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

Time to attack the Buckthorn. The Minneapolis forestry department is setting the islands on fire this week at Lake of the Isles. Well, actually they are only burning the buckthorn, which is an invasive species that does really well here.

I enjoyed walking around watching them work and chatted with a few of the guys as well. They were really friendly and seem to enjoy their work. I heard somewhere that the guys who run wrecking cranes have the highest job satisfaction, I wonder if cutting down trees and setting them on fire has the same effect.

Note to DCPBers, the bigger your camera, the more likely people are to think you are from the news and want to talk to you. There are some perks to getting older too, when I was a kid out exploring, I’d get chased out of places, now I’m doing the same thing, but people want to talk. Maybe it’s the camera — like Rodney Dangerfield’s routine about tying a pork chop around a kid’s neck so the dog will play with it.

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

Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques. Osprey perch on Lake of the Isles with snow.

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

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

Keepin’ real busy these days, 2008 is off to a good start. This week I’ve finished a few websites.

Kathi Tunheim is a leadership coach, I built this site to reflect her style and the collegiate world.

Zididada is a Danish rock band. I’ll be developing a website for them over the next few months, but until then, I customized a myspace page for them. I was up working on it until 2am yesterday morning, so I’m still a little groggy.

I have five more projects in progress, so that’s why I haven’t been writing as long of posts lately. But fear not, spring is in the air (it was only 8 below this morning!) and I’m itchin’ to get out shooting the magic of spring in Minnesota. As soon as it warms up, this place pops to life!

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

The last luminary from the City of Lakes Loppet both literally and figuratively. This was my favorite shot from that night; it was on the wall as we were climbing out of the lagoon. Worked out real well too, since my camera battery gave it’s last for this shot before it froze up. Yes Virginia, camera batteries will freeze.

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

Another day of fun in the winter wonderland. This is the bridge over the canal leading to the lagoon from Lake of the Isles, the luminaries from the City of Lakes Loppet are in the foreground. This is one of two matching bridges on the lake, the other one is barely visible in the distance in Monday’s photo. Down the canal in the lagoon is something unique that I found; check back for this Saturday’s Moment of Zen to see it. More snow is in the cards, so I’ll have some more snow action-shots for you soon. Real snow, not the fake stuff.

Today is my sister Sharon’s Birthday, so if you are in Kenosha, Wisconsin, stop by the Copy Center and wish her a happy birthday. She’s the good kid that stayed home and took over the family business. In addition to running the business and keeping an eye on my parents, she edits the typos I make on this blog. Happy Birthday Li’l Sister!

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

What could be more romantic than an evening on the Lake of the Isles skating rink? How about a star? Many of you have asked about the star effect that I have in a few of my shots and frankly, I wasn’t sure how I was getting it. After a little experimenting I have the answer.

Star Effect

You could use a star filter, but then you would have to carry it with you. This image was created without one. How? Crank down the aperture (bigger number, it’s an inverse ratio, i.e. 1/22). When the aperture opening is very small, the points where the blades intersect become more pronounced and this causes the star effect. By the way, you can find out how many blades are on the aperture by counting the points on the star. Arcane knowledge for sure, but each lens may be different and it’s fun to know. This shot was taken with my Nikon 70-300mm at f/32. This is possible at night with a good stable tripod — you’ll have a longer exposure. Also, note that you need a point of bright light, not an illuminated surface for this to work.

Once you are set up, put your camera on aperture priority and try different settings to see how big of a star you can get. I shot this in manual mode so that I could set the shutter speed as well to determine the exposure. Another problem with night photography is that your LCD is relatively bright, so you may accidentally underexpose your images because they seem bright on the LCD to you (and your highly dilated eyes) at night. Check you histogram after each shot and make sure that the exposure is right.

If you get a chance to try this and like the result, please leave a comment with a link to your picture, I’d love to see it and share it with my readers.

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

The Minneapolitan, full of coffee, ambition and cabin fever, stumbles out onto the ice in search of content. Lost in the swirling snow that gathers in his clothes and camera bag, he seeks that which will keep you, the reader satisfied — the images of his mere existence. In spite of his environment, his efforts bear fruit. Alas, the camera yields forth said images with the greatest of ease, for in every direction the rugged beauty of his land offers amazement, or at least a shallow dynamic range.

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

The successor to Saturday.