Max's Sandy Hook Song

As many of you know my son Max writes songs and plays guitar/ukelele.  One year ago today he was moved to write "Better Than This" as a reaction to the tragic, unimaginable killings of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.  You can hear the song above.  Max is singing and playing guitar along with Lyla DiPaul on the ukelele.  Their Band "What Are We"  has performed this song in public a number of times this year including at the Takoma Park Folk Festival.  

Though our minds are on the holidays and our plans to celebrate with family and friends,  we can't help but to think of those families that were victims at Sandy Hook...along with others who are innocent victims of such horrible crimes...I will never understand why these things happen...and keep happening.

Max wrote the following about the song:  
"I wrote this song on the night of that terrible day, in response to the confusion I had. Why would anyone want to hurt children for something going on in your mind? In the song, I try to portray as if I am talking to Lanza (it was not determined who was the shooter, at that time) and try to say you "know better than this." It may sound cheesy, but its the message I want to get out."

You can listen to Max performing the song here. Special thanks to Andrew "Steelie" Steele for making this recording.

Lyrics:

Better Than This

©Max Kittner 2012

V1:

you crazy freak

you look so weak

and you know better than this

you look like

you wanna go feel alive

I’ll say you know better than this

Chorus:

Well why do you do this

trying to be a devil

you know you will screw yourself over

Why do you do this

trying to get attention

but now you will be overkill

This is what I call a mess because

you know better than this

V2:

Trying to be the devil

trying to gain a level

that makes you more than this

You are so hopeless

because you are cope-less

who the hell made you this way

maybe it was you

because i wouldn’t shoot

all those little children

Bridge:

I know if I did

I wouldn’t have hid

trying to leave yourself

trying to end in revenge

I know you think

this the end of the brink

no more light for you

because you have went

to darkness

Chorus:

Well why do you do this

trying to be a devil

you know you will screw yourself over

Why do you do this

trying to get attention

but now you will be overkill

This is what I call a mess because

you know better than this

This is what I call a mess because

you know better than this

cause you know better than this

Opening Reception Tonight-Dupont Circle

Joe helped put the finishing touches on my photography show at Bar DuPont over the weekend.

Drop by the reception tonight and/or check out the images on display throughout the week.

Washington Widely
Panoramas by Sam Kittner
On Display during FotoWeekDC Nov. 2-10, 2013
Bar Dupont

*Please join us for the Show Reception, Monday Nov. 4, 5:30-8:30pm*

FotoWeekDC Show is Up!

Freashly hung this morning, 12 of my photographs are now on display in the Bar Dupont during FotoWeekDC from now until Nov. 10.  The images are printed on canvas and are facing both inwards towards the bar and outwards towards Dupont Circle.  So stop by and check it out.  See the show info below.

Washington Widely

Panoramas by Sam Kittner

On Display during FotoWeekDC Nov. 2-10, 2013

Bar Dupont

*Please join us for the Show Reception, Monday Nov. 4, 5:30-8:30pm*

I never wanted to shoot a picture of The Capitol again...you know, fighting that feeling that every song has already been written...and every picture already taken.

But in 2006, eons ago in the history of digital imaging, I became fascinated with the power of emerging digital photographic processes to reveal relationships that create a broader sense of place.  By shooting, blending, and digitally stitching multiple exposures of a scene together into a seamless composition, a passage of time and space is suspended within the confines of the still image drawing me deeper into the scene at hand.

Based in the DC area for over 20 years and working primarily as an editorial and corporate communications marketing photographer, I had gotten over shooting the monuments long ago...but with new techniques entrancing me deeper and deeper I am seeing the city, and other places in my travels, with new eyes.

FotoWeekDC Show at Bar Dupont: Reception, Monday Nov. 4, 5:30-8:30pm

Please join us for the Show Reception, Monday Nov. 4, 5:30-8:30pm

Washington Widely

Panoramas by Sam Kittner

On Display during FotoWeekDC Nov. 2-10, 2013

Bar Dupont

Directly on Dupont Circle

1500 New Hampshire Avenue, NW

Washington, DC

I am thrilled to be showing a set of my DC Panoramas during FotoWeekDC at the Bar Dupont (adjacent to the Dupont Circle Hotel), directly on Dupont Circle.  The photographs will be printed on un-stretched canvas and be visible from both inside the bar and outside from the Circle.  The images will be on display throughout FotoWeek, Nov. 2-10...so take a walk around Dupont Circle and drop by the lovely bar to check it out...along with the great food and drinks there.

Please join me for the opening reception Monday Nov. 4 from 5:30pm-8:30pm.  I will also have a temporary display during the reception of several recent work prints including panoramas of various DC neighborhoods.

Veteran's Fair Housing PSA Campaign

It was an honor to make portraits of several distinguished Afghanistan war veterans for a series of public service advertisements dealing with housing discrimination.  It's amazingly sad that veterans coming home from war often deal with these and other such problems...just doesn't make sense, especially considering all they have given our nation.

The campaign, appearing in publications throughout the country, was produced by The Causeway Agency for HUD and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Slide Show at Palm Springs Photo Festival

A slide show of my "Washington Widely" panoramas will be projected at the Palm Springs Art Museum's Annenberg Theater tonight (Wed. 5/1/13) as part of the annual Palm Springs Photo Festival.
The show was selected from over 200 entries from around the world.
I am attending the festival and taking an architectural photography workshop from world-class photographer Tim Griffith and really learning an immense amount as I continue to strive to improve my work.  Tim is not only a great, experienced photographer but he is a gifted teacher and I feel lucky to have the opportunity to study with him.

Kittner Photos on SmithsonianMag.com

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ideas-innovations/Document-Deep-Dive-The-Classroom-of-the-Future-Today-202567871.html

Really neat article on the Sprout Space classroom at the National Building Museum on SmithsonianMag.com.  Great use of my photographs and hot-tags to explain key features of the project.

Art Hop Takoma This Weekend

Please join us this weekend, Sat. 4/13, Noon-5pm and Sun. 4/14, 11am-5pm for the annual Art Hop Takoma, a festival of

juried artists work displayed in the shops, restaurants, and galleries of "Main Street" Takoma.  Bobbi will have mixed media artwork and jewelry...and I will have a variety of framed panoramas on the walls of our studio.  It will be a lovely weekend to walk around or catch the Art Hop Trolley (Sunday Only).  Explore the shops of Old Takoma and check out the art!  We'd love to have you drop by the studio.

You may know that Bobbi founded and ran Art Hop the past 3 years...it has been an extremely successful and popular festival for Takoma Park...she has now handed over the festival coordination to Main Street Takoma...so this year she'll be at the studio with our work and not hopping all over town running the show she created.

Art Hop Takoma

Saturday 4/13, Noon-5pm

Sunday 4/14, 11am-5pm

Kittner Studio

7056 Carroll Avenue, 2nd Floor

Takoma Park, MD 

301-270-8750 

More info at http://arthoptakoma.com/ and on facebook.

National Building Museum Two-fer Kittner

Sprout Space at the National Building Museum photographed for Perkins + Will

I love when things tie together serendipitously...I'm thrilled the National Building Museum (NBM) contacted me several months ago to use one of my photographs in the new "Green Schools" exhibit that opened this March...and the architectural firm Perkins + Will contacted me to photograph Sprout Space, their newly constructed modular classroom on the grounds of the NBM that is part of the exhibit. The installation is on view until January of 2014...so check it out.

Image on display in Green Schools exhibit at National Building Museum photographed for VMDO Architects

Cover Shoot for Cornell Magazine

It was a blast to revisit college life and shoot this cover story about Cornell's Washington Program featured in the Jan./Feb. Cornell Alumni Magazine.  I photographed students near the university's Dupont Circle facility and found a nice spot on Pennsylvania Avenue to make the cover at dusk.

Kittner Gallery Talk at Library of Congress 2/12/13

Community Buy-Out,  Revielletown, LA 1988
Boarded up houses, chemical plant, and birds flying over sugarcane field by the levy.

Please join me Tuesday 2/12/13 at The Library of Congress' (LOC) noon gallery talk as I will be reaching back in my memory (which is a lot easier if you have photos to help take you back in time) discussing the environmental documentary photography I produced oh so long ago in the late 1980s and early 90s.  Two prints from that body of work are on display the Graphic Arts Gallery, Jefferson Building in the exhibit "Down to Earth: Herblock and Photographers Observe the Environment."
This will be a short, informal program from noon-12:30pm.

Take a look at my earlier post about the show and how a set of my photographs were acquired by the LOC.

And, yes, it is a little weird feeling when you are old enough to talk about work you produced early in your career, almost 25 years ago...kinda of strange...but I am certainly appreciative people are looking at these issues (which haven't gone away) and recognize the value of this work that I was so deeply involved in at the beginning of my journey as a photographer.

Panorama Helps Landis Construction Win Award

Congrats to Landis Construction, a top residential design/build firm, for winning recognitions in the Contractor of the Year Awards (CODY), including one for this spectacular kitchen remodel.  Of course they had to do the heavy lifting to remake the lovely kitchen, but I was pleased they saw the value in having me shoot a panorama of the project to more fully show the glory of the room...I also shot individual detail photographs that helped the judges see quality of work as well.

Toole Design Group: Photographs for New Website

Toole Design Group, the leading national engineering, planning, and landscape architecture firm specializing in multi-modal transportation (think bike lanes and pedestrian friendly streets), recently rolled out their new website featuring 8 images rotating through their home page I was commissioned to shoot for the project.

Among other work, Toole Design was heavily involved with the new downtown DC bike lanes.  I love the ones in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.  The work they do is great...helping communities retrofit and accommodate all modes of transportation, with an emphasis on safe biking and walking blending in with automobile and mass transit options.