Cliff Owen

Afghan President Hamid Karzai participates in a discussion with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, Thursday, May 13, 2010.

The photo editors at the New York Times ‘Lens’ blog have been kind to my images the past year, or so  :-)

Despite a couple hundred-thousand miles driven down rural roads and highways, I’ve yet to see a pivot irrigation system at work — you know them, those 1/4 mile long trellises that snake through a farmer’s fields. They sit quietly like those dinosaur skeletons on display at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum.

Well, Friday night they were alive in Sudlersville, Maryland and emitting a soft rain. Had it been a tad bit warmer, I just might have done a Gene Kelly dance through the field.

Two Air Force Sgts walk off the flight line in the jet exhaust of Air Force One — as it prepares to take-off with President Barack Obama and his family bound for the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago.

Michael Donley, secretary of the Air Force, pauses while speaking during the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Fisher House and meditation pavilion for the families of fallen soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, at Dover Air Force Base, Saturday, May 1, 2010.

photographed for the AP

A Capitol Police officer stands guard in front of the Republican Whip’s office in the U.S. Capitol while Senator Scott Brown, R-Mass., is sworn in by Vice President Biden.