Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
- Mitch Hedberg
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Today’s your last day for free cookies and punch at the Hennepin County Government Center. That big building that goes over 6th? This is their atrium. I was there this past weekend with the gang from Tips from the Top Floor. Fourteen photographers wandering the skyway looking for interesting things. Turns out most security guards don’t want you photographing the interiors of the buildings. This is a government building and it was ok; we stood right by the security desk and he didn’t mind.
I took most of the color out of this image because the abstract shapes were much more powerful in B&W. It’s a great space when it’s empty and quiet. A very bright, cheery place actually. This was the first time I was there when I wasn’t doing paperwork that I didn’t want to. It’s a very different experience. Go take pictures or just hang out at the DMV, you might like it.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
This Sunday Cell pic is from the Union Depot in St. Paul. In the center of this gilded-age lobby sits Cristo’s Greek restaurant where my friends Tom & Ashley treated me to the lunch buffet, mmm yumm! Soft classical music playing, great interior, I felt so cosmopolitan — like a minneapolitan should.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
I took this picture when I was downtown with Bub Kupbens earlier this year. That’s me and Bob below, from below. The other picture I liked from that day was posted earlier.
I thought of this picture while “reflecting” on the end of the year. It’s been the year of photography from me. Though I have been shooting since I was a pup, I never really felt free in the medium. As a kid, I had to process my own pics in the family print shop dark room or pay to process the color. That problem existed all the way up until my first digital camera. I still catch myself hesitating over whether a shot is “worth it” before I snap the shutter. After I got the first digital I was concerned about disk space and CF card space (first card was 128m).
This year I moved to my 4th digital. A Nikon D200. A real camera! High quality images, full SLR — just like all my film cameras but with instant feedback, no shutter lag, 3 frames per second, no waiting for the card reader. Now that I have over a terabyte of storage, I don’t care about disk space and with Adobe Lightroom (awesome program) processing is a lot of fun and doesn’t eat off your fingerprints.
I’ve been shooting semi-professionally for years and have art-directed as a designer for dozens of CD covers, but now it is fun again. Discovering the daily photo blogging community has really helped. I started my blog because one of my clients, Paul Fricke, hired me to integrate a blog into his new website that I built. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but after taking a four-day photography workshop with Chris Marquart, I decided to post my pics. It has kept me shooting and learning all the time. The encouraging comments I receive from this friendly community are so helpful in keeping me going and growing. I’ve even met some of you and enjoy talking with others who are so passionate about the craft I love.
This new year I plan on expanding my the photography side of my business. Has photo blogging helped you to earn a living as a photographer? If it has, let me know (leave a comment or contact me). If you know of any links about this, that would be great as well. Otherwise, I am happy just doing this to test my skills and find new challenges. I can’t believe that I am coming up on my 100th post — time flies.
Another ‘perk’ of this project is that I write all my posts from the Caribou Coffee Shop by me and have gotten to know the great people who work there and a few of the regulars.
It has been a great year of discovery, stick around, tomorrow is ‘theme day’ at Daily City Photo Blog and the theme is “Best Photo of the Year 2007.” I’ll also post my top ten picks.
Thank You for reading, commenting and just being there and making me feel part of this great community.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Be careful with your composition, you never know when a pleasant sitting room could become an angry clown.
This photo was taken at the Northern Aire Resort I photographed a couple weeks ago. The other posts from there were: Magestic Pine Northern Morning, Cold North Lake and Night Time in Wisconsin.
Here is the place where yesterday’s photo was taken. Gaviidae is a shopping center in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Greg and I were there last week taking pictures. The word Gaviidae is the Latin name for Loons — the Minnesota State Bird.
This was taken with the new lens, the Tamron 11-18mm Ultra-wide. Still loving it. When I’m out shooting and switching between the lenses, it reminds me of the way movies are shot. The Ultra-wide is great for “Establishing Shots” and the telephoto shows the details. Next time you are out shooting at a location, try taking a wide shot that will give an overview of the area. The Wikipedia article that I linked to above gives a great example: the show Seinfeld gives a quick shot of the outside of the restaurant before the scene inside. You know right away where they are.
It’s good to look to other mediums to learn techniques. While studing landscape oil painting with Joe Paquet, I’ve learned a lot about how light behaves as it travels through the air. It has helped me see what is really going on and how to show depth in an image.
Currently I am working with a filmmaker who I will talk about in the future as our project finishes and is no longer classified. 
Working with these two artists is a great experience — they both see the world very differently. Photography, painting and filmmaking are very different art forms, but they are still about how we perceive our world. And if we’re really lucky, tell a story.
Stay tuned, the medium of blogging continues, same bat time, same bat URL.
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