I love wandering around at night. I also love taking photographs. Combining the two is tricky. The light is low, and it's way too cumbersome to walk around with a tripod. Also, most of the people wandering around at that time of night are drunk and/or violent. Some of those people want to punch you or steal your camera.

All of which is why I got myself a 50mm f1.8 lens. It's much smaller than the lens I normally use, making getaways that much easier. The smaller profile also calls less attention to itself while I'm shooting that college kid barfing all over his girlfriend outside the Twins. The large aperture is great for low light situations. Plus, the lens is relatively inexpensive, so if and when some tweaker decides to karate kick me in the face, I won't be out so much when he cracks my glass all meth-ninja style.

Me likey.

I live in the kind of place where, during a free outdoor Martin Zellar concert on the Fourth of July, a couple of guys will just inexplicably portage canoes through the audience. Zellar thought it was pretty funny.

(Note: the park is really big and people were spread out. There's actually several hundred people behind me in this shot.)

10th Avenue East & 7th Street, around 2am Monday morning

I'm not sure how I feel about doing this. Whenever there is a fire, or crime of some type, I feel the need to photograph it. But I also kind of feel like an ass, since there are people around who have lost something. I'm not just rubbernecking, but I'm not sure what I am doing positive either.

One one hand, it's none of my business, but on the other hand, I can't be sure of that until it's all over. For all I know it might be everyone's business.

Taking photos in traffic of the backs of other people's cars is my new favorite thing. I don't do it while I'm behind the wheel, however.

Not just an afterbar, but quite possibly the afterbar. Dancing to vinyl records while the sun is already up and your neighbors are going to work -- this is the benefit of keeping a nonstandard schedule.

Evidence seen at Target

When my neighbors moved out, I watched their dads and brothers stack all these beer cases up on the sidewalk and assumed that they'd raided the dumpster behind the liquor store for moving boxes. Nope. It turns out they've never taken out the recycling in the 10 months they've lived here. I wonder what they did with all the Goldschlager bottles.

I think these cases are going to sit on the curb until the absentee slumlord drives up from Edina or Florida or wherever he lives to clean them up. Check back for updates!

As I mentioned, I'll be celebrating and photographing throughout the week, so here's an embedded slideshow of the festivities, hopefully updated on a nightly basis.

Rock.

I've taken this week off from work (as I do every year) to attend the Homegrown Music Festival here in Duluth. Someday, when the rest of the local population realizes its greatness, the whole city will just shut down for the week and everyone will have the day off aside from essential services (police, firefighters, bartenders, and cab drivers).

Anyhow, I'll be photographing a lot of activity during the week, which will all be documented here.

Other people will undoubtedly be photographing things as well, and that will hopefully be documented here.

You might also want to check Perfect Duluth Day for textual updates.

"Why do people live in outlandish climates in the temperate zones, as they are miscalled? Because people are naturally idiots, naturally sluggards, naturally cowards. Until I was about ten years old, I never realized that there were "warm" countries, places where you didn't have to sweat for a living, nor shiver and pretend that it was tonic and exhilarating. Wherever there is cold there are people who work themselves to the bone and when they produce young they preach to the young the gospel of work -- which is nothing at bottom, but the doctrine of inertia. My people were entirely Nordic, which is to say idiots."

-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

I really gotta get this emblem made into a patch. You know. Like, for my flak jacket.

There are plenty of nights when I want to move away from this town. There are other nights when I want live here forever. Tonight, I want to live here forever.

I don't know what happens there.

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A common scene on 12-1/2 Avenue East. I think that if I actually lived on this street, I'd be constantly livid.

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I'm starting a photoblog.

It doesn't look exactly how I want it to yet, and I still have some tweaking to do, but here it is if you want to look at the two pictures that are there so far.

For the past week or so, I've been trying to explain, both in my head and out loud to friends, why I need a photoblog in addition to my regular blog and in addition to my Flickr account. It's been difficult to articulate, but it's something I understand and need. I'll try here to spell it out (for myself more than for you, actually), but don't be surprised if I fail.

WARNING: INARTICULATE GEEKY WORDINESS AHEAD

Continue reading "Photoblog" »

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While I was taking this, a guy with a long beard in a pickup truck drove by, noticed me, and slowed almost to a stop with a pissed-off look on his face. This kind of thing happens all the time. When you take pictures in a public place, people assume you're up to no good.

If I'd explained it to him ("I just like the mustard color, and those three lines on the left versus that piece hanging down on the right...") he wouldn't have believed me anyway. So we just gave each other the stinkeye until he drove off in anger.

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It's so hard to photograph things when you live a nocturnal life, and you live in a place where when the sun bothers to come out, it hides behind a solid wall of gray clouds. And, then, it sets at around 3:30pm or maybe, if you're lucky, 4:00.

So tonight I decided to drive down to Park Point, where it's absolutely dark and black. It was a good time.

Here I present some shots from Mr. Nice's political rally at Washington Studios in Duluth. Mr. Nice, for non-Duluthians and local people hanging out under a rock, is the only candidate running for mayor of Duluth who is *literally* a puppet.

His campaign platform is based on New Freshness, which seems to be a euphemism for sheer chaos.

Continue reading "Scenes from a Rally" »

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Yesterday, I just happened to throw my camera onto the passenger seat as I headed up to Target to buy Ajax and toothbrushes -- you never know when you're going to come across a great shot. After I made my purchases, I walked back outside to find the far end of the parking lot completely submerged.

So anyway, if you live in Duluth, check out the front page of the local paper. Yeah, that's my work.

When I left, I had a huge urge to get a police scanner and start chasing calls in search of more crazy shots. Fires, accidents, acts of God ... I absolutely hate that they happen, but Jesus do I love photographing them.

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Continue reading "East Hillside Model" »

In the far western part of Duluth, after 3rd Street becomes Grand and Grand becomes Commonwealth, but just before Commonwealth become Highway 23, there's the St. Louis River public access known as Boy Scout Landing. It's a really beautiful place, as you can see.

Just next to Boy Scout Landing, however,is the River Point Campground, which is full of RVs, Airstream trailers, and flat-out shacks. The sign says "campground" but obviously the people who are staying there plan to stay there longer than just the weekend. Weekenders park their RVs at the campground. These people have taken the trouble to build decks and patios.

Although it's hard to tell from this photo, the campground is like a little neighborhood, fenced off and hidden from the rest of town by a natural drop in elevation. I've lived here my whole life and I never even knew it was there.

A couple days ago as I was standing out on the dock snapping photos of the river, I kept looking back at the campground and wondering about the people who live there.

All I could think was, "Man. I bet the nightlife here really cooks."

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Taken from my warm, dry living room.

Whenever I walk by this place, I really, really, really want to grab a baseball bat and just clean house. Am I weird?

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Up though last Friday night, if you were to come to my hometown of Duluth, Minnesota and tell me that you really, really wanted to get your throat cut, I would have suggested that you go to the Red Lion Lounge on Superior Street, where you could easily find someone to do it for you, most likely without even asking.

Sadly, the Red Lion closed last Friday. All the musicians, drug dealers, guttersnipes, and hipsters who called it home came out to make sure it all ended with a bang, not a whimper.

I took photos.

Click individually below, or view as a slideshow.

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Nice try, birthday girl.

Somehow, I had lived over three decades in this city and never seen this breakwater at the end of Minnesota Point. I mean, I've probably been within 20 yards of it on several occasions. But I never noticed it, or if I did, I completely forgot about it.

If you think it might be fun to run out to the end of this and make the birds scatter like crazy, well, it is fun. But also, there's like a thousand birds out there at any given time. At certain points, it's like running through mayonaisse.

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I'm obsessed with the Superior Hiking Trail. Christa and I have made it our goal this summer to hike the entirety of its Duluth branch, segment by segment. The whole thing is about 39 miles long, but we've been doing it in 3- to 7-mile chunks, and so far we're about halfway through.

We tackled the first seven-miler in the drizzling rain, slogging muddily from Martin Road to pretty much my front doorstep. This, so far, was the most boring stretch. The second stretch was fun, although for the most part it couldn't really be considered "hiking" since two-thirds of it was in town, on the Lakewalk, and through Canal Park. The third stretch, though -- from Twin Ponds to Skyline at Highland, was freaking unbelievable fun.

First off, consider "Forgotten Park." It's so cool when things like this happen. Somehow there is a basketball court and a baseball field in the middle of the woods. Nature is slowly taking it back, with five-foot-tall grass covering the former diamond and with mature trees growing up through the blacktop on the hoops court.

Then the trail winds through the West End and above West Duluth going places I never knew existed. I love the sensation of trudging through the shadowy woods, having no idea where I am, and then suddenly emerging to realize that I've been right in the middle of town the whole time. Weird houses on strange residential streets, a covered reservoir that I'd never even heard about, and an old, unused bridge full of twisted graffiti were just some of the highlights.

I'll be posting photos from the walk throughout the week on Flickr, if you want to see them.

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Click the pic for a [very incomplete] photoset.

First off, Yo Majesty of Tampa, FL was playing. And holy effing shit did they destroy the house.

Second, it was this guy's birthday. He took the stage and the ladies in the band tried really hard to find him some "nasty pussy" in the audience.

Third, not only does Yo Majesty kick major ass, they are also ka-raaaazy. These ladies clearly "don't give a fuck."

Once the bottle of Courvoisier makes it to the crowd, all hell breaks loose. Soon 1/3 of the audience is on stage. Everyone else has gone completely mental. And me, I'm just thankful that things like this happen, and that sometimes I get to be a part of them.

Amen.

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As soon as my plane landed in Los Angeles, I immediately became happy. In addition to the prospect of seeing old friends, it was the air that made me feel good. One doesn't typically think of Los Angeles air as being healthy and sweet, and I admit that seeing LA from the sky, enveloped in a shroud of yellow smog, it probably isn't. But coming from a place where the ground is frozen to a depth of three feet and where there is zero percent humidity in the air, I was glad to ignore the slight tinge of smog. More than glad, I was ecstatic.

I barely got in Cathie and John's door when they plied me with homemade tacos and instructed me to hurry up and eat, because we had to rush if we were going to get good seats at the Mexican wrestling matches. The Mexican wrestling matches. "Sexo Y Violencia" the program guaranteed. And oh, did it deliver.

The Crazy Chickens and El Disco Machine beat Dirty Sanchez and some other guys. Twin girls wrested a couple of men and won. Big guys wrestled in a 6 man tag match with "minis," and the minis got thrown into the audience. In between matches, women with big boobs took off their clothes, and a guy came out and stripped while hopping around on a pogo stick.

Listen: When you have people taking off their clothes and a guy dressed up as a chupacabra is throwing midgets into the crowd, that, my friend, is entertainment.

Today was all about walking around in Griffith Park and getting sunburned in February.

Who knows what tonight will bring.

I guess anything is possible.

Don't know if you noticed, but lately 've been doing my best to add at least one photo a day to my Flickr account. Here's today's selection. I took this photo awhile back, but it didn't seem postworthy. Then last night I cropped it and bumped up the saturation just a little. Sometimes, that's all it takes.

Remember back when I said I absolutely didn't want a DSLR camera? Well, over the past month or so my opinion on that matter has changed. And so I've been looking. And when word got out that I was looking, Aaron offered to sell me his Nikon D70s as he is looking to upgrade. I promptly accepted.

I took it out for a test drive last Saturday night to see how it works in low-light conditions. Check out my Flickr for those shots, and watch for a whole lot more.

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In which I discuss the horrible awfulness of life with Paul Lundgren.

Whenever Jerree picks up my camera, I know I'm going to get 250 pictures of me talking. And that is not a bad thing.

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photo by Jerree

Or maybe the photo should be called "After the Rapture."

Of course, if I wanted to be accurate, it would be "After the Midget Wrestling."

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Three years ago, when Diane Arbus Revelations opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, I got very, very excited. I don't know who published the article I read about it, but it was a very misleading article. The headline was something like, "Diane Arbus exhibit coming to Minneapolis." It wasn't until the third or fourth paragraph that it mentioned the semi-important fact that the exhibit would pretty much tour the entire world before getting to Minnesota.

Well, it's here. And I am so there.

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Man, I hate these things. They're like flying lima beans. They come at you in slow motion, and then land on you with their stupid legs that cling to your clothes and neither you nor the junebug can break the bond, even though you both want nothing more. Actually, they're like flying cockleburs.

For the record, I didn't make this bug dead. I just found it that way.

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I love these jeans. I think that if these jeans were new, a tear as fashionable as this one would increase the price by at least 50%.

But I don't buy my jeans with fake wear. I can wear 'em out myself.

I've tagged my Homegrown pics on Flickr as "Homegrown Music Festival 2006." Others are using the tag as well. Check em all out here.

None of these are altered. This is the natural red light of the Twin Ports Brewing Co. The Supertacks completely melted my face off. I have no face. I am faceless.

Someone needs to tell me what Wino, WI was like, cuz my DD had to leave before they started. I'm at the mercy of (and forever grateful for) my DD.

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Goddamn it I missed Tangiers 57. Fucken job.

On my recent tour of the old Carnegie library, the tour ended with a movie, filmed in 1971, of a typical day at the Duluth Public Library. Here we saw people going through their ordinary day: checking books in and out, cataloging new books, fixing old books, and doing the general tasks involved in running a library.

It was amazing. (I mean, it was amazing even in addition to all the hot library ladies -- and there were many.) Here are all these people doing what they do every day, and it is unfathomably different from anything anyone does today. Punch cards, mimeographs, archaic filing systems, teletype ... it's weird to imagine what life was like before there was 200 microprocessors in every home.

But I do vividly remember life before the Web. It kind of sucked. Still, the things we used in our daily lives back then were facsinating and pretty. Not nearly as fascinating and pretty as a Powerbook, but damn fine nonetheless. Plus, their scarcity these days boosts their aesthetic value.

Anyway, I have this idea to start making mundane movies about mundane things. And while they wouldn't be very interesting at all now, they might be interesting in the future. I remember getting my first library card. It was white, with my name typed on a sticker on the front of it with a typewriter. My card number was raised in the plastic, like on a credit card. When I checked out books, the library tech would place it in a machine just like the old credit-card machines (ker-chunk) that made a copy of the number by pressing the raised numbers against carbon paper. But when the lady behind the counter gave me the card, she also placed a barcode sticker on the back, explaining that soon the library would be switching to a system that used "zebra stripes."

I had that library card until I was about 20, when they took it away from me and made me get a newfangled one.

I need to make movies.

Any leads?

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Not so long ago, I wrote about bad pictures. I won't link to that post, to save you the horror of having to see my Photoshopped picture yet again.

But recently, Starfire took a picture of me that I immediately hated. I won't link to that quite yet, either. I want to talk about it first.

I hated this photo for many reasons. First of all, it's a hideous undershot, meaning it was taken looking directly up into my nostrils. You almost always get the huge faux double-chin with this angle as well, and the double-chin captured in this shot is prodigious. I'm captured mid-sentence, so my face is a bit out of whack. Also I'm wearing my cop sunglasses, which I often am in pictures such as the one in the logo at the top of this page (notice Jerree's pigtail in the reflection -- she took that shot and I immediately liked it). Anyway, when I saw this fricken shot of Starfire's, I hid my eyes. I thought I looked exactly like my uncle when he was about 50. I love my uncle, but please.

Now here's the weird part. The thing is, the more I see it, the more I kind of like it. It doesn't look like me. At least I think (and yes, hope) that it doesn't look like me. It might, and if so, well, OK whatever. I have a perfect face for radio.

Anyway, the point is, the shot is actually growing on me, despite the fact that it's hideous.

The shot.

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I took a guided tour of the Carnegie Building today, which served as Duluth's public library from 1902-1980, I believe. It's a gorgeous building, and it was fun to hear Paul Roen, a great Duluthian, decribe what it was like to work in the building when it was a functioning library. It wasn't always so pretty, it turns out. Mostly it was dim, dingy, falling apart, and cramped. But the current owners have put a lot of work into it and made it into something fantastic.

Paul's tour was funny, insightful and entertaining. It really made me want to tour more Duluth buildings. I often get the urge to go inside some of the cool buildings in Duluth and look around, but it's so much better if you get the real scoop from someone who knows some of the history behind the place.

Aside from these photos, I have some more in a Flickr set. They're worth checking out, as the building is incredible.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my video camera with me, as this would have made a great Minnesota Story.

The weather didn't cooperate very well today, but I went down to the Port Terminal to take some grimy shots nonetheless. I like this little camera.

I also made a new PDD Banner, but I Photoshopped it a little.

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After great deliberation, I decided to go with a Lumix camera as recommended by St. Vincent. It's tiny and beautiful -- about the size of my palm. It has a huge LCD display that covers almost the entire back of the camera. And, it has a great anti-shake function.

If it's nice outside tomorrow, I'll probably go out and take some pics. Thanks everyone for your advice, especially you, St. Vincent. Hopefully, this will mean many more pictures on this site. I'm sure it will.

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So, I posted over here about my desire to buy a new camera. My old Canon Powershot A60 has treated me well, but it's only 2.0 megapixels. I always thought I'd never need much more than that, since I just reduce all my photos for the web anyway, but I'm becomming dissatisfied with the image quality.

My initial requirements were that the camera take great pictures, but also fit comfortably into my pocket. I've researched several different cameras. The ones I aesthetically love the most are the Canon Elph series, but reports indicate that the image quality is lacking. In fact, the image quality seems to be kind of bad in all of the subcompact cameras -- sometimes due to the camera itself, but also due to the camera's size. When the camera weighs only a few ounces, it doesn't anchor your hand enough to keep it from shaking. Which makes me think I should just stick to the camera I have.

While I have no desire to own an SLR, it seems that if I want to take better pictures, I will need a larger camera (i.e. one that doesn't fit in my wallet). But the thing is, if I don't carry it around all the time, I won't ever take any pictures.

Don't tell me I'm going to have to start carrying a man-purse.

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It's hard to explain what all we did in New York and what made it so fun. I regret never meeting up with SB, but that's the only regret.

When you hop on a plane and just fly off on a moment's notice, that is the greatest feeling in the world.

Now I have to go back to work, and a part of me is confused. Huh? I don't understand. I don't work; my life is like this now.

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Recently, I wrote about photos that might not seem so noteworthy at first, but after they've fermented a bit, bring back memories of particular days that were fun. Not stellar, not monumental, but fun and good and happy. These are some of those photos.

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You know, I had a really good time at the Birthday Rally in Spirit Valley last weekend, but I never really felt like recounting the whole thing for the Internet. You want to know what happens at my parties? Attend, muthafukka, attend.

That said, I love this photo with all my heart. Almost as much as I love Slivovitza. And French fry salad.

Also, I'm going to start referring to this combination of old friends as "BobCat". Something magical always happens when BobCat's in the house.

(Must ... stop ... recapping ....)

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I love this picture.

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No, I will be fine. I think. With caffiene I will be fine.

Update: It is 6am, and I didn't sleep last night. This is gonna be rough. Sigh.

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I love these shiny, icy snowbanks we have these days. Anwyway, here's some photo phun I had in front of my house. I don't get it either.
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