Glenn Cook Photography

04/09/2026

Recently I had the opportunity to photograph Susan Derry’s cabaret, “Unexpected Songs,” at Creative Cauldron Stage. We also sat down for an extended conversation that was illuminating and a lot of fun. To read the article, go to the comments.

04/08/2026

Photos from the Easter sunrise service I shot this past Sunday for our church, Good Shepherd Lutheran, in Alexandria.

03/22/2026

4 Days, 3 Events: Susan Derry's "Unexpected Songs"
On Sunday, I photographed Susan Derry’s cabaret — “Unexpected Songs” — at the Creative Cauldron Stage in Falls Church. A Helen Hayes Award nominee for performance who also works as a voice instructor at American University, Derry’s one-woman show (with musical accompaniment by Howard Breitbart) focuses on the “beautifully imperfect middle of our lives.” Derry is performing at Creative Cauldron in a cabaret residency during the 2025-26 season; the next performance of “Unexpected Songs” will be at 7:30 p.m. on March 29.

03/22/2026

4 Days, 3 Events: MSA's Company Project
Last Saturday and Sunday, students from Metropolitan School of the Arts' three pre-professional groups (iMpulse, dynaMYTE, and MYTE) performed in "Virtuoso," the 2026 Company Project. Students from the Jam Youth Project also performed during the show. Here are some highlights; another 350 photos can be found on MSA's SmugMug site.

03/22/2026

4 Days, 3 Events: Patterson Hood and John Moreland
Over four nights from last Thursday to Sunday, I photographed a concert, a dance performance, and a cabaret, an embarrassment of riches with some very talented people. Here are highlights from the Patterson Hood and John Moreland show at The Birchmere in Alexandria, photographed for Americana Highways.

03/17/2026

Earlier this month, I went to New York twice within a week. The first trip did not allow for much photography, so I used my phone. For the second, I walked around for a few minutes practicing shooting at night. Here's one of my favorites, and you can see more by going to the comments below.

03/12/2026

Need proof that Mother Nature is poking the bear? Yesterday, temperatures in the D.C. area hit a record 86 degrees. Today at lunchtime, it was 33 degrees with snow flurries, the largest 24-hour drop in temperatures since 1945.

03/12/2026

Why publish a book about a year no one wants to remember?

That’s a question I was asked, but not before asking it myself, about a photo book that looked at the first year of the pandemic. This was in the winter of 2025, as I started to press “send” on the pages that became Keep Your Distance: Walking Through the First Year of COVID.

Was it successful? Financially, I broke a little more than even. Artistically, I would do it all again.

The book’s development was challenging. At one point, I wanted to include the diary entries I had kept with the images, but eventually scrapped the idea and settling for a short prologue and epilogue. Over the past year, I’ve published those entries on my Substack — the last one appeared today — along with additional photos that didn’t make the book. My hope with these entries has been to keep awareness about the book — and that time of uncertainty — alive.

No question, we still live in very uncertain times, perhaps even more uncertain now. But there are lessons — valuable ones — to take away from that period from March 2020 to March 2021.

As book marks 1st anniversary of publication, here are the final diary entries from 2021

03/03/2026

I've been posting photos and writing about Italy in a series of Visual Stories (see comments for more). Today's story is about Burano and the pi**ed off cat.

02/09/2026

A group of Buddhist monks who are ending a 2,300-mile “Walk to Peace” tomorrow in Washington, D.C., made a stop in Old Town Alexandria on Monday, where they were honored by city officials and U.S. Rep. Don Beyer.

The group’s leader, the Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, spoke outside Christ Church as a large crowd that extended across Columbus Street and down Cameron Street watched. Before the event started, two bald eagles flew above the crowd, breaking the monotony of standing in the freezing — but better than the weekend — weather.

During his speech, Pannakara touched on themes of mindfulness and reflection in the digital and often divided world we live in. Pannakara, who with 19 monks started the journey in late October in Fort Worth, Texas, led those in attendance in a heartbeat meditation and asked those in attendance to let go of the “rocks” — hardships — they carry in life.

“You’ve been carrying a lot of rocks on your shoulders,” Pannakara said. “Now is the time to drop them down, not to collect anymore, but letting them go. That is how we change our life.”

The monks have handed out an estimated 100,000 peace bracelets during the walk while enduring brutally cold weather for most of the last month. The group has been joined by their rescue dog, Aloka.

As the monks’ journey comes to an end, they plan to ask Congress to create a federal holiday for Vesek, the day of Buddha’s birth and enlightenment.

02/03/2026

Ten years ago last week, I found myself on the roof of the Fox Theatre in St. Louis photographing members of the cast of “Newsies.” Here’s a look back at perhaps the wildest dance shoot I’ve ever done.

12 stories above the ground with six cast members of the musical "Newsies"