American Investigations. Seen in DC on a hot August day

Some pictures made while driving around Washington DC today.

Most were made in the 3500 block of 14th Street NW; one is from the 600 block of Rhode Island Avenue NE.

Shalom.

Arlington Community Gardens

I recently photographed a number of Arlington County's community gardens for the natural resources section of the Department of Parks and Recreation. There are many such parks in the community, and hundreds of people sow and tend vegetables, fruits, and flowers there.

Different ethnic groups grow very different crops, and arrange their gardens quite differently. I was shown bitter melon, okra, amaranth, asian eggplants, taro, figs, chard, and numerous other plants not often grown in the US until recently.  There was lots of corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, sunflowers, pepper, peas, raspberries, cabbages, melons, brussels sprouts, cucumbers, and the like being cultivated, also.

Thanks to Kim Haun, the community garden and farmers market specialist, for this interesting assignment.

From the vaults- DC/Arlington harDCore punk

In the early 1980's I sponsored a series of dances at the alternative public high school where I taught photography, HB-Woodlawn. The reason for this was to To raise money for the photo program, but they took on a bit of life of their own. A lot of the dances featured local punk bands, new at the time, many of whom went on to fame with the Dischord Label. Teen Idles, Dain Bramage, Scream, DOA, the Dispensers, Count 4, and numerous others performed. Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl, and Jello Biafra either showed up or performed also.

Noisy, chaotic, and energetic stuff. Fun, too, in its way

A number of these pictures appeared in Cynthia Connolly's book "Banned in DC" which documented the scene from many photographers' points of view.

Here are some of my photographs from that time.