I was in Maryland over Easter weekend. What was good was seeing my mom and my friends, eating waffles and drinking exceptional wine. Bad? It snowed.

My last environmental portrait class was yesterday. Generally it was a good class—it made me think in different ways, but I’m not sure I liked the results. This photo was taken during a flash demonstration last Saturday in a makeup class. I think the flash bulb went off one too many times judging by the look on everyone’s face. Good luck to all the full-time students as they make their final push to graduate.

This lovely lady is one of my favorite people I met while living in the east village. She and her husband own the Ethiopian restaurant that is located downstairs from our old apartment. They moved to New York from Ethiopia about 16 years ago, and just recently decided to share their native recipes. Thankfully.

I took this photo last Saturday for another assignment for our environmental portrait class. We had to draw students’ names from a hat, then depending on who we picked, we had to photograph them reflecting a dark side of their personality and then a lighter side (darker side shown here—hopefully that’s obvious). Thanks to Steven, whose lighter side far outweighs his darker.

This often overlooked and annoying bird has made its way into a number of my photos. I’ve decided not to fight it, but rather embrace it (there are 4 photos with pigeons in the Boneyard series on my website, http://www.w-stop.com/zenphoto/boneyard/). I took this particular photo on a spring-like day in the park across from my new apartment.

I don’t know about you, but this is one of the creepiest window displays I’ve seen in a long time. I was on my way to a photo shoot when those vacant eyes stared me down. I’m all about taking the fun and pretty picture, but I couldn’t pass this one up. I have a feeling the store owner doesn’t realize that seeing this might make a person run — not into the shop but far, far away. The kid looks possessed and those hands… Yikes.