Originally published June 8, 2012 I hope I’m not dating myself here, but I remember when I was little and we would go to the A&W Drive-In to eat dinner. Those were special times when going out to eat happened like once a month or something. It meant you got a night off of liver and onions, or hamburger carrot hotdish, or creamed peas and tuna over toast. (Sorry Mom!) Not like today when take out is a daily occurrence and eating at home means microwaving something found in the freezer. Drive-ins were unique in that you actually pulled your car up to a menu on a pole, ordered food and had it brought out by a wait person on a tray. It was then perched upon the glass in your side window so that you could then enjoy it in the close confines of your interior vehicle space, with your family of course. That might sound like punishment to kids these days but back then we actually looked forward to it. Then if you forgot to ask for something you could push the button again and the server would magically reappear. If they were extra cute, you might need something every 5 minutes. If you didn’t have a car, or were on bike or something, you could always go inside and order at the counter. A&W did a great job branding their menu with names like the Papa Burger, the Mama Burger, the Teen Burger, and the Baby Burger. Root beers came in similarly sized and named mugs, Papa, Mama and Baby sized although I do not recall a Teen sized one. Sometimes a mug might accidentally be left in the car (whoops!) resulting in said mug ending up in someone’s kitchen cupboard. I’m not saying I ever did it, but sometimes the desire to keep one of those cute mugs was overwhelming and next thing you know you’re thinking “the devil made me do it”, Flip Wilson style, or “oh, look what rolled under the car seat.” (I bought these at a garage sale. I did!) I think A&W eventually wised up and started selling them. Until last summer, there was one A&W drive-in remaining in my vicinity. It was quite popular too. Old people (not referring to myself) went there because it made them feel young again and young people dragged their parents there, especially after soccer and baseball games because entire teams would meet up to celebrate a victory or commiserate a loss. So it was with great sadness and trepidation when a rival hamburger joint slash custard shop which I am not going to name here opened less than two, yes two, blocks down the road. Result: A&W closed, out of business, for sale. Every time I drive past it, I feel sad all over again. If I had money to burn I would buy it for nostalgia’s sake and reopen it because it makes people happy. Even my kids now say “Oh look, there’s the old A&W.” {sigh} Unfortunately it is getting destroyed by some neighborhood vandals who apparently also want to have an A&W souvenier of their own. So I thought I better grab some images while I still can before it’s bulldozed or all the drive up menus are smashed out or taken. Goodbye ole’ A&W!
Originally published June 2, 2012 You just viewed images from the St. Paul Farmers’ Market in St. Paul, Minnesota made fresh this morning! I hope you are enjoying the beginning of summer too! Originally published May 26, 2012 There is little doubt that many of the great structures in this world are centered around religion and in them resides some of the world’s greatest art as well. One of those buildings happens to be located in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. It is the Cathedral of St. Paul. The Cathedral has a complicated and intricately woven history, but the current building as it stands began construction in 1907. It sits on Summit Hill, one of the highest points in St. Paul, and is situated so that it overlooks the skyline of the city. If you are interested in learning more about its historical background, here is a link: http://www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/treasure-art-history Almost every detail, whether inside or out, has religious significance behind it. The Cathedral can seat 3,000 people and was designed so that the entire congregation would have an unobstructed view of the altar and pulpit. The building is as long as it is tall: 307 feet and is 216 feet wide. Check out the page called “Art and Architecture” at the above link for an abundance of fascinating facts. The Church received the rare Rite of Consecration in 1958 which elevated it to one of the prestigious places to worship in the United States. It receives more than 200,000 visitors a year from around the world. Here are a few images I made during my two hour visit there. When architecture is this well planned and thought out, it is a delight for a photographer to discover and document. It feels like exploring a hidden treasure map to me. Do you think I found any surprising architectural alignments in my images? Also interesting is a 360 degree spherical panorama which can be seen by clicking this link (scroll to the bottom of the page). Use your mouse to move around in the image.
http://www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/ Have a very Happy Memorial Day weekend! Originally published May 17, 2012 I have the post show smitten blues. It happens to me after I see a great concert. I drag around for a couple of days like a love-sick puppy. This time the band was The Black Keys and they lit up the Target Center Tuesday night to a crowd of 11,000. The Black Keys consist of drummer Patrick Carney and guitarist/vocalist extraordinaire Dan Auerbach. They originated out of Akron, Ohio and have been acquainted since childhood. When they played Minneapolis two years ago at First Avenue it was to a small crowd of a couple hundred people. Their fan base has grown tremendously since the release of Brothers in 2010 meaning they got to move across the street and play at the big house, namely the Target Center. They were even better live than I had imagined. Beforehand, I was thinking it would be pretty good and I might as well go check them out. Two concert t-shirts and one Black Keys coffee mug later, I think my personal band ranking just saw The Keys move up a couple notches. That's what a concert is supposed to do, right? I am amazed at how hard Patrick Carney works those drums. He doesn’t just play the drums. He beats those drums so ferociously that I’d be willing to bet he has to replace or repair them on a regular basis. The band’s lyrics surely suggest much heartbreak and romantic disappointment in their past. If you are feeling like me, you might get mad at the girls who broke their hearts but then find that you’re actually glad they did it cause now they are writing these great songs about it. Not since Paul Rodgers of Bad Company have I heard a guy croon out such sweet, heartfelt words. I feel compelled to console these guys. You want them to lay their heads on your shoulder and tell them it’s going to be ok. I guess that would be called effective song writing. As for his guitar playing, I hear remnants and riffs of Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and Jack White. In other words, this guy CAN play guitar. His on stage presence reminds me of Jack White, almost like a mad scientist in the lab ready to cook up a big experiment of something. Going here and going there, adding this, turning up that, louder, louder, bubbling, fizzing, exploding. It’s fascinating to watch and hear. Well, I wish I could show you some awesome images from the show, but not having a press pass means that I can’t get my gear into most of these big venue arenas and a lot of times, the smaller ones too. I have resorted to shooting video out of my little camera because I can and it’s more fun to look at than the little JPEGs that come out of it. Now if I could just get a tripod in there. I’m telling you, I could nail some killer shots if they let me down front or let me bring in my stuff. Here are a few of my videos. The Black Keys, “Lonely Boy”: The Black Keys, “I Got Mine”: The Black Keys, “Everlasting Light”: The Black Keys, “She’s Long Gone”: One last thing…I’m thinking if the White Stripes could possibly for us, just this one time, reunite and double bill a show with The Black Keys it would be the best show ever. Can you imagine if they all came out for an encore, together? Or to really mix things up they could put Jack and Pat together and Meg and Dan. You know, just to shake it up a bit. Then they might have to change their names to The Black Stripes and The White Keys though.
Then to promote the show, like it would need that, Rob Jones could make up some killer art posters featuring a piano keyboard or zebras or something and it would be really awesome. Rob does some really great work and has worked for some prestigious bands and he’s a darned good writer too. Check out his website at: http://www.animalrummy.com I’m crossing my fingers. Can you hear me Jack? Meg? Dan? Patrick? Will Horton hear the Who? Originally published May 11, 2012
Minnesota has a strange tradition of holding fishing opener the same weekend in which Mother’s Day falls. I think a guy thought this up. That means in a lot of households, the males depart for one of the many lakes (usually Friday night) in hopes of catching walleyes, crappies, perch, or sunfish. In all fairness to the guys though, many of them leave by lunchtime on Sunday so they can make it home to spend at least half a day with Mom. The lucky ones will have caught their limit on walleye so Mom will be eating a fine fish meal Sunday night. There is nothing quite like a fresh lake-caught dinner. Speaking of fishing and Moms, every year my Mom bugs me to enter this fishing photo of my kids into the State Fair Fine Arts competition. I assure you this is NOT what the judges are looking for. But I can post this photo here, in her honor. Happy Mother’s Day Mom and to all the other Moms out there! Originally published May 4, 2012 Minnesota became the 32nd state to enter the union on May 11, 1858. This is the only recurring date that the State Capitol lights up a chandelier that is hanging in the rotunda. It is also lit for special occasions such as governor inaugurations or if an important person is lying in state. The chandelier weighs one ton, is over 6 feet wide, has 92 light bulbs, and is suspended at a height of 142 feet. It was installed in 1904. It can be lowered for cleanings and inspections, and I suppose to change a burned out light bulb. Imagine having that job! Good thing it is only illuminated a couple of times a year. I made this image back in 2005, so long ago I actually shot it on film. I attempted to get an all-encompassing shot of the rotunda with the chandelier. If you would like to see the chandelier in all its glory, mark your calendar for next Friday. The capitol is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
Originally published Apr. 29, 2012
I have a bunch of blogs that are in draft form right now, so while I develop those ideas a little more, I thought I would talk about a couple of images from last Fall. When I traveled up north I spent the night in a hotel on Lake Superior. I have never stayed on one of the Great Lakes before, and the really cool thing about it was that when I left my sliding balcony door open, I closed my eyes and just listened, the waves made the same sound as ocean waves do. It sounds silly when I put it in words but it felt pretty neat to have that experience in Minnesota. I also really liked watching the moonshine on the lake. Here are a few images of that including two with my Singh-Ray Gold-n-Blue Polarizer. Originally published Apr. 21, 2012 I had the recent pleasure of dining at Thom Pham’s Wondrous Azian Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis. Some of you locals may be familiar with his former restaurant, Azia, on Nicollet Street, which will actually be reopening in its old location in the near future. I know, you’re probably wondering, what the heck does this have to do with photography? If there are two things in life I love almost as much as photography, they are music and food, and inevitably, I am going to end up talking about them. So without turning this into a restaurant critique, let me just say that the food was great and the service was exemplary (both times, I went twice). The architectural details were really interesting and inviting as well. I thought about asking for permission to take a few shots to show here, but since they already have some nice work on their site, I decided it would be easier to include a link (look under the “Gallery” tab). http://www.wondrousmpls.com/ The most intriguing part of my visit though and the one that made me want to write about it, was seeing a framed poster on their wall concerning the Chinese Year of the Dragon. The design is beautifully done, the colors are striking and the message is what really caught my attention. It says: “Celebrating the Year of the Dragon: Other years might seem to drag on, but the Year of the Dragon has the potential to breathe life-shaping fire, to be magical, even mythical. Keep one eye on the calendar and the other on the stars.” Since I was born in a year of the dragon, I was perhaps a little more influenced by this poster than some people might be but it reminded me too of my New Year’s Day post and so I wanted to share it.
FYI some previous Dragon years were: 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988 and 2000. [A special thank you to the restaurant for providing me with a copy of this poster.] Originally published Apr. 15, 2012 Spring season has finally arrived in Minnesota and the time is perfect to capture it. Fall comes easy with its bounty of colorful leaves and the brilliant blue of the October sky. Winter possesses its own attributes with snow and the transformative ability to appear as blizzards, icicles, hoar frost or a blanket of glitter. The fact that snow glitters, well, I have a thing about glitter and so it gets a lot of bonus points in my book for that reason alone. Summer of course graces us with green foliage, flowers, stormy skies, and a proliferation of life everywhere we look. As a landscape photographer, I find Spring to be a more challenging season to photograph (at least in MN) with the exception of ice out on the local lakes. It is much easier on a macro scale – tulips budding and spreading their petals to bathe in the sun, baby leaves sprouting from twigs, a mother bird sitting on her nest, raindrops and puddles, a groundhog peeking out from his or her winter home, crab apple trees blossoming with white and pink flowers, and fiddleheads uncurling. Maybe that is the gist of things – new and young and somewhat solitary and meek, until they prosper and flourish as one – growing and spreading into clusters, fields, and forest canopies. The other challenge with Spring is the wind and when you are photographing up close, everything needs to be as still as possible. So when those windless days present themselves, nature photographers must act quickly or face resorting to a bag of tricks to keep things from blowing around. My upcoming blog schedule includes: The Chinese Year of the Dragon and Tom Pham’s Wondrous Azian Kitchen; Motorcycles, the State Fair and Count’s Kustoms; Women In Photography; Minnesota’s Statehood Day; and another round of Ernst Haas’ thoughts on photography.
I hope you will visit again and in the meantime that you are enjoying Spring wherever you are. Originally published Apr. 7, 2012 I have been writing about a 1980 video documentary on Ernst Haas entitled “To Dream With Eyes Wide Open”. In my last blog, I discussed Haas’ idea that artists incorporate their surroundings and then are able to re-present those surroundings with their own personal vision or experience on whatever medium is in front of them: canvas, paper, etc. using whatever vehicle they have in their hand: paintbrush, camera, pen, etc. Another profound idea in his documentary is that children see in pure vision and as they grow up that is taken away from them as they are schooled and civilized. Adult artists then must relearn how to “see” as they did when they were a child. He says: “If you are a child in many ways you are really yourself and you have a strange kind of a logic and the grown-ups come and they want to correct all this beautiful logic which is as illogical as poetry because it goes in a truth which is far beyond intelligence. And then comes the school and you learn to read and you learn to write. And suddenly this literary dictatorship pushes away all your vision and you are no more free. You can’t see a tree, no, you have to say “tree.” You have to know where it is, how it is called. You can’t enjoy pure looking, pure observing, pure thinking. But to live without a name this is when you become visual. When there are no captions. When it just is and with it being, it becomes. That means you have to unlearn to read and write and just live a little bit with your eyes…and maybe…music. So you really become yourself. I don’t want to become mystical but in meditation you do that. You forget yourself. You push your ego away while you be yourself. Forget that you want to be the best photographer in the world. Forget that you want to make the prize in this and this competition. There are no prizes, there are no competitions.” This reminds me of a museum experience I had with another mom and her kids. At every painting or structure, she would stop and recite outloud to her kids whatever description was below the piece. I had not been doing this, merely observing with my own kids and “oohing” or “aahhing” or “wow-ing”. I started to feel somewhat self conscious of myself at this point. Here was the other mom, giving her kids a crash course in art history, their brains growing larger by the second. I sheepishly started to do the same with my kids, a little quieter and now, intentionally, a few more steps behind the other mom. Now, I am rethinking that experience. Maybe it was ok to just observe and experience without all the details and background information.
There are really two big ideas in this excerpt from Haas. The first is the seeing as a child part and the second is the competition part. In today’s world where so much of people’s identities is wrapped up in internet presence and competition in photography is as fierce as it ever was, it is difficult to not get wrapped up in that thinking. By that I mean when you are in the process of creating, your thoughts are not with what you are doing but with what the end result will be. I guess not in the present, but in the future. I like the thought of it – just being at peace with what is. Photographing something because you are drawn to it, not because you are trying to gain critical acclaim or recognition for your work. Coming up: I think I will take a break from the Ernst Haas quotes and talk about or better yet, show what is going on outside: images of Spring. Happy Easter everyone! |
AuthorI am a photographer who lives in Minnesota. I blog about Minnesota, photography, music, food and miscellaneous topics. Archives
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