Beyond the DMV

In April, we shared dispatches from three photographers who used to be part of the DC photo community but who have since moved elsewhere. This week, three more photographers share their stories: Clif Burns in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Thomas Petzwinkler in midcoast Maine; and Chantale Wong in Manila, Philippines.

Clif Burns

At the beginning of the year, I bought a house in Fort Lauderdale and in July moved there permanently and put my condo in DC on the market. I’ll miss the many photographic opportunities in DC but Florida, not surprisingly, has many of its own, particularly if one is interested in wildlife. The first day in my new home a gigantic iguana, an omen of sorts, visited my backyard and hung out in a tree branch for a while. He never came back, perhaps having been, er, retired by the park rangers in the Richardson Nature Preserve across the river from my backyard. Iguana’s are an invasive species in Florida, the result of improvident house pet choices by certain Floridians. Looking at this one, I can’t imagine keeping it as a pet.

Muscovy ducks (edible, by the way) are everywhere. My dog is dying to chase them but I’m not letting her off the leash to realize that dream. Besides, in an encounter with a mother and her ducklings, she would not likely do as well as she imagines. Interestingly, even now in October, you still see mothers and their ducklings, larger in size but smaller in numbers. I wonder if the missing ones ran away to start new lives in the city or instead became dinner for a hawk. Interestingly cars in Florida will stop for ducks in the road. For people . . . not so much.

As the weather began to cool a bit more birds began to arrive. The Yellow-Crowned Night Heron (which may be one of the coolest bird names ever) took up residence on a tree branch on the other side of the river. What a spectacularly beautiful bird. I’m looking forward to a return visit.

I’m also seeing more and more White Ibises. Floridians (and visitors) will tell you that they are ubiquitous here in South Florida. Although this one is in a tree, which is a good place for a White Ibis, I’ve seen them hanging out in the parking lot of a local Publix, begging for spare change, I think. After all, who can say no to a White Ibis?

Finally, I’ve included a shot of two modernist bungalows that are common in my neighborhood. Sunrises here are often accompanied by the spectacular cloud formations you can see over these two little (and very expensive, I’m sure) bungalows.

Thomas Petzwinkler

Though I was born and lived in Vienna, Austria for the first few years of my life, I spent the majority of my life in the Washington DC area, including a few years at VCU in Richmond, VA. I appreciated and enjoyed the DC area for its convenience, diversity, and accessibility but after 45 years in one place I was ready for a change – and once the opportunity to relocate arrived, I was out so fast it made my own head spin.

The destination my wife Anna and I chose was Midcoast Maine, centrally located between Portland and Bar Harbor. Having already spent a great deal of time here at a family-owned house in Port Clyde we were excited to settle in the town of Cushing, where Andrew Wyeth made his home during the last half of his life and where he painted the well-known painting, Christina’s World. In fact, the Christina Olson house (the house in that painting) is less than a mile across the cove from our own house.

Cushing has become a real haven for me. In DC I had been a commercial photographer but here, I decided I’m finally pursuing my fine art career. The last two and a half years have been spent building my body of work and endeavoring to define what my work is, where it’s going, and what I want from it in the near and long term. I recently had a solo show of 23 works at the Salt Pond Studio in nearby Friendship, and have begun finding success in my new role as a “Coastal Fine Art Photographer and Artist”. I’m finding so much joy just in the act of waking up in my new life.

I notice many people pine for their time in DC when they leave. I haven’t had that reaction more than once, and a single brief visit back to DC cured me of that. I am through and through a New England “country person” now. I live for the quiet and the beauty and the community that I feel in my new home. I will always appreciate my life in DC, but I know that I’m in the right place for me now.

I’m sharing a sample of work I’ve made over the last year or so. I’m pretty happy with it but as is always the case, I feel myself being pulled in new directions now that I have shown this body of work to the public. I will remain and will always be a landscape photographer but change is good. I welcome new ideas and directions more now than at any point in my life. Being set free to create in a place as amazing as Maine has changed everything for me.

Chantale Wong

After helping President Biden win in Arizona and helping to flip the Senate in the two Senate races in Georgia, they asked me what job I wanted. I told them my dream job was to be the official photographer for the incoming first Black, first Asian and first woman vice president of the United States – to document her journey just like Pete Souza did for Obama! I was dreaming big! After all I had been Congressman John Lewis’ official photographer for his annual pilgrimages for the last four years of his life to civil rights sites in Alabama. I thought that would qualify me. After putting a portfolio together of images (that included several of the VP when she came on several of those pilgrimages), I lobbied hard for that job. I was disappointed when they told me that she already had a photographer from the campaign that will continue into the Administration. By the way, I love Lawrence Jackson’s work, and I told him that when the VP came to the Philippines for an official visit.

So, they offered me the role of US Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) – a role I had in an acting capacity 20 years ago. After getting through the nomination and Senate confirmation, I moved to Manila, Philippines in March 2022 where ADB is headquartered. ADB’s mission is to build a prosperous, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive Asia and the Pacific through grants, loans, and technical assistance. We cover countries as far west as the Caucasus of Georgia and Armenia; all the “Stan’s”; South Asia; East Asia; Southeast Asia; and all the way to 14 countries in the Pacific. In my almost three years since I have been on the job, I have had the opportunity to travel to many parts of the world covered by the ADB. Lucky me!

My photographic journey, however, since assuming my role has seen both growth as well as retraction. For official travel where I am meeting government officials or doing official functions, I do not have many opportunities to do much photography, although I do carry my Ricoh GR III (urban edition) everywhere I go! As part of my work, I do get to go travel to many places that I would not have gone otherwise. On most trips, I try to add a couple of days for me to get out and get my fix. In big cities where I can find a local street photographer, I will try to reach out to them to hire them for a day photo walk. I have done that in Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei. Those were amazing experiences as I am seeing the city through their lens.

In more remote places, I try to ask for a day or half day for me to do photography. I’ve done that in the slums of Delhi, India or national park in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

But by far my favorite ask is to go to the local wet market to do people and what they sell. I have hit wet markets is Vientiane, Laos, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Paro, Bhutan, Myanmar as well as those closer to my home here in Manila.

On top of that, I’ve started on a couple of projects that will take some time to finish. I’ve started to take photos of the people who service ADB – from the gardeners to the cleaning crews; the security guards and staff; and the food services staff. I will be doing an exhibit of these photos to highlight the support staff of the ADB that make the business of what we do happen. Another project I am working on is to do portraits of those that come to dinner to my house where I have set up a photo studio. I hope to publish a photo book to be titled “Those that came to dinner with the Ambassador” after my tenure.

Finally, I reconnected with a former Harvard classmate here in Manila who has introduced me to his 2 friends – my photography BFFs. They have significant day jobs – medical director of a private hospital; CEO of a nickel mine and an owner of a Japanese restaurant who is also an amazing photo printer. All three are amazing photographers and own many cameras that feed my gear envy tendencies. They have also started me on my film journey with the Hasselblad Xpan II (extremely expensive camera!) We take long weekends to scour nearby Manila for photo stories. They have taken me onto the forbidden part of a still active volcano; to a cock fight arena; religious events; and historical walk through the oldest Chinatown in the world with a local photographer and historian.

I am hoping to return to DC to my little duplex in Glover Park but not too soon if the political winds align!

Here are some photos as I expand my photography.