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Photog Finds a Venue in Capitol Hill Club

If the Capitol Hill Club looks a bit spiffier these days, you may have longtime Capitol photographer Jake McGuire to thank.

A small exhibit of McGuire’s Capitol-centric pictures, which went on view last week in the GOP hangout’s lobby, will be on display for the next year. As part of the agreement, McGuire will switch out the quartet of photos each month with new selections.

“It gives me exposure,” said McGuire, noting that in return he is allowing the club to use some of his photos on its Web site.

The move also is good for McGuire’s government services business, which consists of selling his photographs to corporate political action committees to be used as thank yous for their donors. He also sells Capitol note cards and framed photos — all through his Web site, www.thepacstore.com.

When it comes to promoting his work, though, McGuire said he doesn’t shy away from “guerrilla marketing,” occasionally heading to such D.C. power spots as The Capital Grille with a picture under his arm to get his work in the faces of the lobbyists who congregate at the bar there. Prior to the anthrax attacks of 2001, he used to drop off samples at Members’ offices.

McGuire, who has been photographing the Capitol since the 1970s, also recently opened up a gallery — The McGuire Collection — in Arlington, Va.’s Clarendon neighborhood that mainly highlights his Capitol Hill and Washington, D.C., photographs. In his spare time, you can find him “flying around in a Cessna 172,” snapping aerial pics of the New England coast for an upcoming coffee table book.

— Bree Hocking

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