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

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?

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

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.

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

Just another stop on the way, the Bunge Grain Elevator sits quietly abandoned on the west end of the Union yards by the University. You can actually see it from 35W, but not many people are seeing it now. It’s visible from the stretch of 35W just north of the missing bridge. This is also the place where I had my near run-in with a train.

The Winter Carnival starts tomorrow, but the hunt for the medallion has already begun. On top of building ice sculptures, skating and general winter fun; the powers that be hide a medallion somewhere in St. Paul and then give clues in lyrical form in the local paper. The one who finds it enters local legend and wins a big prize. I’m still fuzzy on the details, maybe Kate can help me with the details. One element I love is that the clues come out at half-past midnight, so the locals are out digging up the parks in the middle of the night. Gotta be hard-core to play. If you have any details or links to share, please comment!

This photo has a lot of angles. The composition is relatively static, but the tracks, trees and the silos are at angles. Another element I enjoy is how everything is mostly white. It seems like a black and white picture, but it’s not. I’ve done this before here and here. I warned you about it here. It also obeys the rule of thirds.

I’m headed over to St. Paul to find some images of the Carnival, so keep in touch to find out what we do around here to avoid cabin fever. Please feel free to comment some links to green things for me; I’m starting to crack. If I can just make it through February…

Three degrees today — a heat wave — almost warm enough to snow. The Edina Theater is in the cute upscale neighborhood of 50th and France. After trying several places, Bob Kupbens and I ended up here looking for a photo and I found one. Again this is the famous Tamron 11-18mm ultra wide lens. Believe it or not, this image is cropped. There was too much on the right and top, I wanted to center in on the theater.

I love being part of the Daily World Photographing Clique, but I’d like to lasso a few locals too. By mentioning the movies playing here in Minneapolis: The Savages, Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Atonement and the Kite Runner, I’m curious if more people will find my blog by chance. If you came here looking for the movies, don’t hate me, I’m just a daily photographer spreading the gospel of the World Photographers called the City Daily Photo Bloggers. See the world today!

The Winter Carnival Starts this week in St. Paul. For those of you who were incredulous over the seat warmers, I’ll try to document to the fine art of survival in the shadowy land of winter, so stay tuned, same Mitchster time, same Mitchster URL.

A big thank you to Thein of Seguin (TX) and Halcyon of Jackson Daily Photo for giving me the You Make My Day Award. I’ll go through my lists and put up my picks soon. Thanks!

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

snow falls gently down
covering all that I can see
where are my car keys

arctic system hits
sixteen below really hurts
where’s my hat and mitts

as day follows night
as hope follows tragedy
summer will return

Freshly minted haikus for you, thanks to inspiration from the frozen Jeep seats, the Japanese garden at Normandale College in Bloomington and my happily Caribou Coffee-addled brain.

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

Burr, baby, burrrrr! It’s cold outside! It’s currently -16 in Minneapolis this morning.

My little macro shot of some burrs seemed appropriate for today. Those little hooks on the burr are what the air feels like out there too. You know it’s cold when you get in your vehicle and bump your head on the ceiling because the car seats are frozen solid. Yes, foam apparently freezes — pop on the seat heater and slowly sink down.

Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily Minneapolis Photography. Minneapolis Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains photography, composition and photo techniques.

Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen

Time to start revving up for the CDPB Theme Day. This is the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry in the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden. This 700-pound utensil was plunked down on the edge of our metropolis in 1998, a gift of Frederick R. Weisman in honor of his parents, William and Mary Weisman. I just discovered that Weisman gave this sculpture to the city and I’m now looking into the history of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum on the U of M campus. I never realized the relationship before.

As Peter Gabriel said, “all of the buildings, all of those cars were once just a dream in somebody’s head.” It’s interesting to discover that the same person is in-part responsible for two of Minneapolis’s biggest art landmarks.