Meet Joe Quattrone, owner of the House Cuts barber shop in the Rayburn House Office Building across the street from the Capitol. He's been at the shop for almost 40 years, after moving from Italy to Steubenville, Ohio (Dean Martin's hometown, for you trivia buffs), then to D.C. and working in construction and hospitality, among other industries. When Congress is in session, Joe sees a steady stream of clients who need a trim or a shoe shine; he says he has only a half-dozen female customers. These photos capture a typical weekday morning.
--Elaine Heinzman

I'm lucky enough to be a fringe member of a big community of game designers. Every Thursday, we get together for an evening of games and chatter, and in this case, photography.

-- Petra Mayer

My original thought was to go to Anacostia Park Pavilion to photograph rollerskaters. But because no one was rollerskating, I found myself talking to Nura Green of the Aban Institute. She's running a small summer program for teenagers and the day's lesson was on nutrition and how to prevent Type II Diabetes. The classroom is in an unlikely place - tucked behind a brown door within one wall of the skating pavilion. Inside, Green was teaching her students how to read nutrition labels.

- Andrea Hsu

I headed down to the Maine Avenue Fish Market, known to locals as "the wharf." It's only half a mile from the much-touristed Tidal Basin, but remains a low-key and local spot, especially on weekdays. Office workers, laborers, and a few tourists were taking advantage of the temperate summer weather to slurp a few oysters and crack a crab or two on the harbor before heading back to their jobs.

-- Evie Stone

The Alexandria Seaport Foundation operates an apprentice boat building program in a warehouse on the bank of the Potomac River. It's a wonderful collaboration between guys (and some gals) with lots of gray hair and young folks who have had some trouble getting started with their lives. Both groups seem to get a lot out of the experience.

--bn

by Emily Ochsenschlager

I went to visit my brother, who works as a maintenance worker at a park near where we grew up. Surprisingly there's a lot of work that goes into the picnic table you sit on, the bathrooms you use when you've gotta go, and those displays you see in the visitors center. I found out no detail goes unnoticed and it's all in the name of making your park experience more comfortable and enjoyable.

This is a photo gallery of some of Prince George's County Maryland's Bravest... the men of Ladder Company 14 in Berwyn Heights. Although the county's fire department has been decimated by the same budget cuts affecting the entire country, these firefighters are staying strong.

-- Jonathan Blakley

Berger cookies are a Baltimore thing... despite growing up just forty miles down I-95, I'd never tasted one until last year. Now I'm hooked, because really, what more do you want out of a cookie than an inch of fudge frosting on the top? The factory feels like a sugar sauna; the floors are slick with chocolate and there are guys in white aprons scooping massive handfuls of margarine and corn syrup into industrial mixers that could be older than they are. Take a deep breath... yummmmmmmmm.....

--Petra Mayer

Ted Robbins

I took a photographic tour of a little Salvadoran eatery near where I'm staying in Silver Spring, Maryland. It was hard to catch all the gastronomic gems, not to mention keeping the camera in focus and compensating for all the different lights. It was hard to maintain the diet amidst all the great cheesy, banana filled goodness.

--CK

Two kayaks and their owners spent a sunny Saturday on the Chesapeake Bay. Read their incredible story here!

My biggest challenge was getting close enough to the objects I was shooting. Kayaks don't move very fast. The other challenge was keeping the camera dry, and protecting it from getting smashed by the paddle. I used my ND filter for all my shots, except at the end of the day.

--LA

I love my new neighborhood, 14th Street Heights, even though I need to clarify for most folks exactly where it is. (Two miles north of U Street, NW, straight up 14th.) Here's a typical weekday morning at Highlands Cafe & Grill. If you find yourself up this way, stop by Highlands for the Belgian waffles or on a hot summer day, a wildberry smoothie. The blackened tilapia and shrimp jambalaya look pretty good, too.

-Elaine Heinzman

By Arwa Gunja

For my first gallery, I went to an auto repair garage across the street from me in Eastern Market. Little did I know that the garage has been around since the 1800s ... so I got greasy and grimy and decided to experience a typical morning under the hood of an engine.

Photos by Neva Grant/NPR

One of the big challenges of photographing tourists is that EVERYBODY has a camera. I wanted to get more close-up shots of people interacting with the statues, but every time I tried, the tourists assumed I didn't want them in the frame, apologized, and moved away. "No, I want you to be part of the picture!"--I would tell them. But then they assumed I wanted them to pose. By the time I told them to "just act natural," the moment was usually ruined, and they were either self-conscious or suspicious. So: question--how to be invisible but still get the shot you need?

It's a good thing I didn't have to get audio when I went to my neighborhood pool this morning. Trucks were roaring nearby, two guys were blowing leaves and mowing the lawn, and sound gathering would have been Hell. Image gathering was no picnic either: the kids practicing for the swim team were in a constant swirl of motion and it was hard to know what to focus on. Most interesting of all was the editorial vertigo I suffered upon returning from this shoot: I realized I can't articulate why I like a shot (or don't) the way I can confidently describe why I like a cut of tape. All in all, an interesting experience.