People watching on Nicollet Mall.

The Nature Valley Bike Festival was in Uptown Friday. This was the Women’s Pro race. They raced for 25 laps around the Uptown course. This was the beginning of lap 22.

Friday was the Nature Valley Bike Festival right here in Uptown! It was very cool, fun to see all the activity in town. The best part? It tied up the neighborhood for only a few hours. Thank you to the organizers for minimizing the impact on the community. They were removing all the stuff Saturday morning; very unlike the occupying armies of the Loppet and the infernal Uptown Art Fair.

On one of my safaris across the lake I encountered this pair just sitting in the middle of the lake. Not fishing, just sitting. Nothing going on, no kite boarders, nothing really at all. I switched to my long lens to drag the shoreline in and moved to position the sun to catch the glint of the ice.

Just as I was ready to shoot, the one got up to take a picture of the other. The spectators themselves became the spectacle and they knew it too.

In the instant of the open shutter, when I’m actually working and intentionally doing nothing at the same time; the true photographic moment of zen, I called all three of us into question.

Back to the streets again for the Parade. Friday night is definitely busier than Thursday. The streets filled up pretty quickly, you can tell that this photo is from before the parade because the lights are still on. Just before the parade begins, they cut the street lights and the bus shelter lights, but the Christmas lights on the trees stay on.

It’s very different with the lights on, the lights on the big buildings light up the low clouds so it almost feels like you are indoors on Nicollet, ‘cept of course for the bitter cold.