Featured Photo


The Awakening #41 by andertho

One of my earliest memories of DC was when I visited The Awakening statue as a kid.  I have bad snapshots of me as an awkward looking teenager sitting in a giant hand coming out of the ground, proof that we’re all tourists at some point.  Looking at those photos now makes me feel old, and never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would live here.  Rarely do people dream of living in Washington DC, but rather places like Los Angeles, New York City, or Seattle.  But as fate would have it, here I am, over twenty years later living smack dab in the capital of America (f@&% yeah!), just nanoseconds from being obliterated by a nuclear bomb.  I digress.

Sadly, as most of us know, The Awakening no longer resides in DC but rather at National Harbor in Maryland where it was moved last year.  Photographer Tom Anderson, a fellow Fotoweek finalist, does a great job of capturing the giant in his new location.  I like his use of black and white here to accentuate the negative space between Goliath and the unsuspecting little girl as well as the sinister looking clouds in the background.  Where does this story end?  Does the bearded giant pluck the girl up and eat her like a gummy bear, or does she escape his grip only to move back to the area years later to become a K street lawyer or a nonprofit worker?  We’ll never know.

Hailing from the Mile High City, Max has also lived in Tinsel Town, the Emerald City, as well as the City of Brotherly Love. Now a District resident, he likes to write about cool photos by local photographers, the DC restaurant and bar scene, or anything else that pops into his mind.

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