Jonetta Rose Barras: D.C.'s river man

Even now, you still can’t believe “Blue Dog Sundown” was a photograph. It looked like a painting: The light created a path on the large rocks, luring you inside the frame, compelling you to the water’s edge. It was an exquisite piece — one of eight in the exhibit Mami Wata: Capturing the Spirit, by master photographer Bruce McNeil at the Honfleur Gallery.

Days later as you ponder the experience, it’s hard to believe the gallery was on Good Hope Road Southeast in Ward 8. That certainly wasn’t D.C. Councilman Marion Barry’s or mayoral candidate Vincent C. Gray’s Ward 8, where pathologies are magnified and residents are forever sculpted into victims unable to fully affect their own destinies.