Behold, the pride and joy of PoleCamTM; I was holding this image back until I shot the new banner. Like the duck’s new digs?

What’s a PoleCamTM? New invention of mine, it’s basically a 25 foot pole I put my camera on, scary as hell to watch, the pole flexes a lot. You can see me with the PoleCamTM in action here, and here. So far I’ve only used it when I had my most trustworthy of friends around to catch my camera if I lost my balance. It’s taking some getting used to, but I’m sure that I’ll find some appropriate uses for it in the future, any suggestions?

Time to move inside, or at least add some light to the sunless Minnesota winter landscape. The Strobist has a huge website and training DVDs, I’ve been a follower for a long time, but this winter I want to kick it into high gear and do a lot more work with lighting. Any info or ideas or requests appreciated!

Rob, Dan and I were shooting downtown on Monday when we found this window decoration (shown yesterday). If you look closely, you can see all three of us reflected.

We had a great  lunch at Macy’s Skyroom on the 12th floor with this amazing view:

Which barely made up for the completely horrid experience we had at Hell’s Kitchen. Wasn’t Hell’s Kitchen good once? I used to go there before it moved. Now the food is small, the service is terrible and the staff seems to be completely unaware of the customers — I was almost run over on the way to the restroom, twice! Don’t get the Buffalo sausage as a side, it’s not enough meat to be worth it – hell go somewhere else. Any suggestions for a good Uptown Diner style (sniff) breakfast downtown?

A quiet morning on Nicollet Mall before the friday rush!

The Minneapolis Lightrail commuter train now goes to the new Target Field baseball stadium. The intersection of 5th and 2nd is unbelievably confusing, there’s two streets, a train and a city parking lot entrance.

Clattering and rattling over the old span, one of four freight trains in less than an hour passes over the mighty Mississippi river. This bridge also carries the Northstar commuter train into downtown Minneapolis.

Twilight over Minneapolis from the Foshay Tower.

SNL is actually funny again. Pulp Fiction fans will love this.

Here’s the locomotive from yesterday’s photo. Back down at the proper height, you can see how massive these frequent visitors to James Jay Hill’s home town really are.