90ish days of summer

ARLINGTON, Va. — This morning, I shot my first photo assignment for The Washington Post.

Today is the Fourth of July, which means that 233 years ago, a group of colonial rebels signed a piece of parchment that confirmed their resolve to break from their parent country and create a new nation. This also means that today in the U.S. of A., people celebrate by eating as many German/Austrian hot dogs as they can stomach, setting off Chinese fireworks and watching (insert country of origin) parades.

So I shot Takoma Park’s 120th annual Independence Day parade for The Washington Post.

I originally thought about taking photos and recording sound so I could create an audio slideshow. Then I realized that maintaining consistent levels while recording a parade would be above my learning curve at this point. So instead, I asked my supervisor Dee if I could shoot the parade for a gallery. To ensure I wouldn’t be stepping on the Post‘s toes in doing so, she contacted the Post.

Before I knew it, I received an e-mail from one of the photo editors at the Post. Shooting the parade was a legitimate Post photo assignment.

Right now, I’m trying to figure out if posting photos (published and/or unpublished) on my Flickr and this blog would be within the Post‘s copyright and ownership policies, which is why you don’t see here any of the photos I took this morning.

But in the meantime, I can direct you to this washingtonpost.com photo gallery, which features my photos in the 9th and 18th spots (as of 8 p.m., at least — they’ll be adding more photos after the fireworks show tonight).

I hope I can share more photos with you on this blog and my Flickr! As it is, though, I’m so excited to have a photo byline again, and plan to pitch more photo ideas and hopefully get more opportunities and fieldwork this summer.

(Why the ARLINGTONG, Va. dateline? Because I’m in my last half-hour or so for the day in the washingtonpost.com newsroom.)