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

The Saint Anthony Bridge is going to complete it’s span of the Mississippi River today. The scene of the infamous 35W Bridge Collapse, this amazing new ’smart’ bridge will be closing the span today. The photo above shows some of the other bridges crossing the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis. Below is a wider view showing the two ends, hopefully the last time this view is possible.

I went down to the bridge site on Saturday with my neighbor Chris to take the tour. Every Saturday at 11:00am they give tours of the bridge site. It was very busy, but that wasn’t a problem, there were several people giving tours and they had portable PAs so you could hear them. It’s worth the trip, they meet in the parking lot behind Grandma’s in Seven Corners (just off the west bank side of Cedar Bridge).

For those of you from not around here, this Interstate 35W bridge is one block from another city street bridge called the Cedar Bridge, that’s where all us locals go to gawk at the construction.

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

If you don’t have a fear of heights, this will give you it. Think of it as a bus stop 75 feet in the air. More Zen.

And now for something completely different…

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.

Plenty of parking in the middle of the night. This is the first shot with my car-window camera mount that I bought back in the winter when I was hating being outside. If you decide to take a long exposure night shot with such a thing, turn the car off to avoid vibration and sit still (cars wobble pretty easy, but you Casanova-types know that already) .

New Lens!

I bought a new lens. I know, it is rumored to be a bad idea, but I wanted to try it out and see for myself. I just picked up from National Camera, a Nikon 500mm f/8 Reflex Mirror lens. It’s manual focus and then there’s that donut problem, but it’s light and easy to carry. I’m going to try it out on the birds in the hood and see what I can do with it. It was a good price for what it is. You guys can be the judge of it. I’d take a few pics and show off, but as soon as I got home with it on Tuesday, it started raining and never stopped. I did manage to take a picture of the sticker on my desk lamp from across the room.  An F/8 500mm lens requires a lot of light, hello problem #1.

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

Another perspective on the 35W St. Anthony Bridge Construction.

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

I haven’t figured out what it is about this image, but I can’t stop looking at it. There are so many contrasts and the color balance was very tricky. This photo would have been nearly impossible with film — it took me several shots to get the exposure right.

What’s with the preponderance of green and blue glass on buildings? Is it to keep them cool?

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

The big city awakens for another day. The Qwest Tower that I talked about last week is tucked in the corner on right.