Morgan Howarth shoots 2009 DC Designer House in Georgetown

A win-win situation arose when St. John’s Episcopal Church in Georgetown offered its rectory to be used for the 2009 DC Design House: The rectory got some sorely needed TLC, and the Design House raised more than $100,000 for the Children’s National Medical Center.

New Washington Spaces Cover by Morgan Howarth

This beautiful baby was born here and now she’s back!” Lorna Gross of Savant Interior Design says of her client, Sylvia Davis. In fact, Davis was born at Columbia Hospital for Women, which was one of the oldest hospitals in the District when it was closed in 2002 and converted into condominiums. Davis is not only back at her birthplace, but living in the handsome penthouse of what is now called The Columbia Residences of Washington, DC.

My first Band shot of MRC in Portland, Maine somewhere around 1998 - 2000

This was my first band shot from my studio in Portland, Maine. I don't remember telling the band exactly what I was going to do.

My first step was to video tape them in the studio behind a large plate glass window so if I wanted they could press their faces up against the TV tube. Most of the band members were looking at me like I had a pointed head...very skeptical.... I decided to move on to having them doing 30 second holds at various poses. This would be important later because that's a live video image pumping threw that deconstructed TV chassis so I needed the video image to be still through out the exposure.

The background was my studio in Maine. I am afraid I forgot the name of the band member on the left but I think he was a rocket scientist in real life so I recruited him to help me get the TV to actually work with a VCR and have a pretty good image. I took a giant console TV (the size of a small car) I found at a salvation army store, deconstructed it, built an angle iron frame and added wheels. The scientist told me that I could have electrocuted myself with very little effort.

The final exposure was the working TV connected to a VCR with one of the chosen video segments of them posing very still F 22 , 5 second exposure, on 4x5 color transparency film with a Sinar F-1 camera 150mm Fujinon lens. This was before The major digital investment.

One Speedotron strobe behind the TV to light up the back walls of the studio. I used 12"x12" Plastic mirrors I found at Home Depot to reflect light from the background strobe into the front of the TV just to add some detail.

Let me know what you think. By the way any bands out there looking for interesting band shots ...give me a call.