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The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, by Fiona MacCarthy
Color: A Natural History of the Palette, by Victoria Finlay
Understanding Close-Up Photography: Creative Close Encounters with Or Without a Macro Lens, by Bryan Peterson
Understanding Shutter Speed: Creative Action and Low-Light Photography Beyond 1/125 Second, by Bryan Peterson
Archive for January 2008
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Things to Do Inside
Another fourteen-below morning greeted me head-on today. Cold days like this are best spent inside. Time is better used editing pictures and working on websites for my clients. This photo was taken the same time as the this one. Though not as dramatic, this one has a more solid composition with the edges of the building joining the corners. When you are shooting, compose the entire image; look around, how can you make one shape the dominant element? And now for today's feature presentation:Billy McLaughlin's Story
Billy McLaughlin is an amazing guitarist — you have to watch this video. Billy was the best Finger-style guitarist up until a few years ago when he lost the ability to use his right hand to play this incredibly-demanding style that he created. The video shows how he overcame the problem and his comeback. I know you will love his music, just listen. Then head over to Billy's website. I know you will like that too, I built it.Yep, that's my day job. I build sites for a wide range of clients, especially artists. I like working with people who are passionate about what they do, and Billy is my star. He has a few shows coming up — his music sounds fantastic with an orchestra and that's what he's doing in the next few months — playing with full orchestras.Billy McLaughlin, Amazing Finger-style Guitarist5
There's a Little Wisconsin In Us All
Today's assignment: go for a walk down a normal residential street and see what you find.1
Winter Carnival Medallion Treasure Hunt and Beauty Queens
Behold the invading beauty queens. As Lynne and I sat in the Landmark Center, joyful of the warmth and our bellies full of hot dish, we were taken by surprise by a gaggle of beauty queens. The Landmark Center was mostly empty, being the middle of a weekday, then they burst onto the scene. There had to be a hundred of them, all wearing their tiaras and sashes. It was very surreal. I kept thinking of the video game "Grand Theft" which has cheat codes where you can turn all the people in the game into clowns or gangsters. It was like we typed in the cheat code "givethemalltiaras" and poof — everyone was a beauty queen sporting a tiara. The Winter Carnival is an odd thing, ice castles, snow sculptures, skating on city streets, a hot-dish tent (seriously), roving gangs of beauty queens and... So I spent last night wandering an undisclosed park in St. Paul. I was settling in for the evening when my friend Bob calls; he's certain that he knows where it is. Half an hour later, flashlight in hand, we are "boots on the ground" searching for the Winter Carnival Medallion. One of the great activities of the St. Paul Winter Carnival is the Medallion Treasure Hunt. The local paper prints lyrical clues to a treasure hunt. Somewhere, on public property, they hide medallion. There's cash, glory and a year of groceries from Cub on the line. Needless to say, we returned to Minneapolis dejected and empty handed. Well, I wish we returned empty-handed, Bob kept looking up clues with his Treo while driving -- Oh, God...5
Graffiti on Rails
Leave something outside long enough, something is going to happen. Today's my eleventy-first post! How often does a LOTR fan get to use that term? My friend Paul has some pretty good posts this week.7
Cabin Fever is Winning
The City of Lakes Loppet is a week away. Soon cross-country skiers will be shuffling up the hill right by my home in Uptown. A loppet, as you may have guessed, is a cross-country ski race which requires snow. You'd think we'd be set, but the last few years have been a bust when it comes to snow. So here's the solution. They set up snow machines like the ones they have at downhill skiing places, right on the shore of Lake of the Isles. In the land of winter fun, we have to make our own backup snow in case the real stuff doesn't hold up. The beautiful golden light in this shot is brought to you by the big city lights illuminating the cloudy sky. The icy haze of the winter nights scatters light instead of absorbing it like wet clouds do, so it's frequently quite bright here at night. Now for the entertainment portion of the program. While avoiding responsibilities last night, I found a video made by a couple in West Saint Paul. It funny, has a catchy tune and shows what this place looks like when the snow starts to melt. I go to great lengths to tart up my snow shots, but they went the other way. Oh dear... On their website they say that it's for a video competition at the Walker Art Center. They have a link to a higher-quality version too, so if you liked it, get over and see that one and learn more about them. Say hi for me while you are there.So there you go, a video about the convenience of an inner-ring suburb and the Northernest biggest city in the world making snow in case of emergency.Why live in paradise when you can light a good buzz just watching the cabin-fevered Minnesotans just trying to entertain themselves 'til the spring thaw.Oh yeah, I still need to get some new mittens...8
Full Moon Through Minneapolis
The moon threaded the Minneapolis skyline Tuesday night. After I captured yesterday's picture, I went down to the sculpture garden to catch this image. Here's the problem: I need better mittens. I was so cold that by the time I got to this location, my hands were so cold that I didn't want to get the tripod out and set up outside. So I put the Image Stabilized Nikon 70-300mm telephoto on the camera and hand-held the camera out the window. With the aperture wide open I still had to get the exposure time down to at least a tenth, so I cranked the ISO up. Thus the noisy image. I might be able to fix some of it in Photoshop, but one of my goals for Mitchster.com is to only work in Lightroom. Shooting the full moon this month was inspired by something that happened at my alma mater, The Prairie School in Racine Wisconsin. Sophomores Connor Leipold, Tim Pastika and Kyle Simpson discovered an asteroid. You can read about it here: Prairie students discover an asteroid. They were using technology provided from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., which is also the alma mater of the science teacher, Andrew Vanden Heuvel. I saw a PBS special about students using remote telescopes. Check it out, according to the website, students can use these remote telescopes for free. If you know anyone who has done this, let me know. That PBS show also talked about "street astronomy" — groups of astronomers build inexpensive large telescopes and take them to the streets. They invite passers-by to look at the heavens. Pretty cool. Does anyone do this? Please comment! As a photographer, that much glass makes me, well, excited. A little something fun for you: Moon Phase Gadget - Not my picture, this image updates to show the current moon phase. Cool, huh? [/lang_en]4
Minneapolis Skyline with Moon
I found a new perspective on the emerald city of the Northern Plains. You have to bike a lot or work for BNSF to know this location. This was one of my more planned out shoots; I tracked the moon for the last few days knowing that last night was a full moon. I searched this area for an angle that would get the moonrise in the frame with the city. I changed locations several times last night and will be showing them over the coming days. This was my first spot, chosen because it was the highest. A lot of night scenes with the moon are photoshopped together. I wanted to make sure that this one was obviously natural. It was tricky to get the exposure right, because the moon is so darn bright. Had I exposed the moon correctly, the city would have been severely underexposed. So I chose to blow out the moon and enjoy the illuminated haze around it. One of the cool features of a sub-zero atmosphere is ice crystals. That's what is going on with the moon, it's not schmutz on the lens causing the halo, it was clearly a real-life effect. The glowing ice-haze ties the moon to the buildings; both compositionally and technically. On the techy side, I set the exposure at 2.5 seconds and then moved the aperture up and down. I wanted to blur the traffic, yet keep the exposure times to a minimum so I could keep the moon sharp — the darn thing moves faster than you think! This baby is the successor to the Thanksgiving Rush Hour I35 photo, which one do you like better? Let me know.I need new mittens.
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