film in black & white [D.C. Ed.]

Black and white film speaks for itself, if you missed D.C. in color you can see the post from Tuesday {here}.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial

 

 

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

 

 

 

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

 

 

Korean War Memorial

Abraham Lincoln Monument/ Memorial

 

D. C. in 35mm

Dad, Mom, & Zach. (Lincoln Memorial)

Film. When was the last time I took pictures on film? Well, I don't remember. Before leaving on our trip my mom and I came across our trusty old Nikon camera with our fancy lenses, and we still had film that hadn't been used! So I decided to take it with us on our trip! In a time where the fanciest, coolest, digital cameras are always what people want to see on these good ol' blogs, I decided to try something different.

Here's our favorite film photos that I took during our time in the D.C. area.

 

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

 

Arlington National Cemetery 

Left to Right; Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, & the Nation's Capital - View from Arlington

50 Years.

Bronze Statue in the United States Capital - photo from my family's D.C. trip August 2013

"Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I haven't organized my photos or my reflections on the fabulous road trip that my family and I went on this month to Washington D.C. However, I couldn't see a time more appropriate to share my photos from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial than on the 50th anniversary of his famous and important speech at the March on Washington, "I have a Dream". I pray and hope that in the next 50 years and for future generations that people can continue to make progress and change in our culture that create equality and equity for all people no matter their race, ability, sexuality.

"The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice" 

Photo taken at the National Memorial of Martin Luther King Jr. - Aug 2013

Unfortunately, the memorial when we visited was still being completed and had 24 hours of construction workers to have it completed by today's 50th anniversary, so all of my photos of this memorial had scaffolding around and the mountain out of white stone that he is carved out of was not visible. It beautifully overlooks the tidal basin and is across from the Thomas Jefferson memorial who was one of the primary writers of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States. Jefferson himself owned slaves and after visiting his home in Monticello, it became clear to me that arguably one of his biggest accomplishments but also a source of personal moral turmoil was his participation in owning slaves and running a plantation. In conjunction; how Jefferson held great personal regret of the mistreatment and inequality that non-white people received in this country through his lifetime, but near the end of his life stated, "this will be a problem for the future generations to solve". This burden that Thomas Jefferson had was carried to his grave. I pray and hope that our country in my lifetime can change and I can be apart of change towards equality for all, so I too don't have to carry that burden to my grave, part of that change is never forgetting the sacrifice and people that laid the pathway before me to be where I am in the world I am in today.

"Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress" 

   

home.

Post-Vacation/ Vacation brain is in full force, so if some of this seems like babble, it probably is, so bear with me. I am exhausted from the past twelve days of traveling and being a tourist in my own country, but it was entirely worth it. My parents have always done awesome road trips and this didn't disappoint. Only thing missing; my other brother (he had to work). If you already follow me on instagram {AJKram} then you have already seen all of these above photos in real-time, if not this is just a selection of crappy phone photos I took from almost everywhere we went between home out east to DC and back. Each photo has thoughts, feelings, and stories associated but it would be too hard to spell out in one post, so once I start to download all my favorite photos from the trip I will try to make a few posts of my trip to summarize it overall.

Side story; you may or may not know that our family vehicle is a Toyota Rav4, well if you can see in the bottom middle row we are packing into a 2012 white Toyota Prius because we made it all the way back to Madison, WI to our last hotel of our trip and our car died and needed major repair. So we got a loaner, not only that we drove that Prius home the next morning, which then the next day (today) my dad and I drove back to drop off the loaner and pick up our fixed car...I won't mention how much the repairs cost unfortunately. If anyone does a lot of driving and even kinda was considering a hybrid, take my word, they are worth exploring and seriously considering it will save you A LOT on gas.

Well, because all good breaks have to come to an end I have an ever-mounting to-do list. I just wanted to write-in and let you know I'm alive and well, just a bit busy that's why there hasn't been any posts recently. My apologies.

Thank goodness it's almost the weekend!
:-)