of Flags) was used the illustrate the second part of the story. They also offered me a place on the photo staff, which sounds like so much fun!

Inspirational Quote:

Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It’s truly unbelievable. Toni Morrison

“When nothing but hope and virtue could survive”–President Obama’s Speech and an Image

Originally uploaded by jdickins_photo

When I first realized I would not get close enough to the President Elect to take pictures of him, I was upset. Had I traveled so far, slept so little, and carried so much camera equipment to stand in the freezing cold and take pictures of a huge screen?

Looking back over these pictures, I have discovered some visual gold in my photographs of those huge screens.

For example, now my pictures come with their own captions. The moment captured is captioned by one of my favorite passages in President Barack Obama’s Inauguration speech (go here for the full text):

In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive … that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].” [Emphasis mine]

There is some confusion about which capital and which father of our nation, but, turning my academic brain off, the power of those words still astounds. One of my beauties of this speech is how it seems to gracefully glide through eras in our history, weaving a convincing tapestry of American work and achievement.

I finally get what it is about this many that makes people so devoted–he speaks from and to the heart.

Inspirational Quote:

Bob Hope – “I love to go to Washington – if only to be near my money.”

Al Gore in Black Velvet

Originally uploaded by jdickins_photo

Former Vice-President Al Gore spoke to the assembled University Presidential Inaugural Conference on Monday January 19th, 2009.

The picture to the right was originally part of a larger picture which included a brightly lit stage where Mr Gore was speaking. Once I noticed the interesting play of light on the screens which framed the stage, I cropped out the stage and got this.

Looking back on this image now, I can’t help but be reminded of some of my grandmother’s black-velvet work, especially her Revival series (I would link, but I don’t have any images from this series). Showing form through contours rather than excessive shading is necessary when working on black velvet. Grandma’s work on black velvet makes her figures look illuminated because she pays so much attention to how they are lighted–the highlights on their forms rather than the forms themselves.

Inspirational Quote:

Stanislaw Lec – “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.”

A Plethora of Flags

Originally uploaded by jdickins_photo

Braving the cold, the wind-chill and the crowds, thousands of families brought their children to bear witness to Barack Obama’s inauguration.

This is one of my favorite photos. Not only do I love the transparency of the flags with the sun behind them (especially the American flags with President Obama’s face on them) but I love the symbolism of the child uplifted from the crowd.

And that kid is also totally rocking the Spider-Man mask.

Inspirational Quote:

“People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.”–E. B. White

Pre-Inuauguration Party, Colin Powell, and Washington DC Portapotties

Colin Powell speaking to UPIC

Obama Paraphanalia in the Omni Shoreham

Scary Bunker Tunnel–Washington Zoo Metro Stop

Pre-Inauguration Party on the Mall

About 1 Portapotty per 780 people–fun.

Megatrons on the Mall, Capitol in the Back

Inspirational Quote:

Stanislaw Lec – “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.”

Traveling to the Inauguration

I showed up early to catch my bus. Waaaaaay early. Like, 6 hours early. I only meant to show up 3.5 hours early, but it turns out my bus left at 8:45am rather than 5:45am as I expected. And so I watched some TV shows I downloaded from iTunes, read my assignments which I had printed out, uploaded the images I had taken the night before and cleared my camera’s memory card, and was generally bored.

On the camera: I am borrowing a beautiful camera from The Tartan. I offered a trade: I would provide them pictures of the inauguration in return for borrowing a nice camera with which to take them. I discussed the intellectual property rights with the chief editor, and we agreed I would publish my pictures daily on a flickr site. Because not all of the staff have flickr accounts, I had to make my profile public. So, to follow my images for the inauguration, please check out my flickr stream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdickins_photos

I am writing this post on my computer in the Greyhound station. I am never terribly comfortable taking out my computer in Greyhound stations–it seems like such a conspicuous, obnoxious symptom of wealth that I feel it is rude to flaunt it. But I am also very bored, and so try to keep myself (and Amelia) out of sight so as not to prove an irritant.

Anyhoo, more later!

Inspirational Quote:

“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of do’s and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.”
— Philip Pullman