Photography class

We are running late in the routine way in which we run late: good intentions, last minute confusion, and finally, a half-walk, half-run to the Dupont metro. It's a Saturday morning that feels hand-crafted, and I quickly realize that I will probably be warm in my jeans, shirt, and Caron Butler jersey (it is, after all, the day that the Wizards are opening their playoff series against the Cavs.)

In my current situation - which is to say, as a housebound recluse - I suddenly remember that riding the metro on the weekend is hellish. I'm not one to routinely complain about tourists because I'm actually happy to live in a place that people want to visit. So, when I complain about the idiotic Oklahomans or wherever they are from on the train, let the record show that I am criticizing them as individuals for their idiocy, not as tourists.

In any case, we realize that we will actually make it to Union Station, where our photography class is assembling for this field trip, on time. Our class is an eclectic mix: there's the gregarious Southern Belle who can't figure out the relationship between her aperture and the brightness of the image, never mind the fact that shutter speeds are often discussed as denominators, meaning that the bigger numbers mean a smaller amount of light passing through said shutter. She never finds herself on the right side of whether she needs to increase her shutter speed or not. There's Mr. Technique, who I take to be Scandinavian as a result of his height. His name also includes a "J" that is pronounced like a "Y," and his "V"'s occasionally sound like "W"'s. If you've ever heard Jens Lekman speak, this guy is pretty close. Mr. Technique has no time for general information - he wants to discuss gear exclusively. Preferably using acronyms that highlight how much consumer research he has done, but that's neither here nor there - it's a universal gearhead personality trait.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Technique gave the best answer to the question of why we were taking the class, posed by the teacher on day one: "I would like a more conscious control of my images. I would like great pictures to be a result of deliberate intent rather than a random combination of settings that I cannot explain." I'm right there with you, buddy.

We also have a mother/daughter team, and Ms. Abstract Citizen had these two figured out by the end of our first class: it's a classic case of mother-wants-to-be-her-daughter. Daughter, who is maybe 13, was clearly dragged to class in spite of the fact that, for the next 8 years of her life, she will only be taking candid pictures in bars and dorm rooms using a point-and-shoot. The most elaborate need of Daughter's will be eliminating red eye from pictures where everyone is doing a shot together, and her second biggest need will be remedied by image stabilizing cameras. Mom repeatedly makes reference to taking pictures of birds at their Eastern Shore home, so it seems that Mom must own a couple of nice coffee table books and would like to emulate some nature shots contained therein. I noticed, during week two, that they both probably get their nails done together - I'm assuming Mom makes daughter do it with her, and then Mom picks the same color as Daughter (assuming that the color Daughter has chosen will make her look younger.)

Ms. Abstract Citizen's guess is proven right, by the way, when Mom's cell phone rings and her ringtone is a Shakira song. I believe Mom sees Daughter primarily as a fashion consultant or some sort of cultural barometer, a pendant with which to stave off fannypacks, Crocs, and pleated jeans.

Our Teacher is a short man of Lebanese descent; very nice guy, very intelligent, often (but not always) a good teacher. In any case, he is interesting to me and important to these events, so he merits a mention. Also worth noting is the fact that he has betrayed a slight liberal bent at times - for example, noting that a picture of the Jefferson memorial framed by a U.S. flag in the foreground is the "kind of chest-thumping patriotic image" that most artists consider a meal rather than an aesthetic end. There are other folks in the class, but they are all too normal to merit being singled out - suffice it to say that they are the people that we enjoy talking to, but not necessarily the people we want to talk about.

We are starting from Union Station, walking around the Capitol, to the Supreme Court and Library of Congress and, eventually, to the Mall, where we expect to see the beginnings of an Earth Day concert crowd. Before we have even left the roundabout in front of Union Station, Our Teacher has antagonized the Southern Belle by making a joke about Guantanamo. Something about how picking a tulip from the grounds of the Capitol would likely put someone like him (ie, currently semi-employed dyed-in-the-wool liberal who happens to be Lebanese) in Guantanamo. Southern Belle takes her opening - "Oh, Club Gitmo?"

He snorts, surprised - "Do people other than Rush Limbaugh actually say that? Ok, well, yeah, I'm sure the weather is nice if you're outside. I guess I could see that." Southern Belle lashes into a minutes-long explanation of how she and her husband have a friend who is a military lawyer or something similar, and who has visited the prison to confirm, as we all suspected, that the conditions at Guantanamo are actually quite posh. She goes on to mention the fact that the real story is how the prisoners get to treat the guards.

I intentionally avoid the conversation because I can hear Our Teacher's internal monologue, and I'm guessing that he is debating whether Southern Belle is familiar with the concept of habeas corpus or not. He puts an end to his side of the conversation by conceding that he hasn't been there, but that he doesn't think that running a prison like Guantanamo is the kind of business the U.S. government should want to get into.

It is, as I mentioned, an artisanal day, one of a kind. I am finding myself profoundly uninterested in the subjects around us, but I am jealous of Ms. Citizen when she gets up close to the metalwork on a vintage Harley, metallic and pristine in the bright sun. We do draw the interest of the Capitol Police, who find excuses to stay near us and cast nervous glances in our direction. Our Teacher shares a story about a colleague who had to erase his entire memory card after taking a picture of some nearby buildings, without realizing that it is apparently illegal to take pictures of the windows of federal buildings. Is it? I think DCist gripes about this kind of stuff a lot.

The Supreme Court is being power-washed (joke: "Well, it does need a scrubbing, but I'm not sure this kind of cleaning is going to accomplish much") so we are unable to get too close. The Library of Congress holds some interesting possibilities, especially the statues in the fountain at street level. From there, we start making our way to the Mall, and catch our first glimpse of the police in full riot gear.

There are dozens of them. Nowadays, you are never sure whether this has always been the case, whether it is something that is only now always the case, or whether something truly unique is going on. Pope Ratzinger has left; there are no WTO/IMF/WB type functions going on; and so we are left to assume that the police is there for the Earth Day crowd, which seems incongruous, unless there is the chance that a round of hackeysack or a game of ultimate frisbee might get really mind-blowingly intense (and not in that good way.) Asking around, we discover that there is a neo-Nazi rally scheduled to take place shortly. Neo-nazis!

What a country.

Our Teacher makes a joke about how he couldn't imagine that riot police would be necessary to handle an Earth Day concert crowd, and Southern Belle dives in again: "Haven't you heard of eco-terrorists?" He snorts, again. It's a good snort. Guffaw-ish snort. I want a snort like his because it's not old-man-ish...more childlike and enthusiasitc.

He replies, "Uhhh, I guess not. I spend more time worried about those actual terrorists." She continues, "Well, those are the people who want to use environmental policy to strangle capitalism." Just like that. That kind of phrasing - which is widely mocked for its rhetorical excessiveness - is readily available to her, just sitting on the surface of her mind, waiting to jump out. Impressive.

I want to correct her, to point out that people who urge the adoption of environmental policy are usually not terrorists but rather lobbyists, politicians, and special interest groups, just like the people who want to change laws about guns, taxes, and health care - that this group, like any special interest group, wants to marry their agenda to profit, sometimes through the free market, sometimes through governement subsidies, and that therefore their ultimate goal is to make their agenda friendly to capitalism, while the phrase eco-terrorists, as it is used by law enforcement, is usually applied to people who want to blow up SUV factories or disrupt logging operations through violent means. But it's not that kind of day for me.

This is where we start to lose a little bit of steam. I point out that the rally might be scheduled to coincide with Hitler's birthday, which is the following day. Why do people always look at me funny when I happen to know the exact date of Hitler's birthday? We think there are probably some intriguing photographic possibilities if we stick around for the rally, though we know that almost all of us in the class would fail to meet the neo-nazi criteria of "American." And yet, here we are, a ragged asortment of the many shades and faces of what the new America will look like, sauntering through the nation's capital. I start looking at people I see on the mall, trying to guess whether they are there for the neo-nazi event, for Earth Day, or neither. And for the first time, I understand what people mean when they say that they feel sorry for the KKK and other racial-purity agitators. They have already lost, of course. They are clinging to some anachronistic idea of America, and they will continue to be forced into the margins of a country that is ever-growing, ever-browning, though some of us like to think of our brownish skin as being more olive-toned than brown. They are quaint and out of place, and so irrelevant that it is hard to see why we should even feel threatened.

At the Hirshhorn sculpture garden, we take our last shots as yellow clouds of pollen swarm around us. Our memory card is full. We never see the nazis - just families, kids flying kites, dogs running and groups of people dressed to match each other, people wary of losing their group, just like at Disneyworld. None of the groups are homogenous, and they are perhaps united by little more than what unites our group: our common denominator is that we all wear devices worth hundreds of dollars strapped around our necks, and we all have some kind of desire to capture and frame something unique, something worth holding onto. Buses converge near the Capitol, and we assume they are bringing the ugliness. Ms. Citizen wonders about the depth of their gene pool. I nod, and mention how I love the fact that the ACLU will defend their right to march. I'm glad they will march, actually.

My thoughts are leaving the greenery and the bronze, though, and turning to the basketball game that I am missing, where millionaires will be competing against each other for a few seconds of highlight reels on Sportscenter. I wonder if anyone on those buses secretly loves the NBA and hip hop culture; I wonder if they lust after latinas in their isolated communities. I wonder about their co-workers and neighbors, and I wonder if their children will ever find peace in the real world. We leave the bright colors behind us as we get on the metro, eager to scan through the memory card later and re-visit the sharp hues and fuzzy backdrops of a very strange morning.