A Brand New Minneapolis
my city on film
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Stampede on Flickr.
Holga 120N | Ilford FP4+ | XTOL (1:1) | Post in Topaz Adjust
The long march home. -
Mount Minneapolis on Flickr.
If you happen to be in Northeast Minneapolis this weekend and are looking for something to do, come visit me at Art-A-Whirl! I’ll be at the Waterbury Building, 1121 Jackson NE, in suite #121.
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Mill City is Crumbling and I’m going to Art-A-Whirl! on Flickr.
Prints
Holga 120N | Ilford HP5+ | XTOL (1:1) | post-processed in Topaz Adjust
Not really! There is some construction going on, I think on one of the grain elevators, which adds to the idea behind this piece. The overlapping images, I think, really give the sense that the mill ruins (now home to the great Mill City Museum) really are crumbling. It’s disorienting and one of the joys of Holgaramas—-you never know what element the process might add to your idea!
A quick plug for my photography business: I will be at that the 17th Annual Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis this weekend. It’s the largest open studio art fair in the country. I will be at 1121 Jackson St., in the Waterbury Building, Suite #121. Come over and stop by if you’re in the area. This print and more will be on sale, with 10% going to Everyday Miracles, a local non-profit. Hope to see you there!
More info here: nemaa.org/art-a-whirl -
Come see me at the NE Art-A-Whirl this weekend! I’m in the Waterbury Building at 1121 Jackson, suite #121.
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Alone on Flickr.
Canon Canonet QL17 Giii | 40mm f/1.7 (shot at f/2) Kodak Tri-x 400 (shot at 1600) | Diafine
A few photos back, I talk about the experience of driving home just as the sun set and the fog rolled in and my impromptu adventure in a nearby nature preserve to try to take some photos of it all. It was a really fun, but kind of spooky walk/run through the dark, noisy woods. I half expected a werewolf to jump out at me as I walked along the trail back to my car.
Anyway, now for some technical, uninteresting notes: I developed this film using Diafine, which is a 2-bath compensating developer. Basically, the first solution embeds the developer into the film emulsion, but it doesn’t actually get developed yet. Three minutes later, you dump out Bath A and pour in Bath B, which reacts with the developer in the film to develop it. The magic is that you get a speed increase in most film (Tri-x is the gold standard at 2-stops) without an increase in grain (it’s of a different quality than, say, Rodinal’s grain). But you also get a pretty gray negative (this photo had some work done in post, but that’s the beauty of a rich, gray negative; you get so much flexibility). This is good if you’re scanning and even better if you’re scanning and guessing at exposure, like I was. Say you guess is a bit off and you expose as if the film were at ISO 400. The next frame, you expose as if it were ISO 1600. In most developers, one of the two frames will be over- or under-developed depending on what you’re shooting for. But with Diafine, you get just the right amount of development, regardless (to a degree) of what speed you shot the film at. This is great for shooting on the fly and something that builds in a lot of flexibility with respect to how you meter/if you meter. Now, there will be people out there who say that photography is a precise art form and that doing anything less than Ansel Adam’s zone system for shooting and developing is a travesty. There are also those who will say that you always need a $300 Sekonic light meter in order to properly expose each frame. Phooey on to you, I say. -
The Weisman Art Museum: A Holgarama on Flickr.
Holga BC135 | Kodak Plus-x | XTOL (1:1) | post-processed in Topaz Adjust
I’m fascinated by the intersection of analog and digital technology. There’s nothing like shooting with a film camera and the freedom that digital processing affords allows a lot of creativity once your negative is scanned. I’m not going to get into the digital vs. film debate because I think both have their place in a photographer’s toolbox. For this shot, I decided to embrace the Weisman Art Museum’s wonderful curves, Holga’s dreamy lens and ability to overlap frames, and the power of tonemapping, which highlights local contrast most often used in digital camera photos. It’s a tool best used minimally, but for the dreamy, unfocused, and overlapping look this image already possessed, I thought it worked out very well! -
a brand new minneapolis no. 29 (franklin & hiawatha) on Flickr.
Mamiya 645 1000s | Mamiya Sekor-C 80mm f/1.9 (shot at f/5.6) | Fuji Acros 100 | Rodinal (1:50)
The intersection of Franklin and Hiawatha is not one of the nicer parts of Minneapolis. There are quite a few homeless people who congregate under the bridge there, crime is pretty bad, and there are a lot of pawn shops. In short, it’s not a place my mother would likely approve of me venturing. But, like anywhere in the city, there a plenty of nice people to be found, probably 99% of the people milling about are just going about their daily business. The other 1%? Well, it’s probably the guy who told me in no uncertain terms never to take his picture as he semi-cornered me under an overpass. Ah well, such is life. The 1% is always out there to get you ;o) Not much to say about this particular portrait. This woman had just gotten off of the bus and was on her way somewhere, but was nice enough to agree to have her picture taken. She had fancy shades!
This picture is the twenty-ninth in my 100 strangers project, to learn more and see the rest of A Brand New Minneapolis, click here.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page -
Stuck Between Stations on Flickr.
Holga BC135 | Kodak Plus-x | XTOL (1:1) | post-processed in Topaz Adjust
“The devil and John Berryman, they took a walk together and they ended up on Washington talking to the river | He said I surrounded myself with doctors and deep thinkers | But big heads and soft bodies make for lousy lovers | There was that night that we thought that John Berryman could fly | But he didn’t so he died”
The Hold Steady’s “Stuck Between Stations” accurately names the Washington Avenue Bridge as the suicide location of the poet John Berryman, who jumped to his death from atop on January 7, 1972. It’s a famous landmark, not so much because of suicides, but because it connects the east and west sides of the University of Minnesota together. During the day, it’s filled with throngs of students on all forms of transportation. Luckily, for the winter months, it has a covered part that provides shelter from the Minnesota cold.
This is a panorama shot in-camera on film using a 35mm Holga. Holgas are great because you can use the shutter at all times, it’s not coupled to the film winder. To create these imperfect (but that’s the appeal) images, you take a shot, wind about halfway, take another shot, wind halfway again, and take your final shot. You have to guess where each frame lands in relation to the previous one. It takes some trial and error, but I think you end up with some special images. -
a brand new minneapolis no. 28 (cedar-riverside) on Flickr.
Mamiya 645 1000s | Mamiya Sekor-C 80mm f/1.9 (shot at f/5.6) | Fuji Acros 100 | Rodinal (1:50)
This is Molly. I met her walking around Cedar-Riverside, pretty close to where I met Ali, also know as no. 27. It’s a really vibrant neighborhood, with a large Somali population, but also a lot of blue collar bars and music establishments (400 Bar, Palmers, Triple Rock), art centers (Cedar Cultural Center), and the University of Minnesota. The food is also really good in that area (Acadia, Chai’s Thai, the Wienery). Anyway, Molly caught my eye as an interesting person (I think I liked her scarf) and after a little convincing, she agreed to this nice portrait. Thanks Molly!
This picture is the twenty-eighth in my 100 strangers project, to learn more and see the rest of A Brand New Minneapolis, click here.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page -
a brand new minneapolis no. 27 (cedar-riverside) on Flickr.
Mamiya 645 1000s | Mamiya Sekor-C 80mm f/1.9 (shot at f/5.6) | Fuji Acros 100 | Rodinal (1:50)
This is Ali. He lives in New Orleans and was enjoying the sunshine outside of a cafe in Minneapolis during a recent trip to visit his family. A really nice guy.
Technical notes: I’ll try to keep this short. I am stopping down a bit (from 2.8 to 4.0 or 5.6) in order to increase the sharpness/in-focus depth of my close-up portraits. I do have a very fast medium format lens (f/1.9), which is great for giving me a bright viewfinder and options during low-light, but it’s just so dang hard to focus close in its range (3-6 feet). Stopping down a bit gives me a better chance of getting the shot (I am using film and thus can’t chimp my lcd screen) without wasting a lot of film (again, using film, I only have 15 shots per roll, which I try to ration out to a max. of 3 per stranger; I’ve been having a bit of a sticky shutter, so it helps to have 1 or 2 extras in case the shutter sticks and there’s a line running across that shot). Some may give me guff about not using my lens to the “best” of its capabilities, but I don’t really care what they think ;o)
This picture is the twenty-seventh in my 100 strangers project, to learn more and see the rest of A Brand New Minneapolis, click here.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page -
a brand new minneapolis no. 26 (west bank) on Flickr.
Mamiya 645 1000s | Mamiya Sekor-C 80mm f/1.9 (shot at f/5.6) | Fuji Acros 100 | Rodinal (1:50)
This is Sophie. I met her as she was walking to class on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota campus. I stopped her to explain my project and she was totally game to stop for a portrait. Well, she was a bit concerned about what she was wearing (“Of all days!” she exclaimed, motioning towards her casual attire). I tend to get that a lot, especially from the women I photograph. I understand why, but often, what draws me to my subjects isn’t what they’re wearing, but rather something interesting about their face or just their general vibe. I’m not the Sartorialist after all! (Minneapolis, for all of its charms, is not the most fashionable city; that is, unless you count hipster as high fashion…). So 90% of my job is to persuade people that I talk to that their appearance is fine just the way it is and that all I’m looking for is a nice, relaxed expression. I’m glad I got through to Sophie.
This picture is the twenty-sixth in my 100 strangers project, to learn more and see the rest of A Brand New Minneapolis, click here.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
