A Dream Come True

"It was hell, really. It was hard to hold a job before the union came." That's how Annie Henry, a certified instrument processor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, remembers what life was like for workers at the hospital. Another worker, William Watkins, recalls in "A Dream Come True" that there were employees who'd been with the hospital for 20 years but never got a raise, simply because their supervisors didn't like them.

That changed in 1968, with the help of Coretta Scott King. Just weeks after her husband was assassinated while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Mrs. King urged union Local 1199 to continue Dr. King's work by organizing hospital workers around the nation. According to 1199 members still working at Hopkins today and interviewed in this documentary, Mrs. King's visit changed everything, leading them to a successful organizing drive and a better relationship with their employer.

Laura Pugh, a cook with 41 years' experience, sums up the difference this way: "It is incredible to be able to sit down with [hospital] big bosses, vice presidents, presidents, no matter who it is … and talk, and get things settled."

Neither freezing rain....

As I've mentioned before (maybe more than once!) I get to many of my assignments via bicycle, a form of transportation that is increasingly popular in DC. Does this stop when the weather get's cold? Not necessarily. But last week I did get off my own bike long enough to do a quick video on cyclists in DC who ride in any kind of freezing weather.

The people were great to talk to, so it was nice to work in a medium that includes sound. And the video's been picked up by a number of blogs -- thanks to "The Wash Cycle," "TBD On Foot," and "Cyclelicio.Us" (did I spell that right?!) for their interest.

Cold-Weather Warriors from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Ryan & Esmerelda's Wedding

It was about as low-key as a wedding can be: Just the bride and groom, her sister and mother, and a justice of the peace. Even the photographer - me - showed up as an unexpected surprise for the couple

But Ryan and Esmerelda's wedding, outside the courthouse in Arlington, was as charming and romantic as anyone could ask. Esmerelda looked lovely, Ryan handsome, and the flowers of the little garden blossomed like it was the first spring ever.

Someone asked to see the photos, so I made this small video from my stills.

Ryan & Esmerelda's Wedding from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

How many photos?

"How many photos do you take?" people ask me when I'm working.

"A lot," I usually say. "It's the secret of professional photography: Take a lot of pictures, and something is bound to turn out."

Well, maybe not. But I do shoot a lot of photos, perhaps a couple hundred at an assignment that only lasts an hour or two. And judging by the sounds of their cameras, some of my colleagues shoot even more.

Usually all the unused images languish in my archive, with me occasionally finding the need to go back and pull one. But, with the magic of laptop movie-making, they can also now be made into a movie. And it can be a darn good movie -- at least when the subject is our highly expressive Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner (see "Yes, he can"), appearing before the House Financial Services Committee.

Geithner, the Movie from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Bike v. Car

Let me say, first of all, that statistically it's possibly safer to commute by bicycle than by car, if you compare the statistical danger of an hour spent cycling versus an hour of driving. If, like me, you're running around a traffic-clogged downtown, you cover more ground in an hour of biking than an hour of driving as well!

That said, when a car and a bike connect, no matter whose fault it is, the cyclist is almost certainly on the losing end. I can attest to that from an experience a few years ago.

And so, when I came on the scene of one such accident yesterday while returning from an assignment at the Justice Department, I really felt for the cyclist. Talking to a worried coworker of his I learned he was someone who'd just left work on his bike from a restaurant only about a block away. No telling who was in the wrong, but I used my camera and sound to make a brief documentation of the scene. It's a reminder that the more that can be done to make cities and 'burbs safe for all forms of transport -- and we had a jogger killed by a bus not far from this intersection just a week or two ago -- the better for everyone.

Bike v Car from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Multimedia

A photographer who's also an audiophile told me the other day that the teeny little built-in microphone on his camera body delivered decent sound. Well, maybe I should try the teeny little mike on the back of my camera. It's meant for annotating photographs -- recording the name of a person in a photo, for instance.

Turns out, though, it can be used for much more than that (though only in 60-second snips). And when you have a camera that can record sound, you have a machine for making multimedia, like this video, from a health care rally I was assigned to shoot yesterday.

Highway to Health Care from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Cell phone multimedia

I really like cell phone cameras. If you always have your cell with you, you always have a camera. And the quality is amazingly good, way better than you can see on the little cell phone screens. (I do always have my cell with me, even when I'm rock climbing in an area with no coverage. That's why my current phone, like one of its predecessors, has a crack in its cover, from my swinging into rock.)

A couple weeks ago a photographer pointed out to me that you can send images directly from your cellphone to a blog -- no laptop or computer intervening. I quickly set that up, on Jay Tumblz, and have been having daily fun with it.

But your cellphone is actually even better than this -- with sound, audio, and video, it's a full multimedia machine. So yesterday, passing through Rock Creek on foot and in my car, I stopped to create a mini "multimedia" piece on the rain-swollen stream, with nothing more than my ever-handy cell. It's called "Rock Creek Rain."

Rock Creek rain from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Walk Your Bike

Here in DC we're fortunate to have several excellent blogs devoted to bicycling as transportation. This might sound like a pretty geeky subject, but the ultimate goal is far-reaching: to make the nation's urban and suburban areas more people-friendly by designing for "active transportation" -- a category that ranges from kids (or adults) on skateboards to cyclists to pedestrians of every type. If you've stepped outside of a car lately you may have noticed: A lot of places are only friendly to autos. It's no wonder Americans drive everywhere.

Thanks to a confluence of factors -- gas prices, environmental awareness, enlightened urban planning, even stimulus money -- a lot of people feel we've reached a critical mass on this subject. Blogs like The WashCycle and the DC Bicycle Transportation Examiner do a great job tracking developments. And they're fun reading besides, particularly for someone who often gets around by bicycle.

The first blog, sponsored by the Washington Area Bicyclists Association, provides detailed coverage of transportation and bike planning in the region. The second, by Adam Voiland, is a bit more personal, and wide-ranging. A former reporter for U.S. News and World Report, Adam (whom I've never met) will summarize complex health studies on air pollution and biking, then go on to feature pieces of local bike culture. His "Politicycle" analyses of politicians' records on cycling are a lot of fun. Who would've guessed that New York Sen. Charles Schumer, riding a $75 department store bike, would outscore DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, a triathlete with a $4,000 rig? (On second thought, maybe that's not so surprising.)

Yesterday Adam noted the increasing number of "Walk Your Bike" and similar signs around the DC area. I'd taken photos of a bunch of these signs on a long ride back from a photo assignment a few weeks ago, and turned the still images into a YouTube movie. Adam used it on his blog. You can read the blog, and see the movie (all of 30 seconds), by clicking on the image below.