Return of the Van Riper

Friday's Suds and Silver meetup saw the return of Frank Van Riper back from his annual summer pilgrimage to Lubec, Maine. Along with Frank came his brand new book , the 8 years in the making Serenimissa, Venice in Winter.

The book made the rounds and the general consensus was that the design, printing and overall presentation was superb. Well done to Frank and Judy. We all can't wait until the book signing and exhibition at the Italian Embassy in Washington DC.

It was a good turn out also for our first friday Happy Hour get together. Attendees were Frank, Patrick, Graeme, Holly, Paul, Josh, Erica, Chloe and Giovanni.



Here are a few shots of the gang from friday night...

Are you ready to spend some money?

Canon has posted a teaser site that points to a new SLR: http://www.canon.com/moon/en/   The oldest camera in their lineup is the 5D and speculation is rampant that this is its replacement. My wallet is already trying to hide from me...

Deck, Part Deux

The Suds crew celebrated again Thursday night on Josh's roof in Dupont. We scared Dan with Mexican beer - and he scared us back with a giant bottle of tequila. Steve brought some prints of work he's shot in and around DC recently and Patrick delivered some amazing prints of his trip to California.  We also welcomed a few new faces, the cult just keeps on growing! 

Conversation ran the gamut from the sad demise of Polaroid, to the travails of travel writing for a major newspaper to a fierce debate about Windows vs. Unix technical architectures (our nerdiness knows now bounds). 

We had a few toys present as well: Josh brought a big, beautiful polaroid camera complete with with a big-ol-bellows and Steve, in krappy-kamera tradition, brought his lensbaby 3G to give his 5D the smooth, buttery blur in the images below. 

Finally, we planned the next Cult Group Shoot - we'll be attending a "mass baptism by fire hose" to hopefully capture the rapture and wetness of this bizarre and awesome event. Stay tuned for the results...

Decked Out

Tuesday night's Suds opener was a remarkably chilled affair. Andy, Holly, Paul, Graeme, Misha and Dan passed away the evening on Graeme's deck drinking *ALOT* of Andy's excellent home brew as well as Gold Coast's Red Seal and two offerings from the mighty Bells - Oberon and the Two Hearted Ale.

It was of course great to see Dan back from Mexico and he seemed to be very happy not having to drink the standard Mexican offerings...

Roll on Part-Deux on Thursday!

Big Week coming up!

Founding Suds member Dan is back in town.

This means BEER BEER BEER, oh yeah, and some photo chat...usually along the lines of 'how digital can't cut it....blah blah blah' - should be interesting to hear from him now that he is the 'proud' owner of a camera known to some of us, the lowly Nikon D40 .

Current plan is to meet up on Thursday August 21st on Josh's roof deck at 19th and R Streets - note THIS IS NOT THE SCIENTOLOGY BUILDING - if you find yourself in a room with an L Ron Hubbard shrine, meeting people you don't recognise who are overly friendly who want you to take a personality test - calmly scan your surroundings, pull out your camera to startle them and make a bolt for the door - if you suffer any resistance at all, run over to the shrine and sit yourself down firmly with your arms folded - this always upsets them (true story - more about this on thursday!)

We're also planning to meet on Tuesday at Graeme's and then go for beers at a couple of local pubs.

The Saloon isn't big enough anymore!

After swapping tables 3 times (with the same woman i might add!) we finally managed to get a long table (almost) big enough for the droves of photographers and their friends for the Suds and Silver's mid-summer get together at the Saloon on U Street, Washington DC.

Expert waiter Kalib once again gave us priority seating and delivered the cold, delicious brews on time and with his usual flare.





Amongst the riveting conversations that I could barely hear over the rabble were discussions relating to Medium and Large Format especially with the renewed interest in the humble Holga.

There were a number of new faces also...the full list of attendees is as follows:

graeme, erica, bill, misha, praveen, will (new) , andy, holly (new) , steve, josh and matt (new)

Congratulations to Judy plus next meetup!

Congratulations to Judy on her latest exhibition up north, down east. From Frank's account it sounds like everything went very well indeed.

The exhibition is on show at the Mulholland Bros, a market, gallery and gift shop located in Lubec, Maine. It's also the headquarters of Lubec Landmarks a non-profit that seeks to prerserve and restore the McCurdy smokehouse complex that Frank so beautifully photographed many years ago before it closed it's doors for good. You can check out Frank's images here.

Judy's show looked great - nice idea also with the torn seamless. Here are a few small images of the space courtesy of the show's expert hanger and official photographer, Frank Van Riper:






























Following on from the last meetup on Erica's roofdeck I propose we all meet up on Thursday July 31st at 7:30pm.

Locatation to be decided although possible contenders are:

erica's roofdeck (again)
the saloon (the tried and trusted favourite)
ned devines in herndon (yeah right)