The Harvard Museum of Natural History is like an Indiana Jones movie set piece. It was built in a time when people went to museums to marvel at the spectacle of nature contained. Separated from visitors by thick panes of glass, there is nothing interactive here. Yet, hundreds of tiny fingerprints on the glass suggest the unconscious urge to connect to these creatures from the noisy groups of schoolchildren who visit each day.

With my portrait shoot for Discover Magazine complete and my flight home still a couple of hours away, I set about to bring back some photographic souvenirs from this brief trip north. It was a nice surprise when I get the magazine in the mail and saw that they ran a few of these as well.

Andrew Knoll for Discover Magazine

Photo shoots have different rhythms and flow and part of my job is sizing people up and trying to get a read on them pretty quickly. In Washington, where shoots with politicians can last less than five minutes, sometimes establishing rapport and getting familiar with the subject isn't possible and I've come around on embracing the tension that hangs over these briefest of jobs. These portraits speak to the distance and the lack of connection and sometimes that feels as telling to me as the images made after long conversations and buy-in from the subject.


Post Chef Robert Weland

I knew Robert Weland, the chef at Poste in Washington, DC was an avid gardener but I wasn't aware of the extent of his commitment until I arrived at the restaurant and saw dozens of fruit trees, raised beds and herb gardens extending throughout the terrace outside the restaurant. Weland was eager to talk about his growing plans for the year and we commiserated about what the hot weather was doing to our tomatoes, and which herb/fruit combinations worked best for desserts.

I had brought along a bag of organic vegetables that he gamely posed with and I left with some great recipes (beet greens - roast, sealed in foil w/ olive oil/salt/pepper) and photographs of a passionate chef and gardener.

Michelle Rhee for the Washingtonian

Like many DC residents (44% to be exact), I was saddened to see Mayor Adrian Fenty voted out of office, mostly because of Michelle Rhee. DC has had its share of polarizing leaders, but Rhee might take the cake for her aggressive approach to reforming schools that included firing under performing teachers, closing schools and battling the teacher's union to eliminate tenure.

In short, she got things done, and the improved student test scores during her time as the DC School Chancellor proved her out. So it was exciting to get a call from the Washingtonian about photographing her, just a few weeks before she left town, went on Oprah, and began her new school reform venture.

As usual, it was a brief shoot, made even briefer by a non-working elevator that meant hauling equipment up three flights of stairs. After this unscheduled workout and a quick setup, I ended up with about ten minutes with Mrs. Rhee and guided her around the room through a few different setups before she had to leave.

In these situations, I'm always wrestling with really working a single setup versus pushing for multiple looks and hoping one comes together. Either way, I'm often walking that fine line between spontaneity and preparation, hoping for a moment, but realizing the limits of these brief interactions and what can be extracted from them visually.

In the end, these are sad images to me, of what could have been for DC public schools.

Anas Aremeyaw Anas for The Atlantic

Anas Aremeyaw Anas is an investigative journalist based in Ghana. His work has included posing as mentally unstable to infiltrate a mental institution, and getting inside a Bangkok prison dressed as a priest to meet a Ghanaian drug trafficker. One of my favorite clients, The Atlantic asked me to photograph him during his brief stopover in Washington, DC, this past August.

The nature of his work means that the portraits I made of him couldn't show his face. This isn't the first time I've had to honor this request, but it hasn't become any easier to pull off in a meaningful, effective way. Fortunately, Anas was game for pretty much anything, and came prepared with a pile of hats to cover his face.

What followed was a wonderful couple hours of collaborative photo making, as we walked around DC trading ideas about photo setups, the future of journalism (bright!) and the new media renaissance of investigative journalism. I'm particularly happy with this series of images, which pivots a bit from my usual portraiture work, and thankful to have made the acquaintance of such an important force, and really nice guy, in journalism today.

I highly recommend Nicholas Schmidle's story on Anas entitled "Smuggler, Forger, Writer, Spy." This piece has unfortunately been dramatically edited down from the 6000 word draft I originally read, but still captures Anas's daring spirit and ferocious determination to cast light in dark places.

Closed Car Dealership in Maryland

I'm happy to be writing again after giving the blog the summer off as I shot some great jobs, dove into some personal projects and had a restful week of (a little bit of) work and play in Paris.

I finally scanned in the last of my 91 days project. The work got more challenging as it went on and I tried to make some sense of the 30x30 square that makes up my backyard.

I was also thrilled to find out that my Closed Car Dealerships story will be displayed at FotoWeek DC. In my years of entering photojournalism contests, I never received as much as an Honorable Mention and it's both satisfying and a little strange that my work was recognized in the "Fine Art" category, and shot on film. I'm still working hard on this project, making long drives and enlisting the help of my favorite freelance photo editor/guru to make sense of it and some other work for a new portfolio. Back soon with more.