The parameters of the current juried show at Photoworks are straightforward enough: trawling the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., for “a glimpse into the more intimate and personal side of our nation’s capital.”
At times, the resulting images seem too obvious: Julie Miller’s matrix of nine boldly colored food trucks (above), Willa Friedman’s photomontages of wall art, Eric Johnson’s Washington Monument encased in scaffolding, Sheila Galagan’s Montgomery County Agricultural Fair food stand captured with a fisheye lens.
Fortunately, other images have more legitimate cred. Natalie Fay Green photographs a long taxicab line outside Union Station at night; Jo Ann Tooley offers an image of a man in a gray suit taking a smoke outside the front door of a funeral parlor; Carolyn Toye photographs an arrangement of shabby window panes in shades of white, rust and green (middle); Michael Horsley uses black-and-white to capture two homeless men sleeping on a bench; and Sana Manejwala photographs a couple sharing a moment in a noirish storefront window (bottom). (It’s only frozen yogurt, but still adorable.)
A few images carry impressive weight. In one, Prescott Moore Lassman documents a man face-down on the pavement, his hands cuffed behind his back; in another, Aaron McDaniel moodily captures a line of uniformed Navy personnel walking away from the camera into a blank, white void.
But the standouts are two lighter images. In one, Alain Durand documents a man lit by the warm glow of late-afternoon urban streetlights, pausing while pushing his youngster in a stroller so he can look at his smartphone; appropriately, the toddler’s pose mirrors his dad’s. In the other image, Steve Ludlum offers a grainy, dreamy take on a Nationals pitcher in action. After a difficult winter, it’s on view not a moment too soon.
Through April 12 at Photoworks Gallery, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd, Glen Echo, Md. Sat 1-4, Sun 1-8.