We stopped off in Fergus Falls last October while driving home from a conference in Fargo, ND. It’s a small town in western Minnesota with an old-ish, very well kept downtown. I had the Nikomat loaded up with a roll of black and white and was wandering around, shooting mostly signage. As I finished snapping a jive fox, a gentleman in his 80s came up to me and said, "Whatcha taking pictures of?" I pointed to the sign and explained my fascination, and he asked where I was from and I asked where he was from and it turned out he was from there but spent his youth in the northern Minnesota sawmills back when they had real winters, when it was cold enough to freeze the saw blades so the teeth would snap off and fly out at the sawyers. He was interested and interesting, dressed in boots and jeans and heavy black-rim glasses. He wouldn't let me take his photo. “Oh no, it'd break your camera. No. No.” Eventually he took his leave and walked on down along the buildings, as spry as me or more so. I couldn’t resist making a shot before I turned away.

Posted at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The trees have been leafless for a bit now.

Ice started forming on the river this week. The bluffs along the Mississippi are full of icicles and frozen waterfalls.

Yesterday, I traded my fall coat (good to about 20F) for the Serious Winter Coat. And I needed a hat for my 8:45 class.

6 to 10 inches of snow are forecast for Saturday. We made the grocery run today. Tomorrow I will breakfast with a friend, run by the bookstore, and then bang out a final 1200 words for InaDWriMo. In the afternoon, Mister Husband and I will hit the O'Keeffe exhibit, then go to the department colloquium and drink a beer with the grad student mafia, and then we are in for the weekend.

I’m looking forward to a few days of hibernation.

Posted at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

On the way home from Fargo in late September, we stopped off at Sauk Center. It was Sinclair Lewis’ hometown, and the place is still very proud of the fact that their Main St. was the model for his best-selling novel Main Street. The day we were there was nippy. It was drizzling and I had forgotten to bring a jacket. I was tired and in need of a cup of tea and a bathroom — in other words, whiny and not feeling the camera at all (which is obvious in the shot.) Sauk Center is a lovely, historical small town that is doing its best to preserve what it has, and it deserved more from me than that. But some days, you don’t have much left to give.

Posted at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While Mister Husband was busy at a conference at North Dakota State, I wandered around downtown Fargo with the new Nikon D80, which was made possible by a generous grant from my parents. I still haven’t got the exposures quite right on these, but I’ll learn. One of the best things about Fargo is that the inhabitants have mostly held on to their old storefront signs and side-of-building advertisements.

Full set here, which includes quite a few smaller towns along the way. Some photos are with the D80 and some are with my trusty standby Lumix. I have no plans to abandon it — it’s so small that people don’t really take it seriously, whereas the D80 makes most folks a little shy. I also shot with the Nikomat, but it’ll take me awhile to get around to having those processed.

When did I become a person who hits the road with at least three cameras on hand? It turned out not to be enough, because the long stretches of prairie made me want to dig out Mister Husband’s 4x5 Speed Graphic and figure it out.

Posted at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hastings Saturday Night Cruise-In, 8/25/07. Nikomat EL.

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Hastings Downtown Saturday Night Cruise-In, 8/25/07. Nikomat EL. Full set here.

Posted at 1:02 PM | Permalink