Photos and Words By Andy DelGiudice
People often ask why I constantly carry a camera around with me in our modern time of cell phones, and on the surface, it’s a pretty reasonable question. Cameras have never been so ubiquitous and more images are taken within the span of each new year than all of the combined total of all images taken in all years previous. It’s safe to say that convenient picture taking apparatuses exist and are being utilized by large swarths of the global population, so why inconvenience myself with constantly dragging along an actual camera? A camera that can’t instantly project my image to the universe or even send a text message?
The process of documenting the world around me is a bit more engaging when using a real camera and as an added bonus, the image quality is better, too. With a camera at the ready, one is able to quickly snap away at the odd moments of life and may be more attentive to the finer details of their physical surroundings. For instance, the murals that pepper all corners in their urban landscape.
A bit of vibrancy in a sea of brick and concrete, murals can add a bit of identity, character & personality to a block or neighborhood. I started to make it a habit of grabbing a photo of each new mural I stumbled upon throughout my pedestrian travels for no reason other than to do it. Murals represent a reference point or bookmark for a general point in time. Murals appear, get modified, painted over or knocked down. The cycle never ends and it’s interesting to see how each mural first appeared and the life it takes on after it’s “completed.”
This is a small section of a psychedelic take on the Wizard of Oz, found in Stead Park near 17th and P Street, NW. This was taken in a series of photos from my first photowalk with a film camera so I was on the lookout for bright, saturated colors to test what film could produce. Needless to say, I haven’t really put down a film camera ever since I got this first roll back from the development lab. (Note: all but one of the photos I included in this series was taken with film. Buy film. Shoot it and enjoy it.)
Penguins are my favorite animal for a variety of seemingly impractical reasons. They can’t fly and they just kind of waddle around, I think they are hilarious. I have also been told that they smell bad, can get pretty mean and if you want one as a pet you need to accommodate an entire flock (or herd?), as they are pack animals and cannot be isolated. Someday I will set up a private aquarium in my future back yard and chill with my flock of penguins.
Artists work on new pieces under the iconic gaze of the Adams Morgan cowboy during the Adams Morgan Day 2013. I actually almost moved into this apartment two years later until my girlfriend (intelligently, as always) pulled the plug on such plans for a much more logical apartment down the street. I still dream of hanging out of the cowboy hat while yelling at belligerent AdMo revelers and reciting famous speeches of the 20th century.