I just got off the phone with Dion

My phone rings; It's Dion Dimucci, the only headlining act to survive Buddy Holly's Winter Dance Party in 1959. He's calling to tell me how much he likes one of my photographs. And to see if it's OK to include it in a video presentation about his life that he's making for the Rock'n'roll Hall of Fame.


Dion tells me that he likes my photograph because it captures the true feeling of that field for him, 50 years after his best friend Buddy Holly died there. Most of the images he's seen from that place are gruesome, he says, unlike mine.


Before we hang up, I tell him that I'm going to mail him a print for his wall - and he promises to send me a song that he wrote 50 years ago, freezing on a busride across Wisconsin, in a blizzard with Buddy Holly.


I have a buzz for the rest of the day. I tell everyone: I just got off the phone with Dion.




You can read my original journal entry about photographing the crash site here.

Dakota Rising

Metro magazine sent me out to photograph a story about Minneapolis' first people.



The Dakota waged war on the United States in 1862, killing hundreds of settlers and burning the town of New Ulm to the ground. Five weeks later, they lost. Most were banished from Minnesota. 38 of them were hanged - the largest mass hanging in American history.

Stripped of their lands, they're still paying for it. The Dakota people have shorter lives, higher infant mortality rates, more diabetes, cancer, and heart disease than any other ethnic group in Minnesota. American Indian kids have the highest suicide rate too: four times that of all other races combined.



"Minneapolis" is a combination of the Dakota word for "water," mni, and the Greek word for "city."



Minneapolis aka Aqua City.

Coco Goes to Kindergarten

Chicago

Spent the week in Chicago: nobody shot me. Or at me.

hey baby

it's the fourth of july.

National Geographic Adventure

chevy malibu

Time magazine sent me down to Kansas City to photograph the General Motors Fairfax assembly plant, home of the Chevrolet Malibu.



The story is about GM's bankruptcy; the largest in U.S. history for an industrial company.



GM has $172.81 billion in debt and $82.29 billion in assets.



The assembly plant has over 3 million sq. feet.



2,700 people work there.


See more of my shots from Kansas City in a photo essay at Time.com

My Baseball Card

The Walker Art Center and mnartists.org invited me to be the guest artist at the Saint Paul Saints baseball game last night.

We met our friends - and a few cousins - in the parking lot beforehand. I had just flown in from Kansas City, a few hours previous, where I'd been shooting an assignment for Time.

The plan was to tailgate, although none of us had actually done that before. So we looked up the dos and don'ts online. (Not completely convinced that we did it right: the minivan still smells like hot dogs)

Just before game time, the Saints introduced me to the crowd from the pitcher's mound, my work projected behind me on the jumbotron. They gave out David Bowman baseball cards - and auctioned off one of my photos for charity.

But the best part, by far, was sitting in the bleachers with my girls, on the first night of summer, drinking ice cold beer... marveling at the impossible beauty of my own smiling kid, food spackled across her face.

One Day in May

I got a blue Timex and a kite with dragons on it for my first communion.

Lost the kite to a burst of wind; snapped the string right out of my hand. I watched it sail up and over the trees, gone forever into the Illinois sky.

Later at school, running full bore at lunchtime, I tripped, skidding on my wrist like a passenger jet across the asphalt playground.

I looked at my watch. Gone.

NEWSFLASH

Forbes magazine sent me to the Mall of America; Apparently consumers are still spending.

Ice-Out

Deserted ice houses, barely lit by the fading sun, disappear in a line across the horizon.

I grab my sled and venture out.




Tip-toeing, I'm not sure how thick it is. It starts to crack and snap.

I stop. The lake's clear surface, wind-polished and slick, begins to look more and more like open water.




No sound but the thwack of deep ice, cracking.

The stars come out.

A Painful Case

One week before Christmas, I received a call to photograph the NICU at a local St. Paul hospital; for a magazine on the East Coast that I'd shot a few jobs for before. They'd been searching for stock images of premature babies to illustrate a story. But everything they found, they said, had a scary, clinical look.



My own daughter had been rushed to a St. Paul NICU, shortly after being born. The nurses were strict, running their ward like a MASH unit. I had only just arrived: a first-time dad with a newborn needing oxygen, keeping my worried eye on the nipper while my wife recovered downstairs. I wasn't there long before the nurses kicked me out, saying another baby with real problems was coming in, from a car wreck. Come back tomorrow, they said.



It was a hot summer night. I got lost, rambling down the darkened corridors, searching for a vending machine burrito, still sporting a hospital gown over my t-shirt and shorts, sockless in Converse lowtops. Next thing I know, two orderlies come square at me, lifting my arms on each side, effortlessly gliding me backwards: To the mental ward - where they reckoned I came from. Passing the night nurse behind the maternity desk, they asked if she'd seen me before.

NO, she said. I'VE NEVER SEEN THAT MAN BEFORE.

Then: oh, wait a minute, that's one of our dads...



Then perhaps you can imagine my shock, when this magazine calls and asks if I'd return to the NICU, and casually shoot an emergency room full of premature babies... Not clinical but artful, they said. All natural, and beautiful; Like my landscape work.

I had my doubts.

To my surprise, the hospital acquiesced. They were proud of their brand-new NICU facility, and happy to show it off. So on the Friday before X-mas, I photographed first in a room with a mother and premature twins. Second, in a room with a mother with a tiny little baby in a germ-free chamber called an isolette.



I processed the images over the X-mas break, delivering them by Friday. The magazine was thrilled.

A week later I get a call from the hospital. Bad news, they said. One of those little babies didn't make it.

A week after that, I get another call: The magazine folded.

Fast Food World HQ

I quietly roll into the R&D kitchen of a Minneapolis corporation, and set up my camera, hoping for a simple interior shot of an empty table.

Three food scientists start broiling hamburgers.

Tray after tray of sizzling red meat lands on the table. The scientists sniff and nibble their selects, scrawl notes, and spit the already been chewed beef into paper cups.

I look up from my camera. Is this a dream?

Barbie Meets the Boogaloo

It was a dark winter night. I thought we might play some chess. But the girls requested a movie. A Barbie movie.

I asked: Barbie Meets the Boogaloo?

They laughed so hard that I had to get out the asthma medicine.



- for Metro

Cookie Mantra

This weekend I discovered my fortune, wedged under the handle of our refrigerator.

Our fridge has a stainless steel finish that won't allow magnets to work. To post an item, you need to search for a suitable spot, and then jam a corner into an existing crevasse, hoping it'll stick.

I've been looking at this greasy little scrap every day, for the past five years. But I never really saw it. Not until today.


.

Nodak

Time magazine sent me up to North Dakota, to photograph rural churches facing extinction. It was my first time over the border.


I saw a moose.



Read the Time story here.

True Crime

It's Friday night, and I'm standing in a field, up to my knees in snow. It's getting dark. The wind's whipping past, somewhere around 20 below. I'm thinking about the ghost of Buddy Holly.

My phone rings: Can I shoot a murder story Monday morning?


Twin brothers, both cops. One needs money, to support his twin daughters. He goes off to Iraq to guard trucks as a private contractor, and gets kidnapped by the insurgency at a roadside checkpoint.



The US government doesn't help, since he's not a soldier. And it's illegal to pay the ransom: that would be supporting terrorism.

So the family pools their money, and hires a Minneapolis gun shop owner to fly to Iraq and do something about it.


- for minnesota monthly

American Pie

50 years ago tonight, Buddy Holly's plane crashed into a frozen Iowa cornfield, killing everyone on board.

He had just finished playing at the Surf Ballroom, in nearby Clear Lake, for The Winter Dance Party. The Big Bopper and Richie Valens also died.



Texas Monthly sent me down there to photograph the site.



Buddy Holly's death, in 1959, is the biggest thing that has ever happened around there.



They're still talking about it.

the fine line between bragging and complaining...

After shooting the crash site, I sent a photo of myself, hard at work, to the editors down in Texas. (click the photo to read about it)

Recessionscapes

This month's issue of Photo District News features a three-page review of a story that I shot recently for Time magazine, at the Mall of America.

"I liked David's modern, more avante-garde approach to a common subject and I was confident he could capture the subtlety of an idea, in this case shopping/consumerism. The economy is one of, if not the biggest stories of the year and we are always looking for a fresh approach." -Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz, photo editor, Time.

Read more here.

ohio blue tip

My father, on his way back to the house, after burning some paper out back. Ohio Blue Tip matchbox tucked into his shirt, hands in pockets, walking with a trash can.



I didn't grow up where my parents live now. But my mother's family comes from there. In fact, her great, great, great grandfather lies in his grave, unmarked, only two miles away, across the fields.

It's a relatively warm day, in the upper 30's, with a few feet of snow on the ground. I had planned to hike out along my parent's property with my camera. But the snow is deep, and so heavy that my snowshoe footfalls leave giant potholes, causing the sled full of gear behind me to topple with every step.

I'm looking for a scene that I've already photographed; nine years previous, on Christmas day 1999. Back then it was 15 below zero. My cheeks were burning; I was sweating in my polypro long johns, hauling my gear for almost an hour, determined to get a shot.

When I finally found it, I lay down on my back, sinking deep into the snow. I was so hot from hauling my gear that I had completely forgotten about the cold. I could have been lying on the beach, the snow below me as comfortable as sand.



But this year it's 50 degrees warmer. My equipment is heavier, and I'm overdressed. I hang my parka on a fencepost and keep walking. I let go of the sled, abandoning the camera shortly after. Finally, I drop the tripod. Slogging my way through the deep, wet snow, tripping forward in slow motion. Not unlike moving through wet cement, I imagine.

The property has changed. I spy a new house across the field. They've cut down most of the treeline. I'm trespassing now, and it's getting dark. I feel uneasy, like I'm being watched.

I gaze out at the scene, trying to remember how it used to be.

Very Fine House

listen:

Good People Helping Good People

There's a local car dealer who's plastered a bad snapshot of himself all over town. I see him when I wake up, in the morning paper. And when I'm driving; he stares back at me from billboards on back of buses and along the highways. But his late night TV commercials are the best, endlessly looping between reruns of Jerry Springer and Seinfeld, a chorus of zombie-like customers and employees singing his motto.

He was in the news a while back, I recall, for getting groovy with someone else's wife at the office party. I think of this every time I see his ads. His jingle: Good People Helping Good People.

This December he went bankrupt, got drunk, and drove his Range Rover into a tree.

Now there's a new late night car commercial from another dealer. An obese white fella with a goatee, busting moves in his ill-fitting santa suit, rapping: Santa's got a brand new ride y'all. and it's nice. and it's nice.

State Fair day I :: the great minnesota get-together

Every year at the end of summer, almost 2 million people attend the Minnesota State Fair, including us. I always bring a camera. But this year I've decided to shoot it. And I'm going all 12 days.

I spend the first one with my girls, riding the rides, scouting for shots I might like to make later.

Day one attendance: 103,947 people.

State Fair day II :: hello elmo

I'm hiding under a baseball cap and sunglasses.



I have a phobia about making art in front of people. It's something I usually shake after the first couple of frames - like jumping into cold water. But I'm in the serious dread phase now, almost sick from the unwanted attention that I'm about to receive from 100,000 strangers.

I see a friend of a friend, smoking in the same spot I saw her last year. I buy a bucket of french fries and sit in the dirty grass, watching people. A married couple that I've met before stumbles toward me with their screaming kids. I duck.

Still procrastinating, I somehow drip a dollop of ketchup into one of my crocs, and proceed to slip around in it. The light is fading fast. My stomache aches, and I'm fighting the crowd with my camera bags. I haven't shot anything yet.

And then I see Elmo.




Amelia Santenello, one of my favorite newscasters, walks past in spike-heeled boots. A photo assistant I used to know stops by and says hi. Says he could see me from a mile away.

Day two attendance: 96,993 people.

State Fair day III :: got any gum?

Lost in the crowd with my camera, standing on a small ladder while I shoot, a kid comes up and asks if I'll watch his coffee while he goes on a ride. He's about 10 years old.

Another kid comes up and asks me if my camera is a camera. I look at him.

"Actually," he says, "I'm wondering if you have any gum."




The carnies start to recognize me, giving the nod & wink when I walk past. A man who owns a few of the booths stops to chat for the second night in a row. He's curious to see how my project is coming along.

I'm starting to get more comfortable.






Day Three attendance: 171,663 people.

State Fair day IV :: some people I know

By the time I start shooting, the sun's gone. It's Sunday night, and crowded. People are standing in front of my lens. I can barely get a shot. An art director says hi. Everyone is talking to me - I'm not sure what I'm getting.

Somebody jumps. An old friend, back in town with his girlfriend for the fair. I'm shaking hands and shooting. I'm getting something - I think.

I head for the back corner and wait for the fair to end. Maybe see the fireworks.



Day Four attendance: 183,528 people.

State Fair day V :: the zipper

It's Monday, and I'm having trouble waking up. I arrive at the fair late, and hungry. I haul my gear through the crowd, looking for food. I get a foot-long and a rice crispy bar.




I go straight to the Zipper.




Then I set up in the walkway - in the middle of the moving crowd. Thousands of people, mugging for the camera, shouting at me, touching me, asking insane questions.

Day Five attendance: 130,767 people.

State Fair day VI :: whacamole

The Whacamole operator talks directly to me while I'm shooting, through his microphone. He's excited to see my photos, and barks out a request for my web address.




Day six attendance: 117,196 people.

State Fair day VII :: carnival sounds

Rainy day. I set up with my back to the haunted house. A low, barely audible heartbeat. Bats chirping. Screams. A bell rings; somebody blows a whistle.

The spookhouse carney comes over. He talks to me like I work there; like any other unlicensed hawker, working my magic, hoping for cash.

It starts to rain. He tells me there's a bad storm coming. Says it's time to go.

Day seven attendance: 88,228 people.

State Fair day VIII :: crazymouse

Arrived late... found this shot on my way in, through the back gate.



Day eight attendance: 116,143 people.

State Fair day IX :: avalanche

The late nights are adding up. By the time I get to the fair, I'm already exhausted from a full day of estimating, invoicing, and conference calling.

It's a busy Friday night. I set up and shoot the roller coaster. I don't have enough energy to think about the shot. I'm hoping it still looks good in two weeks.

A young couple comes up. The girl asks if she can take my picture. Says her boyfriend has a camera fetish. She wants to take our picture together, in front of my view camera. He asks if he can put his arm around me.

I ignore them and keep shooting.



Day nine attendance: 165,194 people.

State Fair day X :: fireball

I spend the first half of the day with my family, going on rides and eating fried snickers bars.

Then I shoot the fireball.

A young man, fully tattooed in a wife-beater shirt, sticks his pierced face in front of mine and says, "That camera is BAD ASS."

Day ten attendance: 209,399 people.

State Fair day XI :: xtreme photography

I'm standing on a bench to get this shot, with my tripod fully extended. This has got to be the busiest place I've ever photographed. It's already getting dark, and I'm feeling frantic. At one point I lose my balance and almost dump my camera.

The additional height is like a red flag, bringing with it an onslaught of unwanted attention. But it's mostly from other photographers.




A young guy comes up to me while I'm shooting and tells me that I look pretty serious. I turn to him, embarrassed, and I reply that I didn't realize I was frowning so hard.

He says, "No, you look pretty serious about photography."

Another fellow asks if I'll speak at his camera club. But I've already spoken there, twice.

A 30-something woman, chaperoning 10 kids in McCain t-shirts, comes up and starts telling me about her darkroom. While I'm talking to her, another photographer friend walks past, pokes my arm, and says hi.

A man asks me what software I use to process raw files.

A woman in the crowd turns toward me, cups her hands around her mouth, and shouts: "WHO ARE YOU SHOOTING FOR?"

Day eleven attendance: 189,228 people.

State Fair Day XII :: a brush with palin

It's Labor Day, and I'm eating lunch with my family at home.

My cell phone rings, but I don't answer; I'm talking to my father-in-law. Twenty minutes later, I'm flying down the highway, on my way to the fair. I check my messages.

It's Time magazine. They want to know if I'm available to photograph Sara Palin at the RNC in St. Paul, for the cover. Today.

Dang.

I stop at my studio, fill up the van with strobe gear, call my assistant, and hit the fair. I reckon I might as well reshoot the Xtreme, this time with daylight, while we wait for the call.



I hand Josh a video camera to keep him busy. You can see a little movie here.

We quit early, and toast the last night of summer from a state fair cafe. My phone doesn't ring. The fair ends.



Day Twelve attendance: 121,220 people.

The Accidental Journalist

I was sent to the western suburbs of Minneapolis today, by a magazine out of New York, to photograph a 30-year-old Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives.

I arrived at his local Polling Station at 6:30 AM to watch him vote. And to get some pictures for the story: a piece about Iraq War vets running for political office.



It was a quiet morning, with a long line snaking out the elementary school door, before the polls had even opened. As the sky began to brighten, the line started to move, and the lady in charge came out screaming. Said she was going to have me arrested if I photographed anyone or anything.

Part of me wanted to argue with her. As an American citizen, my right to photograph news events in a public setting is guaranteed by the US Constitution. Read the Bill of Rights, for crying eye. But I wasn't looking for a fight. All I wanted at that moment was a little more coffee. And my basic human rights.

For the rest of the day, I followed the candidate from location to location, watching him glad-hand half the electorate, always at least 100 feet from the entrance to a polling place. But almost every time, either the cops or the lunch ladies chased us out of there. Before long we had an armada of frat boys tailing our cars, following our every move, waving their signs for the other guy.

It got so ugly that my candidate eventually ditched everyone, including me. So I drove back into the city and met my family outside my local polling place. I still had my camera around my neck as I walked inside, holding hands with my seven-year-old daughter. I was amazed at how comfortable my local voting station felt, after being hounded by the conservative suburban authorities all day.

I felt so relaxed, in fact, that I made a few snaps while voting... just a couple shots of my daughter, and the surroundings. For posterity - you know, the whole 'hanging chads' thing. But I got in trouble there too. A volunteer chased my daughter and I down the hallway, wanting to know WHY I was photographing. And WHAT was I photographing?

She went so far as to demand my name and phone number, just in case... (just in case she decides to throw a brick through my window?) I was starting to get a headache: Let the election hangover begin.

I sat down to a plate of turkey meatloaf with my family, pounded some Tension Tamer tea, and drove back to the suburbs, for a rendezvous with the candidate at his parents' home. I set up my lights in their living room, to shoot a quick portrait after the polls closed.




It struck me as unique, and wonderful, to be inside the parents' home of a politician on election night; waiting for him to come home; to see his face as he came through the door, exhausted from two years campaigning, and to photograph him, at that moment, before he has a chance to sit down and start watching election returns.

Afterward, I hit the election-night party at the local American Legion post. I had every intention of photographing the candidate on stage, accepting his new seat in the US Congress. But it didn't happen. He lost.

david bowman VS. the MEGAMALL

I was in New York about a week ago, showing my portfolio around town. Killing time at the ICP bookstore on Friday evening, about to fly home, my phone rings. Time magazine wants to know if I'll shoot the Mall of America over the weekend, for a 5-page spread on the US economy.



Minnesota's got malls. Back in the 1950's we got the first one. And now we've got the biggest mall of them all. The Mall of America is only a bike ride away from my house. But we mostly call it the Megamall. I've never paid much attention to the "OF AMERICA" part.

Until now.

I've tried photographing the mall before, without much success. No matter where you place a tripod on the sprawling grounds, it feels like someone in a little room is watching. And maybe listening. If you want to see the police, pull out a camera. It's quicker than calling 911.



They need security. The shoppers are raging, seething, and snarling. Especially when compared to the happy chaos I met in Times Square the night before, or the blissful insanity of the Minnesota State Fair, which I also shot, a few weeks previous.

The Megamall is huge - and crowded. The mall floor actually bounces under the weight of the masses, requiring a cool head and a steady hand to get a good exposure at 15 seconds.



A manager scowls out at me from inside her store; pointing. She comes at me. I show her my media pass, and tell her that I'm shooting a story for Time magazine. Unsatisfied, she demands to know just WHAT I am photographing... and WHO said that I could have a media pass?

As I'm nowhere near the entrance to her store, and feeling both downtrodden and righteous (goodbye freedoms of speech, expression, and press; hello mall OF AMERICA), I put up my hand.

Talk to the mall, I say.



A man walks over and stops directly in front of my lens, wrecking my shot. He stares at my camera like he's never seen one before.

He says: I'm a photographer too. At Lifetouch.



On my way out, a young woman stops me and says she wants to go to school for photography. In fact, that's why she joined the military. Her plan is to attend the Brooks Institute in about four years... As soon as she gets home from Iraq.

See more mallscapes here. Read the Time story here.

IMBA ads for Carmichael Lynch

the International Mountain Bicycling Association sent me down to the deserted streets of southern minnesota, to shoot a beater impala with a $5,000 mountain bike on the roof...



...over to Northeast Minneapolis, to capture a bevy of bridesmaids in a church basement; one with a broken arm and a serious farmer's tan from biking...


...and back home again to my very own fridge, stocked with nothing but Clif bars - and a lonely pickle.

See the tearsheets here.

more travelers ads for fallon

Fargo, Minnesota

Minnesota Monthly sent me up the Mississippi River, to the town of Little Falls, to shoot a story about a 24-year-old kid who killed his friend, stole his identity, and moved about 30 miles away.


The cops caught him a few days later, after the victim's sister spotted him driving her brother's custom truck to the laundromat.


He buried the body in the woods behind a little farmhouse, not much more than a mobile home with renters. I met the property owner out back and followed her truck down a dirt road, winding through fields and marsh, until we arrived at a small clearing in the woods.



A short-haired woman with strong arms and a dead husband, she walked me over to the burn site, pointing out a pile of kindling along the way. Next she showed me the shallow grave where the body was eventually found.

As she turned to go, I said, lightly, "Hope there's no ghosts around here."

She stopped and looked at me. "There's only one," she said.

A grizzly place: part quarry, junkyard, graveyard, and abattoir. The air was thick with flies and mosquitoes. Tics burrowed deep into my skin, needing to be burnt off later, with a flame. Bullet shells, rotting appliances, a deer carcass. Old boats and snowmobiles. Everything you'd expect to find at a crime scene in the woods behind a farm in Minnesota.

As night fell, voices carried through the trees; howling, chanting. An imagined methamphetamine orgy. The sound of a motor boat, then a lawnmower, coming closer and closer.

The roar of frogs in full summer glory.

Modern Postcard Ad

"I love getting my work in front of people. And nobody makes that easier than Modern Postcard"

I'll say.

from darkness, light

On August 21, 1883, the Great Tornado destroyed Rochester, Minnesota. The town didn't have a hospital, so Dr. William Mayo and the Sisters of St. Francis converted a dance hall into an emergency room. After the disaster, they formed St. Mary's hospital, which eventually became the Mayo Clinic.





Colleen and Nellie in Rochester, Minnesota.

turning 7

Pig's Eye

Dept. of Public Works Sewer Division Pump Station, Pig's Eye.

Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant was the first white fella to settle in what would later become Minnesota's capital city. Blind in one eye, he opened a tavern in a cave on the banks of the Mississippi River. The bar became so popular, that by 1839 the growing community around Pierre’s bar became known as Pig’s Eye. Until a Catholic priest showed up and changed the town's name to Saint Paul.

A few places have kept the orignal name: Pig's Eye Sewage Treatment Plant, which empties into Pig's Eye Lake. And Pig's Eye Dump, a superfund site that sits abandoned, leeching toxic garbage juice into the Mississippi River.

Minnehaha

Minnehaha creek runs through my neighborhood on it's way to the Mississippi.

Tracks

I've always been interested in railroad architecture. Not the trains so much, but the landscape that supports them.

From kindergarten through high school, I walked across the same tracks every day on my way to school. I spent my weekends down there too, looking for things, getting dirty.

Nobody seemed to care about the tracks, as long as they worked. Constructed by man, and reclaimed by nature. They went on forever, like a river.

The Eau C.

Eau Claire, Wisconsin, has the best public library... with the largest, and deepest, photography section I've ever seen! Although I was only in town for one night, I checked out 25 monographs and read them after dinner.

I saw these guys hanging around the copy machine.

aquatennial

It's the middle of summer, and for something like ten nights in a row, Minneapolis hosts the aquatennial. There's fireworks and parades, bands and beer. But I never go. I'd rather stay in my neighborhood and ride my bike; maybe jump in the lake.

You Might See a Polar Bear

Drive a few hours north to Lake Superior, hang a left at the top, and keep going another 10 hours. You might see a polar bear.

a still-life portrait

Shot with natural light in my studio: a still-life portrait of a Travelers Insurance employee.

Apache Plaza Days

Digging through my files last night, I found this image from my first advertising job; shot right here in Minneapolis for Fallon at the Apache Plaza. The client was EDS.

Not exactly an Effie... but we won an award from the Santa Fe Center for Photography.

Jack The Butcher

I photographed Jack Everett at Everett's Meats in south Minneapolis.

While I set up the shot, he walked over with a paper plate, piled high with fresh sausage for me to snack on. I ate it all.

Think Tank

Aarp magazine sent me to Madison to shoot an assignment at the University. It felt good to back at my old school, making a living with my camera.

Lakes Issue

Minnesota Monthly published my 10,000 Lakes project this month as a 20 page feature: 15 photographs including the cover.

Turning 4

"eyes like pools of chocolate milk" (her sister's words)

Tornado

An F5 hits Parkersburg, Iowa. A mile-wide tornado, with winds at 200 mph: The sirens give a five minute warning. Six people are killed, (most of them in their basements) and another 69 are injured. 220 homes are completely erased. It only lasts 30 seconds.


Ford Windstar parked out front of a missing house.


Cemetery flagpost bent in the direction of the wind. Gravestones toppled.


A healthy tree stripped bare, branches still pointing to the the storm. I notice a steel rod jammed almost completely through the trunk. The house is gone.


Downtown Parkersburg.

A Dentist's Office

Like something out of the Three Little Pigs, one of the only buildings left standing in Parkersburg is this brick one.



It's a dentist's office.


Resting on the window sill, as if placed by the wind, sits a tattered copy of the self-help classic: Don't Sweat The Small Stuff.

an exciting week!

my Ice Culture series won in the 2008 Communication Arts Photo Annual...



...my 10,000 Lakes project won First Place in the 2008 PX3 Paris awards...



...and the 2008 American Photography Awards recognized my work as well. An exciting week!

Drinking Beer for Time Magazine

Time magazine sent me to the Rocky Mountains for a week of beer tasting. Turns out that Denver has something like 200 micro-breweries within a 50 mile radius, making it the unofficial Beer Country of the United States.


The best part of the job - other than the "tasting" - was meeting and photographing the people who work at the breweries.


The magazine published 12 of my shots in their Life section, and ran another one inset on the cover. They also created a photo essay of an additional 10 images that you can view at the Time web site.

Turner Hall

I drove down to southern Minnesota to photograph a concertina jamboree.


When I arrived at the Turner Hall in New Ulm, I approached the Bartender to introduce myself.



Before I could say anything - she asked me: "Are you the plumber?"

Ivan from Pipestone

The Hiawatha Club in Pipestone puts on a live outdoor pageant every year, based on Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. They've been performing it since the 1950's. This year will be the last.

Ed's Museum

Ed owned the general store in Wykoff, Minnesota. He saved everything. After he died, the ladies of the town decided to clean up the store. They found his cat Sammy, dead for 20 years, in a box in the basement.

Shot for Metro magazine.

110 Minutes

I shot the 35W bridge last summer, 110 minutes after it collapsed into the Mississippi River.



Minnesota Monthly noticed the shot in my journal and ran it as an opening spread this month, along with some portraits of survivors.



Lindsay Petterson was on the bridge when it collapsed. Her car flipped into the river and sunk to the bottom. Trapped inside, choking on black water, her back was broken. She doesn't know how she got out.



Rick Kraft had spent that afternoon installing cable in someone's house. On his way home, sitting in traffic, he witnessed the bridge go down. He threw his van into park, ran to the river, and started pulling people out.

Home of the Greyhound Bus

Gene Nicolleli curates the Greyhound Bus Museum in Hibbing.

Ides of March

Went hunting for easter eggs in the snow today.

Ice Culture

A temperature in the 20s is perfect winter weather. Any warmer and it starts to melt. Any colder and it hurts.



Dry snow crunches under your feet.



Your hat and jacket feel like pajamas. Your boots fit like slippers.



Your car becomes a sled.

Commercial Beef Sandwich

I ordered the Commercial Beef Sandwich at Lau's Bakery in New Prague. After feasting my eyes on it for a minute, I decided to step outside and grab my camera from the car.

The waitress thought I was running away.

International Eelpout Festival

I went to the 29th Annual International Eelpout Festival in Walker this year.



It was a drag.

The JGG

The Jolly Green Giant stands quiet in his space, rising up from behind an abandoned gas station, between the Dairy Queen and the high school in Blue Earth, Minnesota.

Innocence Project

Late one night in 1997, on his way to buy cigarettes, Sherman Townsend was picked up by the Minneapolis Police in Dinkytown and sentenced to 20 years in prison - for a crime he didn't commit.



Photographed for Minnesota Monthly.

Prisoner

The waiting room at the maximum security prison is empty and dark, with a massive front desk made of diamond-plate steel. A sudden voice squawks through an intercom. I see figures in the next room, through a tinted glass wall. The voice doesn't match their lips.

A guard eventually enters through a sliding steel door, dressed something like a marine. He doesn't acknowledge me, but shakes his head in disgust, angered by the responsibility of sorting through my equipment.

"All this," he asks, "for one picture?"



David Jones, photographed for Minnesota Monthly at the Rush City Correctional Center. Jones' confession freed Sherman Townsend from prison after 10 years.

Container Cabin

Readymade Magazine sent me a few hours north to shoot this cabin that a couple of brothers made out of shipping containers in the backwoods of Minnesota. It doesn't have heat or electricity.

It is 0 degrees out. The snow is deep, and powdery, like quicksand. I need snowshoes to hike into the location, which is about half a mile uphill from where I park.

First trip in, I bring my small camera, hoping for the best. Second trip, I pull a sled with my 4x5 gear. Third trip, I go back for something I forgot. Fourth trip, I grab some lights and stands. Fifth trip, I grab more lights and stands. Sixth trip, I return to the car with my gear, in the dark.

Back on the road, I'm sweaty, exhausted, and happy. I land at a Travelodge, where a Russian lady checks me in. There's only smoking rooms available. I buy a sandwich next door and watch My Name is Earl.

Dancing Monkeys on the Streets of Brainerd

17 below zero

17 below zero is when your automatic garage door stops opening. It's when the zipper breaks right off your parka, into your hand. 17 below is when your coffee becomes a round, brown block of ice before you've finished drinking it.

17 below is when the shutter in your camera makes a funny noise and stops working, forever. And your tripod shatters. 17 below makes you realize there's not much between Minnesota and the Arctic Circle except old rocks, trees, and a bunch of lakes without names.

17 below is the same temperature it might be at the North Pole right now.



17 below zero is almost as cold as 20 below, which is the threshold temperature at Minnesota's open pit iron mines for working outside. If it's 20 below, the miners stay in bed. Anything warmer - and they need to quit their crying and get back to work.

Which is exactly what I have to do at 3:30 this morning. I have to get up and drive 3.5 hours north to shoot the interior of a restaurant for a publication in California. This place they want me to shoot is totally remote, located somewhere near the source of the Mississippi River. And it's closed for the season.

I tracked down the owner by phone on Friday - a squirrely guy who won't talk or listen for very long. I ask him to meet me there Monday at sunrise. "Alrighty," he said, "but it's gonna be 17 below."

Monday morning I'm there. The restaurant is covered in snow. He approaches the door, and begins acting like it won't open. His hands move like a street magician's; turning the key, pulling the handle, pretending to struggle.

"Oh jeez", he says. "This door is not going to open. Oh jeez - it's frozen shut."

He climbs back in his truck and says through the open window that I can take pictures of whatever I want, so long as it's outside. He signs a release, says he's real sorry, and drives away.


I look around, not sure what to do. I grab my camera and trudge further into the property. Around a corner, I find a young deer, huddled around itself, curled up for warmth, cozy like a dog by the fire.

I move in closer. He's frozen solid.

5 Things You Might Do on a Frozen Lake:

1. break a world record



2. host a family reunion



3. make a pit stop



4. win the Golden Shovel



5. drive real fast

Life in a Northern Town

Sunday evening in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

... and a happy new year

Merry Christmas, Dudes

My mom watches Days Of Our Lives, a soap opera. She's been watching it forever. As a kid, before VCRs were invented, our daily activities were scheduled around the show. As a result, the true memories of my childhood are all mixed up with the half-baked realities of daytime television. Did my sister really have amnesia once?

Days Of Our Lives followed me to college. Not that I wanted to watch it there - but the familiar dialog was somewhat comforting, seeping into my lonely dorm room, inviting me to stop worrying about my final exam and visit the TV lounge across the hall instead. Here's what I remember:

It was the Christmas finale. A guy named "Patch" (as in: eyepatch) bursts into a dark bar, down by the docks. A gang of tough guys turns toward him, ready to gore him with a shiv. He stares them down with his one good eye, and says:

Merry Christmas Dudes.

Polar Express

The real thing.

Nutcracker Suite, Nightly

It's cold and dark outside. But it's warm in here.

Turning 70

My father spent most of his life working on huge construction projects, from building the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah - to reconstructing a power plant in Mississippi after a nuclear spill.

He's survived a few disasters, including an underground explosion in a coal mine, where he was temporarily blinded and his coworkers killed.

He's retired now. But he was the first person to call on August 1st, minutes after the 35W bridge collapse. I described the scene to him in detail, standing there helpless on the banks of the Mississippi River, gazing down at the wreckage below.

Starchitect

Architect James Dayton, and his new building, shot for Minnesota Monthly.

Class Pictures

Get the picture?

Water, Everywhere

"A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." - Henry David Thoreau

Some lakes for Minnesota Monthly.

Falling Faintly

I finished painting the house today, and began raking the leaves, getting our little patch of earth ready for winter. And then we saw it:

The First Snowflake!

Hello Kitty and the Vanishing SweetTarts

Boo.

Check Out the Weatherman

Last night we paid a visit to our favorite local news team, channel four.

I love watching the ten o'clock news; especially the weather. I love seeing the clouds roll across the map of the entire state. It makes me think about the places I've been, and it makes me wonder what it must be like in those places right now, in the dark night, with a cold front blowing down from Canada.

7 Nights in Minnesota; A Brief Intro

Leaving town today on assignment to shoot 16 lakes in Minnesota before the fall colors change things completely. They've already started, so I need to hit the road immediately. My first stop is Mille Lacs.

The first thing I notice is my hands - they are beginning to smell like bad cologne from all the different gas station soaps. I'm seeing lots of face piercings. Even on the old ladies. At the lake, a kite boarder tells me that my mini van ROCKS.

I throw away a sandwich.

The deli guy is wearing rubber gloves as he takes my money and runs the cash register. Then he walks over and makes my sandwich with the same gloves on. I thank him for the sandwich, and drop it in the garbage as I walk out the door. That's how we do it in Minnesota.

All the hotels are booked. I get lost looking for something to eat and wind up sleeping in a flea-bag. Wires stick out of the walls where the outlets should be. A dirty line runs along the edge of the carpet, indicating where the vacuum cleaner stops. Cigarette burns decorate every surface.

At sunrise, I shoot on the beach of a lodge that I wish I had stayed at. I spend the rest of the day shooting in abandoned iron mines that have been filled with water and returned to nature as lakes. My great grandfather was a lumberjack here. My father worked in these mines. Now I'm working here.



Some people on the other side of the lake are jumping up and down and shouting at me while I'm shooting. It looks like they are giving me the finger, but I'm not sure. They start shooting fireworks in my direction - or is it a gun?

Covered in red iron dust, with the warm autumn sun hovering low in the Brainerd sky, I pull into a mall parking lot and hit the KFC drive-through. There's nothing more beautiful than a piece of chicken on a Sunday night when you're away from home.

I'm sitting on the pavement, my back flat against the JC Penney's wall. As I wolf down my chicken - and tip back my pint of milk - the local kids cruise by in their junky cars, looking my way, wondering if I'm new.

Summer's Gone

Every year, over the last weekend of summer, we visit the State Fair.



The very next day, we have to start going to school again.



Summer's gone. It's time to find our jackets, buried in a box somewhere down the basement.

Travelers

Here's an outtake from an advertising project I shot recently for Travelers Insurance, with their agency Fallon Worldwide.

Halloweentown

The fall issue of Wondertime magazine, out this week, features my photographs from Anoka, Minnesota: the Halloween capital of the world.

Architectural Photographer of the Year

Today, the International Photography Awards (IPA) awarded me the title of Photographer of the Year for Architecture, based on the series of images that I shot in the Florida Keys last December. I've also been nominated for the top award, International Photographer of the Year.

That means I'll be heading to New York City in the fall, to take part in the Lucie Awards ceremony, which is something like The Oscars for still photography. You can read more about the awards, and see all the winners and their images at the IPA web site.

Earlier this year, my Florida Keys project also won an award in the PDN 2007 Photography Annual - as well as in the PX3 Prix De La Photography Paris awards.

The winning images will be published in the respective photo annuals, and be exhibited in Paris at the 13SévignéGallery beginning June 29th.

Megamall Study #2

The Mall of America is the most visited shopping mall on the planet, with more than 40 million visitors annually (or roughly eight times the population of the state of Minnesota). The mall employs over 12,000 workers and has 20,000 parking spaces.

Turning 6

Went swimming, played Hello Kitty, and turned six this weekend.

The Bridge

The bridge to my studio collapsed today during the evening rush hour, plunging 100 cars into the Mississippi River. Here's the scene, about an hour after it went down.

A Cottage in Wisconsin

My niece Simone, and her boyfriend Kyle, savoring the fleeting summer after high school graduation.

Print Campaign for Regions Bank

Spent a couple weeks in Florida and Los Angeles - shooting ads for Regions Bank.

Zenith, MN

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world... and today is the longest day of the year.

Spotlight Awards Grand Prize Winner

This week I won the Grand Prize for photography in Modern Postcard's Spotlight Awards. Thanks to everyone who voted!

This month's postcard (above): I came upon this scene in a Nebraska parking lot, on my way to Denver to do a portrait for a magazine.

Sugar Beach

I spent father's day on Lake Superior, at Sugar Beach. We climbed the rocks, played in the rain, and got the checkers out.

Illinoise

I pointed my mini van south - and discovered an interesting town in the Land Of Lincoln.

Kiplinger's Cover

For their June issue, Kiplinger's Personal Finance selected Minneapolis as one of the best cities in the U.S. to live. I shot this couple for the cover at the Walker Art Center.

Woodymatters.com

Minneapolis Art Buyer Kim Witczak with her brother-in-law, Eric Swan, photographed outside her garage for the May issue of Minnesota Monthly.

Temple

I've driven past this place a million times, but didn't stop until today.

Aquaduct

Outtake from an editorial project shot in Minneapolis.

Two Sisters

Flew to LA and shot these images to help advertise a new product that fights osteoporosis.

Arnold

This guy owned the house in Los Angeles where we shot the ads mentioned above. He told me jokes all day.

Mojave

Drove into the desert from Los Angeles on my day off.

the backyardigans

The snow is gone - and so are our jackets!

Tandem

Colleen and Nellie - the twins.

Brianna and Ginger

Brianna, shortly after breaking and her nose, in Denmark, Wisconsin.

April Postcard

This month's postcard comes from a Thrivent campaign shot last fall for Olson in Minneapolis and California. The ads ran in Newsweek, Life, Real Simple, and The Wall Street Journal. See the finished ads below...

Thrivent Campaign

Ice Cube

Stopped in Duluth today to see the ice on Lake Superior before it melts.

There's no snow on top - you can see straight through to the bottom. It is so clear that someone walked out on the lake this week and discovered a new shipwreck, just by looking down.

It's like a giant ice cube. Skaters spin cirlcles around people ice fishing. Kids brandish hockey sticks. Young couples walk their dogs - and push baby strollers.

Lots of them have cables and pick axes, in case the ice breaks. The water is 100 feet deep.

I'd Rather be in Wisconsin Dells

I shot this a few winters back. It's my friend Rocco, playing his accordion on the streets of St. Paul. I had almost forgotten this shot, until today when I came across it in a magazine, staring back at me from a full page ad.

Best Of Show

University of Minnesota music student and her tuba wins best of show in the International Photography Awards. Originally commissioned by the agency Knock, the image was shot for the school's advertising materials. Now it's part of a touring gallery show, opening in Los Angeles and travelling to London, Sweden, Greece, Poland, and Italy.

Cultivator

Today's Sunday London Times Magazine features my work, part of a story about the International Photography Awards.

Couch Art

Artist Stephen Gjertsen in his living room for Minnesota Monthly.

Northwest Angle, Minnesota

Winnipeg is about 10 hours northwest of Minneapolis. After completing an assignment there, I made my way back to the U.S. with a stop at the Northwest Angle, the most northern point in the continental United States.

It's a Monday night - Labor day. The last day of summer.

Curley Fries

At the Minnesota State Fair with Lucy.