some upcoming photowalks and meetups

My fellow volunteer organizers and I wanted to extend a general invitation to some of the events our photography group, Washington Photography Meetup, is hosting in the upcoming weeks.

Photowalk: Newseum
Saturday, January 24, 1:00 PM
Check out the gallery of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs and take an abstract look at photographing the halls and exhibits.
Details and RSVP at photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/9553437/

Photowalk: Scotts Run Nature Preserve
Sunday, January 25, 8:00 AM
Photography of water, ice and fog (if we're lucky).
Details and RSVP at photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/9541793/

Quarterly Weekend Meetup: Q1 - Center for Digital Imaging Arts
Saturday, January 31, 2:30 PM in Georgetown
Meet other local photography enthusiasts, share your some of your latest work. The feature for this quarterly will be a speaker from CDIA, presenting a short workshop (tentative topic is HDR photography) and describing courses and programs that CDIA offers.
Details and RSVP at photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/9451167/

Photowalk: Arlington National Cemetery
Saturday, February 7, 9:00 AM
Focusing on the Changing of the Guard ceremony and photographing around the grounds.
Details and RSVP at photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/9547374/

Photowalk/Roadtrip: National Museum of the Marine Corps (Quantico)
Sunday, February 8, 10:00 AM
Museum photowalk and practice with low light photography.
Details and RSVP at photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/9549855/

Monthly Weeknight Meetup: Feb - Teaism Penn Quarter
Wednesday, February 11, 7:00 PM
Bring five of your recent photos to share over dinner.
Details and RSVP at photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/9525845/

Photowalk Series: Night Photography / Photostitching
Thursday, March 5, 6:00 PM at the Lincoln Memorial (Details and RSVP)
Thursday, March 12, 6:00 PM at the Jefferson Memorial (Details and RSVP)
Thursday, March 19, 6:00 PM at the Washington Monument (Details and RSVP)
Thursday, March 26, 6:00 PM at the U.S. Capitol, West Front (Details and RSVP)

Photowalk/Roadtrip: Colonial Williamsburg
Saturday, March 21, 8:00 AM
Practice your travel photography in historic Colonial Williamsburg.
Details and RSVP at photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/9544208/

All are welcome: novice or professional, film or digital. It's all about photography, without the attitude. If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this post or send me an email.

And a quick plug for some of the other great photography meetup groups in the area too...

Shutterbug Excursions
Photowalk: Washington National Cathedral
Saturday, January 24, 1:00 PM
Details and RSVP at www.meetup.com/shutterbugexcursions/calendar/9472751/

Fort Washington Photo Safari Group
Meet and Greet: Smithsonian American Art Museum
Sunday, January 25, 4:00 PM
Details and RSVP at www.meetup.com/FtWashPSG/calendar/9560256/

DC Social Flickr Group
January Meetup
Saturday, January 31, 2:30 PM at Buffalo Billiards (Dupont Circle)
Details at www.flickr.com/groups/dcsocial/discuss/72157612782569733/

Shutterbug Excursions
Photowalk: Chinese New Year Parade
Sunday, February 1, 1:15 PM
Details and RSVP at www.meetup.com/shutterbugexcursions/calendar/9471759/

Fort Washington Photo Safari Group
Photowalk: Smithsonian Kite Festival
Saturday, March 28, 9:30 AM at the Washington Monument
Details and RSVP at www.meetup.com/FtWashPSG/calendar/9545723/

Hope to see you out at some of the events!

2008 dc apa film festival selections announced

It's official: the films for the Ninth Annual DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival have been announced! The 2008 festival press release follows, with links to the films added for easy browsing.

August 21, 2008 - Washington, D.C. APA Film Presents the 9th Annual DC Asian Pacific American (APA) Film Festival Sept. 25 through Oct. 4, 2008 at locations throughout the Washington, D.C., area including Landmark's E Street Cinema, Navy Memorial Theater, Goethe-Institut, and Freer Gallery of Art. The festival will showcase 14 features and over 45 short films. A complete schedule of films and descriptions is available at http://www.apafilm.org.

The Opening Night Presentation on Sept. 25th is Amal, a complex drama involving a family’s dispute over their father’s will and his connection to a humble auto-rickshaw driver in New Delhi, India. Director Richie Mehta and lead actor Rupinder Nagra are scheduled to attend.

On Sept. 27th, the festival presents a day of programs at the Freer Gallery of Art, including the documentary The Siamese Connection about Chang and Eng, the famous conjoined twins of the 19th Century from Thailand; and Long Story Short, profiling Larry and Trudie Long, a popular Chinese American husband-and-wife nightclub act of the '40s and '50s.

Several other documentaries will make their DC premieres. Maui Boyz follows ten local men from Maui as they live, work and play according the "Aloha Spirit" of Hawaii. Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet, a Nobel Prize nominee and wheelchair-bound doctor, is the tenacious star of Flying on One Engine (SXSW 2008), traveling to India every year to perform hundreds of free operations for children with facial deformities. A pair of documentaries investigate the human rights struggle of Korean comfort women who were forced into military sexual slavery during World War II (Behind Forgotten Eyes, The House of Sharing.).

A number of films feature ensemble casts of new and veteran Asian and American actors, including the romantic comedy Kissing Cousins (starring Samrat Chakrabarti, Gerry Bednob (40 Year Old Virgin), Jaleel White, and David Alan Grier); and Filipino drama Santa Mesa (starring Jaime Tirelli (Bella, Girlfight), Melissa Leo, and introducing Jacob Shalov).

Two programs will be presented in partnership with the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Anne Kaneko's Against the Grain explores the lives of working artists amidst political and economic unrest in Peru; and Sita Sings the Blues is a modern retelling of the Ramayana through spirited animation and blues music.

The Closing Night Presentation is Killing of a Chinese Cookie, Derek Shimoda's offbeat documentary that ponders the life and meaning of the fortune cookie in American pop culture.

The 2008 DC APA Film Festival and is supported by Scion Motors, Prudential, and a number of private corporations and nonprofit organizations. The DC APA Film Festival is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. For more information, visit http://www.apafilm.org, or email apafilm [at] apafilm.org. For press and media inquires, contact Anna Petrillo, anna [at] apafilm.org, (202) 330-5496.

dc photo meetups, july-aug 08

As some of you may already know, I'm a volunteer organizer for the Washington Photography Meetup group here in town. Just wanted to take a moment to share some of our upcoming events for anyone who might be interested.

Sunday Quarterly - Crystal City
Sunday 20 July, starting at 3:30p
I'm starting a new Sunday Quarterly Series that provides a downtempo forum for photographers around town to meet, share recent work, trade ideas, and just kind of chill with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and talk about anything and everything photographic that comes to mind.

Details and RSVP here: photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/8352785/

August Monthly Meeting
Wednesday 13 August, starting at 7p
Bring five of your latest photos (in print or in digital form) to share over dinner at Teaism Penn Quarter. Meet other local photographers, get feedback on some of your latest work, talk about the latest photographic news, and discuss local events such as upcoming gallery openings and new locations and events to photograph around the area.

Details and RSVP here: photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/8310058/

Photowalk - Monuments and Memorials at Sunset and Night
Friday 22 August, starting at 6p
Trevor Carpenter from photowalking.org is in town and we are co-organizing a sunset shoot with him at the Lincoln Memorial then photowalking down the National Mall to the Capitol to shoot some of the scenes and buildings as night falls.

Details and RSVP here: photo.meetup.com/62/calendar/8353079/
And RSVP on Yahoo-Upcoming: upcoming.yahoo.com/event/779437/

About Washington Photography Meetup
Established in 2003, the Washington Photography Meetup group is for the photography enthusiast; young and old, novice to professional, film or digital. Our group is not only a photography club in the traditional sense, but a social outlet for people here in the DC area who are interested in getting together to meet, have fun, and share their enjoyment of photography.

Our meetup group is meant to get you out shooting, discussing, and sharing. Each month, we want to help everyone flex their creative muscles with our monthly meetups, photowalks, and museum and gallery outings.

Washington Photography Meetup is organized entirely by kindly volunteer contributors. If you're interested in volunteering as an organizer, if you have ideas and want to help organize a specific event for our local photographic community, or if you have any general questions, feel free to send me a message.

Ken

p.s. If you haven't checked it out already, the DC Social Flickr Group has a series of can't miss meetups, photowalk outings, and happy hours. And not to mention, an awesome group of flickrites :)

perspectives on rain

And now for a sharing moment from Ken…

I used to feel quite melancholy on rainy days. I'd have to begrudgingly wake up to dim gray skies, gripe in traffic about how people can't drive when it's raining, and considered my day a loss. But one day not long ago, the skies dumped down rain on me while I was dayhiking on North Seymour Island in the Galapagos. Being in a protected national park, there were no buildings to shelter me from the rain, and the boat was at least 30 minutes to an hour from coming to pick us up. But this time, uncharacteristic of me, I laughed and let the rain fall on me. While most everyone else was standing on water's edge complaining to the tour guide about the boat not being here faster, I got into the water with Alicia to check out some of the marine iguanas and Sally Lawrence crabs that were climbing the rocks and tried taking some pictures with her new waterproof camera.

Moments before the storm:


Alicia on the beach:


Me on the dinghy after it picked us up (click on the photo for an interesting dialogue in the comments):


Upon getting back to the schooner and having an Ecuadorian Pilsener beer, I felt glad that I didn't let the rain bring down my first day in the Galapagos. But surely, I was only happy because I was on vacation, right?

So that was this past March. A month later in April, I went downtown to the National Mall for the Earth Day celebration, camera in hand, ready to check out the exhibits and photowalk around the concert. Again, clouds rolled in and the downpour began. No umbrella on hand, no poncho in my backpack, and this time, I'm carrying my camera and lenses, which are not waterproof. My Crumpler camera bag is waterproof, but I figured when they say waterproof, they generally mean misty rain, not sheets of rain.

I stowed my camera and looked up to see a scene of chaos that no camera could capture. Some people sprinting full speed toward the museums, some opening their arms to the sky, some starting a game of football, and some just doubled-over laughing with their friends. And then there was me, by myself, fully soaked and getting even more so by the second, walking slowly and listening to the combined crunching and squishing noise the gravel was making at my feet, looking around, and laughing to myself, in that relieved, freeing laughter sort of way, knowing that rainy days don't have to be bum days for me anymore. I was so glad to be out, even glad to be in the rain to witness the spectacle. The rain tapered off a little bit and I got my camera back out (carefully, with a plastic bag around it) to see if I could at least try to capture the notion that rain can even make the day more fun and in a sense, even can bring down inhibitions.

For example, these people probably wouldn't have jumped into this fountain at the National Gallery of Art if it were just a regular sunny day:


Note the unused umbrellas in the lower left:


I recall these guys commenting that it's probably drier in the fountain than it is in the torrent of rain:


Not shown are the people who offered me a beer from their cooler at the top of the steps at the National Gallery of Art, West Building. And the security guard who was kind enough to look the other way while I was drinking it.

I haven't had a gloomy rainy day since. Now, when I see rain coming, I think of the two particular experiences above (and it's nice having some pictures of them) and wonder what will be my next rainy day story. My more recent memories of rainy days include laughing with coworkers about how the rental car company wasn't going to appreciate us bringing our car back after driving it through a hailstorm, looking at the flood of neat rainbow pictures in the DC flickr pool after one recent rainstorm, and today, writing this entry, recognizing that the rain itself has helped me find an element of peace in my life that I didn't have before.

artomatic 2008

Artomatic 2008
May 9 through June 15, 2008
Capitol Plaza I
1200 First St., NE (intersection of First and M Sts., NE)
Washington, DC

Take Metro's Red Line to the New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U station and use the M St. exit. Turn right on M St. and walk one block to the big building at the corner of First and M, NE.

Sunday: Noon to 10.00p
Monday and Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday and Thursday: 5.00p to 10.00p
Friday and Saturday: Noon to 2.00a

Admission is free, but donations are welcome and encouraged.

So yeah, I am exhibiting this year! It's my first time showing at Artomatic and my first time exhibiting my prints in public. (I still consider myself very much a photographer in learning.) Artomatic is a month-long, unjuried community art show/festival that features nearly 1,000 local artists in what I like to call artistic sensory overload.

My photography display is on the 9th floor, SE quadrant, area C6 (9 SE C6).

Photo by Jess Hang

I made this informational poster (two 11 by 17 inch sheets mounted on foamcore) to hang to the right of my display. It's kind of a introduction to my display and a key to all the photos I chose to share/show.


Finally, shoutouts to everyone who I've met in the photography community this year who have given me their feedback and encouragement as I've been learning, some of whom are exhibiting at Artomatic this year (Artomatic spaces listed below). Definitely take a moment to stop by their displays: their talent really inspires me and I assure that you will enjoy seeing their work.

Matt Dunn on the 11th floor, SW quadrant, area D7
Karman Lee on the 9th floor, SW quadrant, area B5
Adrienne Moumin on the 6th floor, SW quadrant, area B7
Paul Oberle on the 8th floor, NW quadrant, area A2
Paivi Salonen on the 8th floor, SE quadrant, area D6
Davin Tarr on the 11th floor, SW quadrant, area A6
Jack Whitsitt on the 8th floor, SE quadrant, area D6

then and now

Another silly post with no original content on my part, but with two entertaining videos. The first is an episode from MinisodeNetwork on YouTube that features Janet Jackson as Willis' girlfriend. So that was then.


And this is now. Janet Jackson tries (really hard) to teach Larry King how to dance.

influences from the 1970s

No original content in this post. Just had a few videos to share...

I saw this Amy Winehouse video for Tears Dry on Their Own while I was on travel in Ecuador.


I recognized the background layer in Tears Dry on Their Own from Ain't No Mountain High Enough, vocals by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, instrumentation by the Funk Brothers. One of my favorites.


And then there's Amy Winehouse's single Rehab.


Some people say it's derived from Easy Reader, performed by Morgan Freeman in The Electric Company.


I can hear the similarities in the melody, but I can't say for sure if it is a derived work or not. One tidbit of related news though: a new version of The Electric Company is returning to PBS this fall.

washingtonpost.com redesign, round 3

Last April, I wrote a full-length post here on this blog on what I thought was wrong with the washingtonpost.com redesign. Two days later, I wrote a follow up on this blog containing my posted comment to washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady. Shortly after that post, I wrote a short follow-up on Edward Tufte's Ask E.T. forum topic on the redesign. The text of my post in the Ask E.T. forum appears below.

You might appreciate seeing this marketing piece on Apple's website that profiles both Mr. Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com and Ms. Jenn Crandall, the producer of OnBeing. It sheds a lot of insight as to why washingtonpost.com is the way it is today.

http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/washingtonpost/

A couple of things to put into perspective... washingtonpost.com is an entity separate from The Washington Post newspaper, both part of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive (WPNI). Obviously, the web site draws from the work of the print newspaper as well as from its reporters, but from what I've read in the corporate information, washingtonpost.com is there to cull highlights from the paper for the web and provide web-only features. What I'm saying here is that the organizational hierarchy probably plays into the organization of the website. Hence, the washingtonpost.com logo is not the same as the masthead of the print paper and we see that the "print edition" or "today's paper" as it's labeled now has always seemed kind of detached from the remainder of the page.

Second, I'm sure we're all aware of the pressures that traditional newspaper organizations face. Subscriptions are decreasing, ad revenue is decreasing, and as a result, newsrooms are shrinking. I get the feeling that washingtonpost.com has become the experimental proving grounds to find a new revenue source to make up for lost traditional revenue. In the words of one of my friends in the news industry, "we're trying anything and everything to see what sticks.

Hence, they are trying to work all sorts of media into washingtonpost.com. Not all of it is bad, but of course, the problem is as Mr. Tufte stated, the Washington Post is a news organization -- that is its reason for existence. The fanciest multimedia and the neatest interface can't make up for a lack of depth in the content, which is going to be the trend if they continue to shrink the newsroom.

-- Kendrick Hang (email), April 12, 2007

The marketing video has changed since then, but the spirit of it is still the same. And if you go to washingtonpost.com right now, you will still see two logos: one for washingtonpost.com and one for the Washington Post. I have a correction to my above post though: the parent company is not Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI), but rather The Washington Post Company. WPNI is in charge of washingtonpost.com and newsweek.com, while The Washington Post Company is parent to The Washington Post, WPNI, Express, Newsweek, Slate, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, and Kaplan (the educational services company), among other ventures.

Now, in this week's Washington City Paper, a story on what I mentioned above: One Mission Two Newsrooms. In addition to the story, the City Paper made a video to show how geographically separated washingtonpost.com is from The Washington Post.



My point still remains the same: why should readers care and have to differentiate what the corporate organization of The Washington Post Company is? Why are there two navigation structures on their website: one for washingtonpost.com and an alternate structure for the print edition of Washington Post (under the link Today's Paper)? To us, it's all one single newspaper. If I spot an article in the Food section on Wednesday, I have to figure out if it appears in the Arts and Living section on the washingtonpost.com main page or if I have to go under the Today's Paper link to find it the Food section under the print edition Washington Post.

Maybe this is just a classic problem in DC. Is the Washington Post just a reflection of the turf wars and bureaucratic infighting that is so common in so many workplaces around the region? This is definitely not the first time I've encountered multiple people or divisions in an organization vying for influence without regard for the greater organization. I will admit however that integration, within organizations and within the context of design is quite challenging. However, I still believe in the bottom line: people external to an organization, particularly customers and users, should not have to be exposed to the bureaucracy within the organization, especially in the form of design.

licensing versus certification

The following is a short, informal piece I wrote for a class last year while we were debating whether or not software engineers should be licensed. The debate continues in real life as the software industry as a whole is trying to find agreement on the issue of whether or not software engineers should be licensed.

In casual English, licensing and certification have similar meanings. However, in the context of the debate on whether software engineers should be licensed like traditional Professional Engineers (PEs), licensing and certification have very distinct meanings.

The following are definitions from Knight and Leveson (2001), ACM Task Force on Licensing of Software Engineers Working on Safety-Critical Software. The notion of licensing is to have some authority grant permission to an individual to engage in an activity that is otherwise unlawful.

Similarly, certification assures that an individual meets a minimum set of requirements.

Licensing and certification differ primarily in the permission to act. Licensing is mandatory and is a state or federal activity (usually state) while certification is voluntary.

The local governments in Texas and provinces in Canada are licensing software engineers today as PEs with legal rights. Meanwhile, other professional organizations in industry are in the business of certification. For example, the IEEE has the Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) program, the Project Management Institute has the Project Management Professional (PMP) program, and of course many are familiar with the gamut of technical certification programs like the Microsoft Certifications.

My point is, if we software engineers are going to discuss/debate this topic and be understood, we should aim to be precise in our wording. It's the only way we can all understand what someone really is saying instead of making assumptions and implications. I know, this sounds like an advertisement for good requirements analysis and specification techniques.

Now for the alarming part. If one takes note of the Texas PE exam requirements one will find that their exam has little to do with software engineering as it is typically treated in academia and in industry. Searching around on their website, I found Texas Board of Professional Engineers meeting minutes (pdf) (2005) where they decided to use the IEEE CSDP certification exam for licensing software engineers as PEs in Texas until a better exam comes around. From the minutes, "IT WAS MOVED AND SECONDED (Frailey/Rodriguez) that the Board accept the CSDP examination as an interim substitute for a PE exam in software engineering, until such time as a national exam is provided by NCEES and reconsider the licensure of software engineers."

To me, this is not a real confidence builder in their system of licensure -- I just think Texas jumped the gun a little. Before we as a software community have understood what the implications of licensing are and before we decided on what the best means of licensing are, Texas already started issuing licenses to legally allow people to do things, while considering to use a minimum certification exam to allow them to do it. One would like to think that if licenses are being issued to people who are trusted to do something safety-critical like design software for an aircraft system or a medical device, they should know more than the minimum requirements. The Texas exam, and any exam really, determines a minimum level of knowledge, but it does not determine competence or mastery.


References
IEEE Certified Software Development Professional Program. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.computer.org/certification

Knight, J., Leveson, N. et al. (2001, August). ACM Task Force on Licensing of Software Engineers Working on Safety-Critical Software. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.acm.org/serving/se_policy/safety_critical.pdf

Microsoft. Microsoft Certifications Overview. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/default.mspx

Project Management Institute. Certification Project Management Professional Overview. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.pmi.org/info/PDC_PMP.asp

Texas Board of Professional Engineers. Examination Information. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/lic_exams.htm

Texas Board of Professional Engineers. (2005, August). Minutes, Industry Advisory Committee, August 16, 2005. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/minutes/ind_81605.pdf