Great News!  The Walker Art Center accepted a project of mine to do during this year's Northern Spark! 

Northern Spark is an amazing city wide event...

...an active celebration of the creativity of artists and the creative programming of cultural organizations. Last year, during the night of June 4, 2011, there were 50,000 visits to 100 projects by more than 200 artists in collaboration with 60 cultural organizations and sponsors at 34 venues in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Northern Spark was a one-night creative explosion.

All this creativity and energy makes one “think and wonder, wonder and think,” in the inimitable words of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. What is it all about?

For us, Northern Spark is about transformation. It is about seeing the Twin Cities in a new light. It’s about making the place where you live a place you want to be, not where you return after being inspired somewhere else. It is about the dynamic intersection of art and science and technology and engineering and design and urban planning and nature and culture. It is about the power of artists to make us think and wonder.

Northern Spark is a catalyst. See something new in the commonplace. Explore the city after hours. Visit a museum or public space for the first time. Make something for thousands of people. Join friends and fellow enthusiasts in a movable feast throughout the metropolis.

It really is an amazing thing to witness through the city, and I am super thankful to be involved with it.

The idea they accepted is called "Where the Chill Came From" and will be a sharing and telling of regional ghost and paranormal stories.  I want to encourage everyone to not only attend, but bring stories to share.

June 9, 12-1am

Inside James Turrell's "Sky Pesher"

Walker Art Center

Minnesota and the Midwest in general is a hotbed for paranormal activity. From the Stillwater Bigfoot to the ghosts of the MIA, nearly every town in our state plays host to a supernatural guest.

Join us to hear local stories of the strange and unexplained, as well as share your own. Be careful though, once you find out what’s in your neighborhood you may not want to return home until morning! A paranormal investigator with the TCPS (Twin Cities Paranormal Society,) Nathan Lewis will be your guide through the legends of the region

The best part though? Is this will be happening 12-1 am, under the moonlight inside the James Turrell piece on the lawn! 

In addition, like last year, I will also be assisting at the MCAD  Gallery for their Midnight Playground! 
A wonderful night, not to be missed.
Please see the event on Facebook!

I am often amazed.  Not by how complicated things are, but by how simple they are.

For a long time I've been wanting to share student work created during our classes. They really are the reason I keep excited and motivated about Photography. I am amazed with the work they turn in, constantly forcing me to reevaluate my notions of the medium itself. These don't represent any cohesive body, just some randomly chosen photos from classes since 2009.

Anya Overby

Danielle Jimenez

Danielle Jimenez

Marisa Fanucci

Kayla Fuller

Jason Burrows

Kiran Vijayan

Morgan Marks (this was taken with a pinhole)

Ashley Pfromer

Shaina Kelley

Melanie Snodgrass

More to come, I've got thousands of amazing student images!

For the past month I taught an alternative process class for 8-12 year olds, Catching Light: Exploring Alternative Photography. For some reason I was more intimidated by these students than the 100s of adults I have taught in the past.

As you can imagine, I showed up the first day in a collared shirt and sport-coat, ready with my slide lecture and pre-planned demos. I noticed two things very quickly: I was way over dressed and 9 year olds aren't that interested in sitting in the dark on a Saturday for a historical and technical lecture about cyanotypes...save for laughing about how funny John Herschel looks.

Just as someone had warned me, the things that I planned on taking 30 minutes took 3, and the things I thought would be a footnote required much more explanation. Most obvious was when we were waiting the 10 minutes for the cyanotypes to expose, the students all looked up at me as if to ask "Ok, what now?"....to which I mentally responded "Uh...this is it, we're doing it." I hadn't considered how to fill the 10 minutes of exposure time with another activity.

The most amazing experience we had started before class the next period. I had to run down to the director's office for forms, and as we were talking and casually looking out the window, a flash of white hit the ground outside and at almost the speed of light ascended and rested in a tree branch just outside the window. It was a Red Tailed Hawk, and in its claw it had a pigeon.

Stunned, the director and I tried to understand what we were seeing. The Hawk grasped the pigeon, and the pigeon did not struggle. I hope it was already dead. With no way to photograph it, I feared again this gruesome but mesmerizing moment would once again go undocumented.

The class started and we began working on that day’s project, and one of our tasks was to go outside and collect interesting objects to make photograms out of. I instructed them to find leaves, twigs, flowers, and anything with a unique shape.

As we were walking around the courtyard, we began to find a lot of feathers. They were floating around the air like dandelion seeds, it was actually very beautiful.

It didn’t take long before we found the source. On a limb above us, there was the hawk eviscerating the pigeon.

Terrible phone images, but thankfully I at least had some way to photograph it.

After choruses of “Cool!” by the students, I figured we should head in, and assuming that most of the feathers they found just came off the pigeon, maybe it would be a good time to wash hands.

On the walk back, some of the girls began to lament the pigeon, they hoped it didn’t suffer, and while they understood the natural cycle, felt sorry for it.

It wasn’t until we got in the darkroom that they had an idea! For their photograms they wanted to make a bird design with the items they found. As if to bring the pigeon back to life or introduce a new one into the world. Their act of honor and remembrance for the bird was incredible.

Pinhole images taken by the students

I also have to give big thanks to the TA Sherri Mueller, without whom the class wouldn't have been possible.

A cyanotype one of the students made, super cool!

Sumner W. Matteson, Jr. was born in 1867 in Decorah, Iowa, the second of six children. In 1884 he entered the University of Minnesota where he joined the Chi Psi fraternity, played on the tennis team, and edited the first Gopher yearbook. He graduated with a B.S. from the University of Minnesota in 1888 -- the very year that Kodak roll film was introduced.

For the next several years it appeared that Matteson would follow his father, uncle and brothers into the world of banking. He clerked two years at the family bank in Decorah, followed by another three years in Great Falls, Montana at the bank where his older brother Herbert was head cashier. Yet in 1895, the year his father died, Matteson broke with family tradition and became the St. Paul agent for the Overman Wheel Company, makers of the popular Victor bicycle.

After only a year of selling Victor bicycles in St. Paul, Matteson moved to Colorado to manage the Overman operation in Denver. Besides selling Victor bicycles, the Denver Branch of the Overman Wheel Company also carried a complete line of Kodak cameras and Kodak supplies. Matteson soon combined the two facets of his business, taking his camera on his bicycle excursions.

By 1899 he was calling himself an "amateur photographer," so when the Overman Wheel Company pulled out of Denver in 1899, Matteson was already embarked on his new career as a "traveling correspondent."

From 1898 to 1908 Matteson crisscrossed North America taking photographs. Primarily a photojournalist, Matteson charmed his way into other people's work places and social celebrations. He produced some of the earliest photographic essays on the changing American West. Between 1898 and 1901 he photographed the elusive Ute Indians, the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, and the life and rites of Pueblo Indians in New Mexico and Arizona. In 1904 Matteson spent four months traveling the length of Cuba. In 1905 and 1906 he was in Montana to photograph the Fourth of July celebrations at the Ft. Belknap Reservation and the ranch life of the Flathead Indians. In 1907 Matteson spent 10 months in Mexico photographing old churches, Peons, ruins, and fiestas. During the Summer of 1908 he toured the Pacific Coast from San Francisco north to Seattle and Vancouver photographing fishermen and loggers.

In 1909 Matteson settled in Milwaukee -- perhaps because he had tired of traveling, perhaps because he needed a steady income -- and worked as a bookkeeper for the Milwaukee Coke and Gas Company then for the First National Bank. But he did not give up photography completely. He photographed Milwaukee. The Milwaukee River was one of his favorite settings: People skating, harvesting ice, swimming, and canoeing.

For tons more of his amazing photographs, view the archive here.

A bit late, but some Holga photos from my visit to Egypt over summer. I took almost 3000 images with my digital, but none of them look as good as the ones taken with the $30 Holga.