Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” at Folger Theatre (photos)
• May 15, 2012

The Folger Theatre’s current production of William Shakespeare’s classic, “The Taming Of The Shrew” is set in the American Wild West. The elaborate stage, from designer Tony Cisek, has been modeled as a western saloon, repleat with bar, swinging doors, chandolier, and a staircase that leads to an upstairs balcony.

The main plot of the play depicts the courtship of Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, and the headstrong Katherine. At first, Katherine is an unwilling participant in the relationship, but Petruchio “tames” her using various forms of psychological warfare until she becomes compliant. The subplot features a competition between the suitors of Katherine’s more desirable sister, Bianca.

The leading rolls of Petruchio and Katherine are performed by the real life husband and wife team of Cody Nickell and Kate Eastwood Norris. Further color has been added in the form of recording artist Cliff Eberhardt performing original music in the role of the ‘Blind Baladeer’.

The Taming of The Shrew plays through June 10, 2012 at Folger Theatre, at The Folger Shakespeare Library which is located at 201 East Capitol Street, SE, in Washington, DC. For tickets, call 202-544-7077, or order them online.

View our photos of the Folger’s Taming of the Shrew by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="100791,124257,124265,124274,124282,124290,124299,124308,124316,124325,124333,124248,124239,124370,124186,124364,124194,124356,124203,124350,124213,124221,124229,124342" nav="thumbs"]

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo at the Washington Monument (photos)
• May 10, 2012

On May 5, “everyone is Latino”, was the slogan of this year’s National Cinco de Mayo Festival held at the base of the Washington Monument. Cinco de Mayo is a time to commemorate the Battle of Puebla against Frech colonizers, in 1862, an important event in Mexico’s history. The free, family festival, in this 20th annual edition, was organized by the Maru Montero Dance Company and featured dance performances, live music, delicious Latin food and a Mexican market. The festival celebrated not just Mexican Americans but all Latinos in our country.

View our photos by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="100787,123861,123870,123878,123887,123895,123903,123911,123920,123928,123936,123945,123855,123845,123982,123974,123785,123968,123797,123961,123804,123813,123821,123829,123837,123953" nav="thumbs"]

International Children’s Festival (photos)
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The International Children’s Festival is an interactive, educational event that allows children of all ages to travel the world in a single day. This year’s 6th annual edition was held at the The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on Sunday May 6, 2012.
The Festival is hosted by Meridian International Center and THIS for Diplomats, in partnership with Cultural Tourism DC and the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

View our photos of the event by clicking on the photo icons below.

[gallery ids="100788,124021,124029,124037,124047,124055,124064,124073,124081,124013,124005,124114,123969,124108,123978,124103,123987,124097,123996,124089" nav="thumbs"]

USA Science & Engineering Festival Inspires Kids (photos)
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What was billed as the largest celebration of science in the US, the 2nd USA Science and Engineering Festival at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on April 28-29 featured over 3000 interractive exhibits and 100 stage shows. Funded with money raised by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Larry Bock, a free admission was a factor in attracting an estimated crowd of over 300,000 The goal was to excite students in the US about science and technology to better enable this nation to compete internationally.

View our photographs of the event by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="100773,123608,123616,123625,123633,123641,123649,123657,123665,123673,123598,123592,123584,123708,123702,123534,123696,123690,123545,123555,123565,123575,123682" nav="thumbs"]

Irish Dance at the Captol (photo gallery)
• May 3, 2012

In conjunction with The 24th Annual Nation’s Capital Feis & “All-American Championships” and The O’Neill-James School of Irish Dancing.

Newseum Commemorates 9/11 With New Display
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To mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Newseum is expanding its popular FBI exhibit with a new section focusing on the FBI’s role in fighting terrorism before and after Sept. 11, 2001. The new section will open to the public on Friday, Sept. 2.
Sixty new artifacts, including engine parts and landing gears from the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, plus articles from the case of shoe bomber Richard Reid, whose shoes, clothing and matches are on display. (photos by Jeff Malet) [gallery ids="100282,107242,107273,107269,107265,107247,107261,107252,107257" nav="thumbs"]

National Book Festival (photos by Jeff Malet)
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The people who worry about the future of books and reading—myself and thousands upon thousands of other book lovers —may have less to worry about than they think.

Every year for the last 11 years, the National Book Festival, founded by then First Lady Laura Bush, has assuaged some of the fears that books and its attendant contents—stories, novels, poems, children’s tales, fables, histories, biographies, essays, short stories—are rapidly dying. From modest beginnings, the festival can now boast over 100,000 attendees —a huge number of them young people down to the just-beginning-to-read age—a statistic that probably caused the sponsoring Library of Congress to expand the festival to two days.

In less than ideal conditions—it rained sporadically and the ground on the National Mall was muddy in many spots—thousands again turned out, many parents with little children in tow, to hear authors read, take questions and sign books, to visit billowing white tents, to play games, to pose with a Penguin and other characters, to take quizzes, to grab tote bags and posters, and to give hope to the future of reading and books.

Among the many things the festival accomplishes every year is to shine a light on the great diversity of writing (and illustrating) talent that exists, authors who write great, big, and small, and lasting volumes of books. Over 100 authors, writers of all sorts and illustrators were on hand for the festival.

The lineup at this year’s festival looked like a representation of a golden age of writing, not a decline in the reading and penning of words and books. There was Toni Morrison who is as close to a world supernova literary star as you can get at such a gathering, making her first appearance at the festival, a treat for everyone who got a chance to hear her on Saturday morning. She won the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, and she’s a unique and much-honored novelist and chronicler of the African American experience with such books as the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved,” “Song of Beloved” and most recently “A Mercy.”

On Sunday, there was David McCullough, the venerable historian and biographer of presidents like John Adams, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, whose most recent book “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris,” told the stories of American intellectuals and artists and their experience in Paris. For some, McCullough’s biography of the irascible, American-spirit to the core Truman may be one of the finest single-volume biographies of an American president ever written. Edmund Morris—who may have written the best three-volume biography of an American president with his chronicling of the life of Theodore Roosevelt – was also on hand.

In between, at a variety of tents and pavilions you could find mystery writers, children’s books writers and illustrators, poets, novelists, essayists, writers on politics and the contemporary experience, journalists who write books and collections. Washington Post-ies were prominent, among them op-ed writer Eugene Robinson and reviewers and essayists Jonathan Yardley and Michael Dirda. The red-haired, be-freckled and beautiful actress Julianne Moore was on hand to talk about her three books featuring “Freckleface Strawberry,” not coincidentally inspired by her own sea of becoming freckles.

There was Gregory Maguire, the man who gave us a book called “Wicked”—a dark other-side story about the witches of Oz—and thus can be held responsible and receive the accolades for the roaring theater musical machine that is “Wicked.” Sara Peretsky, the Chicagoan who invented the tender-tough (mostly tough) female private eye V.I. Warshawski was on hand again.

On both days, you could wander among the many pavilions and hear and see the sounds of the future of books, literature and reading. Often, the sounds were squealing noises, but still, a reaction is a reaction. Wells Fargo, a co-sponsor, had a booth complete with story-telling about old stagecoach days. There was a book nook, a digital vehicle and pavilion, telling about the history and holdings of the Library of Congress, there were bigger than life (and alive) furry characters (including the Penguin of Penguin books), with whom little kids posed. There were also drawing activities (it seemed often that there must have been thousands of crayons created for this festival).

What was exciting was the the variety and diversity among the pavilions. You walked into the mystery tent and there was novelist Russell Banks (who sometimes writes novels that fit this the genre) reading from one of his books, his beard bobbing in the light, the audience enthralled in a moment of story-telling. There were lots of stories told, including in a pavilion devoted to nothing else but story-telling. There was the yearly Pavilion of States, where the literary history and the current offerings were on display as huge crowds made their way through each state.

Claudia Emerson held forth on her poetry, and earnest men and women walked up to a microphone to ask her about how she revises and for a few minutes, you were treated to a talk about process, how poets can be made and un-made and changed. There were at least 200 people in the tent, many of them makers of poems, and all of them people who read or listened to poems.

There appeared not to be too much talk about the presence of new delivery systems that are not books, but contain the contents of books.

There was, in the end words upon words, and books with the words in them. [gallery ids="100303,107732,107737,107742,107747,107752,107757,107762,107767,107772,107777,107782,107787,107792,107797,107802,107807,107727,107722,107828,107662,107824,107820,107667,107816,107672,107677,107682,107687,107692,107697,107702,107707,107712,107717,107812" nav="thumbs"]

555 Feet Up – Daredevil Engineers Inspect Washington Monument
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Dave Megerle, a member of engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner, Associates “Difficult Access Team,” attaches ropes to the top of the Washington Monument, in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011. Four people will rappel down the sides to survey the extent of damage sustained to the monument from the August 23 earthquake which shook much of the East Coast. According to the Park Service, the heaviest damage appears to be concentrated at the very top of the monument, in what is called the pyramidion. Large cracks of up to 1-1/4 inch wide developed through stone and mortar joints. The Washington Monument, built between 1848 and 1884, is 555 feet, 5-1/8 inches tall. Its walls, 15-feet thick at the base and 18-inches at the top, are composed primarily of white marble blocks. (All photos by Jeff Malet) [gallery ids="100304,107841,107832,107845,107827,107849,107822,107853,107817,107837" nav="thumbs"]

Dance Extravaganza at the Turkish Festival (photo gallery)
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Washingtonians gathered for the annual Turkish Festival on Pennsyvania Avenue to enjoy delicious Turkish food and traditional Turkish coffee, to browse and shop at the Turkish Bazaar, and to watch mesmerizing stage performances featuring the Ankara Folk Dance and Music Ensemble (FOMGET) on Sunday October 2, 2011. (Photos by Jeff Malet) Click on photo icons below for our slideshow of the event.
View additional photos by clicking here. [gallery ids="100307,107902,107907,107912,107917,107922,107927,107932,107937,107942,107947,107952,107897,107892,107887,107852,107973,107969,107857,107965,107961,107862,107867,107872,107877,107882,107957" nav="thumbs"]

Shoot Like a Pro: Get the Most Out of Your Digital Camera.
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The current crop of digital cameras puts enormous power in your hands, but you have to know how to use it. Many of these suggestions may involve an additional investment, but you will find yourself amply rewarded.

Read the manual. Your camera is a sophisticated electronic device and may include macro features, various lighting settings, video capabilities and more. You will get the most use out of your camera’s features if you read the manual and learn how to use them. While it is tempting to use your camera’s automatic settings, you may be missing out on a lot of creative potential.

Consider stepping up to a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera (DSLR). These can use interchangeable lenses and generally have larger image sensors than compacts. The camera’s sensor is the electronic device which captures images. Larger sensors, generally speaking, are superior because more light can be stored on them, which produces a sharper image with a less digital “noise“. It is not just the numbers on the imaging chip that is important, but also the size of each pixel. Cameras with larger sensors also generally work better in low light (and higher ISOs).

Get good editing software. Pictures can always be improved after the fact by adjusting for color balance and saturation, composition, contrast, exposure and sharpness.

Take many pictures and use a large memory card, taking care to use the highest quality setting. In difficult lighting situations, experiment by bracketing your exposures.

If your camera allows you to save information in the RAW image format, do so, though this will involve an extra step to convert that image to a JPG in your computer. The purpose of RAW image formats is to preserve the maximum amount of data obtained by the camera’s sensor. RAW files may be substantially larger than JPGs, but allow for greater control over the final image.

Don’t be afraid to use flash in some daylight situations. Try to avoid shooting in harsh sunlight, which often introduces unacceptably high contrast and deep shadows. Unless there is cloud cover, early morning or late afternoon is usually preferable. When you are confronted with a bright mid-day sun, and your subjects are close to the camera, try using your flash to “fill in“ (lighten) the deeper shadows. Consider investing in an external flash for additional power, and an attachment to diffuse (soften) its light.