The theme of the 5pm Post will change every day and per your suggestions will be a mix of philanthropic or simply fun things to do as well as random unique DC features and events. It’ll be a bit of a hodgepodge but if you have any suggestions, recommendations or photos capturing DC pride please send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com.

Photo by PoPville flickr user Mr. T in DC

This looks like it’s gonna be a great event and I get to be a guest judge! From a Ten Miles Square press release:

Mark Saturday, August 28 on your calendar to check out the first DC State Fair, part of Columbia Heights Day on the field at Harriet Tubman Elementary School.

DC has no county fair or state fair where DC residents can show off their talents in things like baking, canning, urban agriculture, photography, etc.  But this year, we’re planning to change that.  A group of bloggers is partnering with Columbia Heights Day to create a DC State Fair tent, where there will be competitions such as Tastiest Tomato, Best Home-Made Pie, and so forth.  DC residents will submit their entries for a chance to win glory and prizes.  The DC State Fair will be held on August 28th, concurrent with Columbia Heights Day, at Tubman Elementary Field (11th and Irving Streets NW).

And what’s a state fair without an awesome photo contest?  Show us your photos of supreme DC spirit: display our cultural independence in images!  Enter your two best images to our Flickr pool by midnight on Sunday, August 22.

Heather Goss from Ten Miles Square and DCist, along with special guest judges and DC Spirit Experts, Philippa Hughes from the Pink Line Project and Dan Silverman from the Prince of Petworth, will pick a handful of favorites for semi-finalists, which will be displayed online the week before the fair.  Our Grand Prize Winner, First and Second Runners-Up will be printed, framed, and displayed at the DC State Fair on August 28.  Winners will get to take their framed prints home, to show off their DC pride to friends and family.

Entrants must live in the District of Columbia.  (Virginia, Maryland, we love you, but you have your own fairs to enter!)  Entry is free, limit two photos per person.  Questions, please email Heather at heather@tenmilessquare.com.

There is no fee to enter the DC State fair.  However, donations to the organizers are greatly appreciated!  Recommended donation is $5 per entry (but judging will be blind, and donation status will not affect results).  Please visit the DC State Fair website and click the Paypal link.

Photographer Ben Carrdus shot this at the corner of 20th and P, NW.   Join the group PoPville or LOOKDC.

© 2010 Ben Carrdus

Photographer and blogger Josh Yospyn shot illustrator Elizabeth Graeber for the WORN Magazine blog.  Elizabeth Graeber is one of the member artists of Project Dispatch.  Subscribe to Elizabeth here.

Elizabeth Graeber © 2010 Joshua Yospyn

The Guardian Angels were patrolling Chinatown on Saturday evening. 

Guardian Angel Recruit, Chinatown.  © 2010 Matt Dunn

This photo of a recent Tea Party rally is from former DC resident and photographer Scott Sutherland.  Check out his blog EXIF and don’t forget to join the LOOKDC photo pool.

Tea Party Rally © 2010 Scott Sutherland

The One Hour Photo project opens Saturday, May 8, from 6-9pm at the Katzen Arts Center, American University Museum,  Washington, DC.  One Hour Photo distills the photograph to the ultimate limited edition: 60 minutes. Photographic works will be projected for one hour each, after which they will never be seen again, by anyone, in any form.   The opening will feature three never-before-seen, never-to-be-seen again pieces by Megan Cump, Tim Davis and Noel Rodo-Vankeulen.   Check out the complete schedule.

One Hour Photo was created by Adam Good and curated with Chajana denHarder, and Chandi Kelley.

The photo below, by Megan Cump, is titled Stain, from the Feral series.  You will not see this one at the exhibit.

Stain © 2010 Megan Cump

Portrait of Otto Stowe, member of the 1972 Miami Dolphins by DC photographer Kevin Koski.  Join the LOOKDC pool.

Otto Stowe, 1972 Dolphins © 2010 Kevin A. Koski

DC Photographer Chris Chen is the latest artist for Project Dispatch, an artwork subscription service offered by a group of artists nationwide.  According to the Project Dispatch website,  “Patrons have the opportunity to purchase a 3, 6, or 12 month subscription to receive original works by the artist of their choice among the group.  Subscriptions range from $20 to $50 a month.   Once a month subscribers will be sent an original artwork. ”

Project Dispatch is the brainchild of Chandi Kelley and Rachel England.  Subscribe to Chris Chen and you might get a print like this,  taken at the Wonderland Ballroom in Columbia Heights.

Wonderland Jukebox © 2010 Chris Chen

Photo from the annual Smithsonian Kite Festival last Saturday on the National Mall.  Join the LOOKDC photo pool.

Child Watching Tinkerbell Kite © 2010 Matt Dunn

DC Photographer Frank Turner is one of the eight photographers exhibiting at Glen Echo Park’s Photoworks Second Annual group exhibition of documentary photography curated by author, photographer and teacher Frank Van Riper.   Be sure to check out the photographers’ websites:  Sean Bowie, Timothy Hyde, Praveen Mantena, Mark Silva, Sonia Suter, Frank Turner, Joshua Yospyn, and Jonathan Zuck.  The show opens with a reception, 6 to 9 pm this Friday, March 19, and runs through Sunday, April 18, 2010.   The photo below is from Frank Turner’s series Z.  (Some images in the Z series NSFW) 

Zilda © 2010 Frank Turner

Eight local photographers are exhibiting at Glen Echo Park’s Photoworks Second Annual group exhibition of documentary photography curated by author, photographer and teacher Frank Van Riper.   Be sure to check out the photographers’ websites:  Sean Bowie, Timothy Hyde, Praveen Mantena, Mark Silva, Sonia Suter, Frank Turner, Joshua Yospyn, and Jonathan Zuck.  The show opens with a reception, 6 to 9 pm on Friday, March 19, and runs through Sunday, April 18, 2010.  Sean M. Bowie’s photo is from a series on Baltimore Skate Parks. 

© 2009 Sean M. Bowie

Yesterday’s LOOK photo has been deemed too controversial for this blog and was removed yesterday afternoon.  Be sure to check out the complete award winning photo essay about autisim by photographer Gihan Tubbeh.   Last week, a photograph  of two men kissing caused some people to cancel their WAPO newspaper subscriptions.  

Photographer Gordon Parks took this photograph titled “American Gothic” in 1942 while working for the Farm Security Administration in DC.     His editor, Roy Stryker, said that the photo was “an indictment of America” and would get all the FSA photographers fired.   Read the March 2006 obit from NYT photography critic Andy Grundberg.  Excerpt below.

Perhaps his best-known photograph, which he titled “American Gothic,” was taken during his brief time with the agency; it shows a black cleaning woman named Ella Watson standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a mop in one hand and a broom in the other. Mr. Parks wanted the picture to speak to the existence of racial bigotry and inequality in the nation’s capital. He was in an angry mood when he asked the woman to pose, having earlier been refused service at a clothing store, a movie theater and a restaurant.
…
Mr. Parks credited his first awareness of the power of the photographic image to the pictures taken by his predecessors at the Farm Security Administration, including Jack Delano, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein and Ben Shahn. He first saw their photographs of migrant workers in a magazine he picked up while working as a waiter in a railroad car. “I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs,” he told an interviewer in 1999. “I knew at that point I had to have a camera.”

The Spring 2010 issue of Aperture Magazine has a feature on Japanese-American Photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto.  The photo below was taken in Chicago between 1959-1961.  Yasuhiro Ishimoto was born in San Francisco and raised Kochi City, Japan. In 1939, due to concerns of him being drafted he returned to the US where he studied agriculture at the University of California (1940-42). He moved to Chicago in 1944 and began to study architecture at Northwestern University in 1946 when he met photographer Harry Shigeta and took up photography seriously. Two years later Ishimoto transferred to the Institute of Design where he studied with Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Gordon Coster(1948-52). In 1961 he returned to Japan (Tokyo), where he has lived ever since. Ishimoto showed his devotion to his adopted city, Chicago, in his book, Chicago, Chicago (Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1969). This book is often regarded as Ishimoto’s most personal statement – his bold use of contrast, the design of the frame, and the influence of his studies in architecture define his Chicago. Ishimoto has published many books and exhibited widely throughout Japan and the US. In 1999 he was the subject of a career retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Untitled from the Chicago photographs © 1961 Yasuhiro Ishimoto

Photographer Aziz Yazdani used a Leica M7 and Fuji Neopan for this night shot outside the Ottobar in Baltimore.

Outside Ottobar, © 2009 Aziz Yazdani

Photographer and blogger Katy Ray used a Holga and expired film for this photograph.   Submit your photos to the group LOOKDC.

© 2009 Katy Ray