Moket.it is a Jewish, Italian monthly I contribute to with photos and captions of strange and interesting things I am often surrounded by, such as this wonderful Yogi from Israel, Natalie Thaler, 33, who came all the way from Herzelia in Israel to Washington, D.C. to earn the money so, one day, she will conquer her entrepreneurship dream of opening her own Yoga studio in Costa Rica.
She so slips her free time sleeping and commuting to both Tyson Corner and Annapolis Malls to work for Onsen, an American beauty company that uses Japanese technology and retails for more than many pretty ladies are often willing to spend on anti-aging creams, but that does indeed nourish your skin better than Cleopatras milk baths.
Check out the Web site HERE :~)
Every Sunday from 11 to 2 at Perry’s in Adams Morgan Sofia, Gigi and Mama put up their show.
…you can spend a whole day refining your photo style shooting red leaves and blue skies for a whole day and nobody is going to comment about it.
For the past six months, I have been struggling being my own boss, but I have finally realized, as far as I keep it creative and fun, I can be a pretty nice yet productive employer/employee.
Needless is to say when I got my camera in my hands and a full afternoon to fill, I usually forget about time, people, phone, computer etc…so it might be hard to keep track of time and I can get a little too much into what I am doing that my job can get a little dangerous at times. Let’s just say that not even a truck running bye while I am trying to get a clear frame of a District street where trees were changing leafs, might stop me in my endeavors.
In any case, the reason why I take pretty photos (they look pretty to me), is because it makes me HAPPY and it challenges me to get better. Not having a boss on my own, yet trying to run a freelancing business, I have to make sure to keep my photography fresh and marketable at all times, that is why it’s important to never stop shooting whatever and whomever. The biggest fulfillment is the one of seeing ones progress from frame 1 to frame 1,000.
So, this Blog Post is the first one of many to come in which I will provide my readers with a Photo Essay a month depicting whatever comes to mind.
For this month–October–I am featuring FALL in the DISTRICT.
ENJOY and give me feedback :~)
The leaves are turning brown and the days are getting shorter, get your mojo back striking a Yoga pose a day.
Go to the Yoga Column page here to see how to master Airoplane (Dekasan) this week.
Because the Journey of freeing the mind with Yoga, it’s not just striking poses, it’s a never-ending practice of balance within your body.
Enjoy :)
This summer I spent a month in my homeland and among my travels to visit family all over the boot, I found this hidden spot in the hillside of Tuscany.
Mountain biking over vineyards and olive trees covered hills was both challenging and unforgettable.
Watch out for the Giro d`Italia coming bye those same “white gravel” hills next May.
I might as well buy my next plane ticket for Italy for then…
Just as suggestion: You might want to do the same 
Wanna get your Christmas card photos taken before Thanksgiving… (anywhere in the D.C. area)…
….I am the girl for you!
I a D.C. based photojournalist currently less busy than usual and I want to put my free time to good use having some fun with you and your kids/family members.
I live near U street, but I can drive just about anywhere in MD and VA as well. My daily and weekly schedule is pretty open from 9-5.
WHAT I OFFER:
Creative shots of you and your kids playfully pulling each others scarfs in your lovely home backyard where fall leaves are turning brown….or anything else you might request.
I am easy to work with and free to meet up with your free of charge to discuss what you might be looking for.
I love capturing memorable moments when one least expects them especially if they can be useful to someone.
A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT MYSELF:
I was born in Rome, Italy in 1983, which makes me just about 26. When I was 19 I packed my suitcase, kissed my mom goodbye and took off for the States to follow my family’s lineage of doctors starting a pre-med program at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Four years later with a Bachelor of Arts in Integrative Physiology and a summer editorial & photography internship at Climbing magazine under my belt, I moved again. This time to Washington, D.C., to start graduate school at American University’s School of Communication.
After a heavy load of writing and reporting classes – as well as courses in digital skills, photography and documentary making – in August 2008 I received a Master of Arts in International Print Journalism and Public Affairs and started living the dream, landing an editorial internship at the National Geographic Magazine online. My next stop was a start-up online magazine, Culture 11, that folded during the economic crisis.
After losing my job, I started up my personal Blog “Federicaville” and joined the platoons of photographers wandering the U.S. capital during presidential inauguration week. From there came “She Had a Dream,” a publicly recognized shot chosen to be featured as one of the 100 finalists in the FOTOBAMA Week Photo Contest in the Newseum on Pennsylvania Ave. in downtown D.C.
One thing led to another and I was offered a job as the staff photographer for the Professional Beach Volleyball Tour (AVP), traveling the East Coast following professional athletes in their endeavors on the sand.
But, while I find myself to be most creative behind a camera lens, my initial passion for writing has not expired – in fact, I still write for Panorama, the foremost weekly Italian magazine, based in Milan, and Shalom, a monthly Italian Jewish community magazine, based in Rome, and often still contribute freelance pieces to Climbing magazine.
For more about my background and experience, take a look at my PHOTO Web site at http://www.federicavalabrega.com or visit my Blog FEDERICAVILLE at http://www.federicavalabrega.wordpress.com
FALL IS HERE AND THE POSE I CHOOSE FOR THIS SEASON IS MY LONG TIME FAVORITE KING OF DANCERS.
CHECK OUT MY NEW BLOG POST ON THE BENEFITS OF THIS MUTLI-FUNCTIONAL POSTURE HERE.
When I red on the New York Times that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi finally faces “the corruption charges that have dogged him for decades” because the Constitutional Court (the highest Italian court) overturned the law instituted after Berlusconi latest election last year, granting the Premier immunity from prosecution as far as he remains in office, I felt a sense of ease in my belly that almost made the sugarless coffee I was drinking taste less bitter in my mouth.
But then, when I continued reading that Berlusconi attacked Italian President Giorgio Napolitano of plotting against him by having filled the Constitutional Court with leftists judges who indeed have declared “political war” against Berlusconi’s immunity in response to decision, I almost choked.
What kind of excuse is that? What does the Italian President has to do with the fact that the majority of the judges on the Italian Supreme Court have left wing tendencies since he only elects one third of them (the others are indeed nominated by parliament and by the Supreme Court administration)? How could a Prime Minister already charged with having bribed a British lawyer with $600,000 for covering up two of this corruption charges declare on public television as he did last night on Italian program “PORTA A PORTA” that Napolitano should have sign against the Constitutional Court’s decision to dismiss the immunity law pending to protect the Premier from being charged while still in office.
Whether or not the judges are leftists or not does not justify Berlusconi’s corruption charges and his intent to pay up outrageous amount of money to bribe lawyers to protect him against his own mistakes. Justice has to be made for all and the time for the Premier has come.
So, instead of making a fuss about it on TV as he did last night (please look at THIS YouTube video and cry over Berlusconi spilled milk, or I should say “spilled words”), he should start thinking about the fact that Italians might allow him to have sex offender records on his political agenda, but repetitive accounts of false testimony, bribery, corruption, TV station monopoly, and money slandering it’s just a little too much for someone who is not only the Italian Prime Minister, but a senior G8 leader too.
How could Berlusconi accuse the Italian equivalent of the American Supreme Court of political bias when he is the first one who enforces his right wing political views on the TV channels he owns and the newspapers he “indirectly supports?” Political bias is the glue that holds Italy together and his Prime Minister is the perfect example of what is bound to happen to my country for the rest of its days if we continue electing song writers and an ex-real estate agents to lead our country in the eyes of the world and we allow them to sleep around and to tell about it on TV.
Sadly the corruption infecting my country is symptomatic of a endemic that has been contagious in the years since the Republic was fund: We, as Italians lack a proper organ of check and balance of power and a desire to change things for once and for all. We have had the same political system that our kings of Italy had and, although pristine and traditional as it might sound, it ain’t working at our advantage anymore.
Unfortunately there are some who say Italians have the Prime Minister they voted for. And that is the SAD and UGLY truth. What is most upsetting, having just returned from my beautiful motherland, is realizing how nothing ever changes in Italy. Tourists might think that this is what defines the beauty of such anciant and history-rich country, but in matter of politics, we have had the same disfunctional, corrupted and nepotistic government for years (I suggest your read “The Caste,” by Sergio Rizzo and Gianantonio Stella to get a better understanding of what I am talking about).
And, unless we decide, for once and for all, to elect someone who actually cares about leading a country whose in its earlier Goden Age used to be the leader of the Roman Empire to be a leader not only in corruption cases per year, we might never get out of the deep hole we sank in once we elected Berlusconi to represent us around the world for three times in a row.
Disclaimer: Sadly so, I have to admit, I have been freelancing for Panorama, one of Berlusconi owned publications, for the past year. I do it to inform the Italian public of what goes on in America, but I am as leftist as one could be, yet Berlusconi probably does not even know I exists and I write for his magazine. That is probably why he has not dictated what I should and should not write yet. So, for now, I have decided I will continue reporting for Panorama until that day will come (if ever) with the HOPE (the same hope Obama suggests) that my pen might help change things one word at the time.
