I’ve lived in Minneapolis for a long time, but as usual, it took having someone from out of town to get me to see the sites in my home town. The TFTTF Photography Workshop expedition to Fort Snelling gave me a chance to chill out with some heavy field artillery. No matter how old, boys will be boys and a bag of gunpowder the size of a kitten is a rollicking good time.

The deafening blast of the cannon was a true dude delight, but my experience there had an additional geek delight sound added to it. A small contingent of us photographers were gathered together to record the cannon fire and we all had the same idea and technique. We watched the soldier on the left bring the golf-club-sized matchstick down to the back of the gun and when he got close, we all held down the triggers on our DSLRs — a chorus of 3, 5 and 11(!) frames-per-second cameras clicked away hoping to capture the blast.

This weekend is the last of the season for the fort to be open, so I might head back. If you get a chance, the cannon is fired at 1:00pm and 4:00pm. If you don’t think that’s worth the price of admission, then go check out the old-time cooking at the commander’s house and leave the marching field for us boys and our toys…

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