Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

The site of yesterday’s image, this wheat was growing between a fence and construction materials along the edge of the construction site of the new University Stadium. It was such a great set-up, a black background and so many lines — very graphic. I was able to use a shallow Depth of Field to lead your eye to the upright wheat stalk on the right.

Tomorrow Obstruction: Detention

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

Continuing with the obstruction theme, today’s distortion is brought to you by the reflective and warped doors on a building at the University of Minnesota across the street from a Caribou Coffee. I like how this image pairs well with yesterday’s image: similar composition and subjects.

This was a fun image to compose, though I was inspired by and standing right where my friend Bob was when he took a picture of the same thing (plagiarism is such an ugly word), I focused on the reflected buildings, not the door and really had to work to get the open sign legible. It’s all about the coffee.

I was out with Bob and Matt walking around the new stadium construction at the U. It’s going to be quite the beast! It’s impressive to think that the St. Anthony Bridge (new 35W Bridge), the University Stadium and the new Twins’ Stadium are all being built at the same time. Three major Minneapolis landmarks being created at the same time.

Tomorrow Obstruction: Constriction

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

I’m back. Sorry for the missing days lately, much ado about many things. Lots of work, family events and summer stuff. I’ve noticed a lot of barriers and obstructions in my work recently, so this week is obstruction week. It seems a good theme since I was obstructed from posting yesterday: the hotel I was at in Grand Rapids, MN didn’t have internet.

This photo was taken from the window of my friend Lynne’s art studio in Lowertown St. Paul. It’s on the eighth floor of a warehouse and looks out to the North. The building across the street was converted into a parking garage. Her window is that security glass with chicken wire cast into it.

I liked the idea of the window being so prominent in the image, it really wants to keep you in. The obstruction makes you look around it and even move your head around trying to see around it. The framing and the chicken wire also mimic the rhythm and composition of the parking ramp.

Tomorrow Obstruction: Distortion

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

Yup, that’s a pine tree. Not what you’d expect on a leisurely Saturday stroll through a park in Minnesota. This happy little snake was about three feet up the tree sunning himself.

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

Shhhh! We’re sneaking up on dragonflies today…

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

An early morning on the shore of one of ten thousand, this little Spotted Sandpiper carefully studies the continental breakfast buffet. So many choices, but they are all still bugs. How can I tell that this is a SPOTTED sandpiper? He wandered off to the side of the sun and I caught this photo.

He sure was busy, darting around catching bugs. He’d hunker down low and chase them! It was fun to watch until I had my fill of bugs too. It’s hard to hold a big lens still while you have bugs crawling on you. I’ll have to work on that I guess.

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

Here’s yesterday’s location, only in infrared. I keep forgetting that I can do this. I waited all winter for the bright green foliage of summer so that I could take my infrared camera out.

As you can see from these two photos, the foliage reflects infrared light so they appear as crystal white masses. The sky goes black and the clouds go white. There are special cameras for taking infrared, but a lot of point-and-shoots can do it. I’m using a Sony F828 for this. If your P&S has a “night mode”, then it probably does a decent job of infrared. The easy way to test it is to point your TV remote at the camera lens and push a button. If you see a light coming from the remote on the screen, your camera see IR. Then you need a filter. Light colors are measured in wavelengths and the filters are numbered accordingly, 720nm, 820nm and 1000nm are the common ones. The first two do a good job, the 1000nm is hard to work with, with so little light, you need a tripod.

If y’all like these, I’ll take some more…

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

Professional Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow shares daily photos of the city he loves. Exploring Minneapolis through Photography while teaching composition and techniques.

The True Meaning of Cell Phone Sunday

My friend Dave pointed out that my skills as a photographer may appear to be the result of my good equipment, so I should get a cheap camera and prove otherwise. I suggested my cell phone camera, because it has a simple 640×480 camera and I always have it with me. “Perfect” Dave said, ”now do it.”
Simple rules: only uncropped, images directly from my cell phone. I do some post processing to sharpen up the image. The “camera” on the phone only has a “capture” button, so, at heart, it’s really a composition challenge. See past Cell Phone Sunday Photos.

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