Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.

This is the little-known ever-terrifying Washburn Water Tower, hard to find, it is located in south Minneapolis in a confusing little area known as Tangletown — so named for the street layout. Perched on a hill surrounded by trees, this beast was built in 1932 with massive eagles atop and scary Templar Knights at the base. The knights are “guardians of health” designed to protect Minneapolitans from typhoid — tainted water had reciently been linked to the disease. The first time I went there was at night, so I’m even more afraid of the place.

I went through a fit of infrared photography at the time and decided that the spooky effects of infrared would suit this location. Infrared is the light above human vision. the human eye can detect light that has a wave length of 380 to 750 nanometers. Infrared is from 700 - 1400nm. I shot this with a 1000nm filter that cuts out all light below that. I was using a Sony F828 camera that has a night mode.

The best thing about infrared — trees. They glow like crazy. Second best is the sky, it goes black and the clouds go white.

Here’s a perk for all of you with point-and-shoot cameras: Big DSLRs have filters that prevent them from taking IR photos. A lot of P&S cameras have a ‘night mode’, if yours does, put it in night mode and then point your TV remote at the lens and push a button. If you see the light on the screen, your camera picks up IR. Do a little research: type in your camera model name and ‘IR’ or ‘infrared’ and see if anyone has talked about your camera. All you need is a filter and a tripod (you are cutting out a lot of light with the filter, so shutter speeds will be slow). I would recommend a 72 or 75 filter, they are a lot cheaper than the 1000nm I bought (I’m a bit of an extremest). I’ve since discovered that I can convert my Sony F828 to be Infrared in regular mode. It costs $350 at maxmax.com. Have you done this? Let me know. I’m interested in doing so.