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

Space Management - the art of arranging snow piles in a manner that allows for more snow. Sometimes so much snow falls here that it becomes an issue. The piles on the boulevards fall into the street, pushing the parked cars so far from the curb that the streets become narrow cow-paths. In the past, the city has declared one-sided parking for the season because the fire trucks can’t get down the street.

This pile of snow is actually fake. It was made with snow machines down by the lake, hauled in by dump trucks, laid down on the streets, and then a few days later scraped up and stacked here near the bike trail. OK, some nutter stacked the small pieces on top, but the whole pile of snow is a Minneapolis Parks Department creation.

Why? This is the long-term effect of the City of Lakes Loppet. That cross-county ski race that went through my neighborhood. They made a perfectly-groomed four-block-long trail right through uptown out of fake snow.

Yep, imported man-made snow in Minneapolis. As we Minneapolitains would say in the local dialect, “huh, that’s different.”

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.

Recoiling from the shock of pure daylight, we return to the safety of the night. Here are a few more of the luminaries (look to previous posts to see what I’m talking about). I really enjoy this image, it has a real gothic feel to it.

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

OK, time to brighten things up. I’ve been posting a lot of night pictures lately and though I like the colors and the mystical effects, it gets heavy with all that black. So today I bring you the ‘content’ of the Loppet: one of the races. This was the beginning of the kids race. If you have been to Uptown for the art fair, you know this place. That gray roof above the flag is the bus terminal on Hennepin. The skiers are on the boulevard by the Greenway (for the locals, it’s called The Mall). They actually haul in snow and cover the streets all the way to the lake.

This is the start and finish line for the kids race, they go out to the lake, circle around and come back.

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

Here is a close-up of one of the luminaries from the City of Lakes Loppet that I’ve been talking about.

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

Back on the ice. Here is the illuminated pyramid from the Caribou Coffee City of Lakes Illuminated Loppet. You can see the pyramid from above in yesterday’s post and here it is from ground-level. The pyramid has 200 ‘luminaries’ alone. There are 400 of them forming a path on Lake of the Isles. I got to learn more about this project when Hal Galvin called yesterday. Hal and David Bryan are responsible for the light show; you can read more about them in this WCCO interview. He called me hoping to see some more of my pictures of the lights, so hopefully I’ll get to meet him later on this week. The lights are blocks of ice made in buckets with candles in them. I’m curious about the whole process and look forward to talking with him more. I’ll let you know what I learn.

Super Bowl Declaration of Independence

I don’t know if you saw this during the Super Bowl, but they produced this dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth the time. I’m often troubled by the US citizenry’s lack of knowledge of the constitution and history. Like ‘School House Rock’, this production makes the Declaration of Independence tolerable to the less interested. If a few people are inspired to learn more about the Declaration of Independence, great; if some go on to read the first draft and see what was cut out for political expediency even better.I was reading the comments on the YouTube page for this video and ran into a discussion of the first draft. I had not read this before; someone pointed out a section that had been removed. Many people take issue, and rightly so, with the line “all men are created equal” when the constitution (adopted 11 years later) allowed for slavery. There was a section removed from the declaration that addressed slavery and starts:”He [King George of England] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither….”Slavery was here when the country was created. I wish we had resolved that problem in 1787. But we didn’t and have suffered ever since.I’m glad they created the video and I hope that a few other people have thought about it and maybe, just maybe, some conversations have come from it. Today is Super Tuesday and the horse race is in full swing. Sometimes politics is a dangerous topic, but talking with those around you about the original intent of the Great American Experiment is a good idea; who knows, you might learn something.

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

This weekend was the City of Lakes Loppet in Minneapolis on Lake of the Isles. I live in Uptown and the races went right by my home, up the boulevard by the Greenway. My friends Bob, Rob and Matt came by and we spent Saturday evening photographing the event and the area. They have posted their pics too, so check them out.

Caribou Coffee sponsors a Luminary Loppet on Saturday evening; they put 700 ice luminaries around the lake. It’s really impressive and we had fun photographing them. I’ll be posting some of my pics this week. I wanted to start with this view from the bridge to give you an idea as to what the area looks like — an establishing shot.

Monday is in full swing here at MRDI, so I have to run, but there will be more as the week progresses.