Up North

Howdy

Last Friday I headed up to the North Shore toward Grand Portage to meet with Travis for a day of shooting on Saturday. Travis told me Harrington Park, just north of Duluth, had some ice piles so I stopped there first.



This image certainly isn't ice piles but a mosaic pattern I kept seeing in the ice (ice piles to come later in a different post).



Travis and I met for sunrise at our favorite spot, Hollow Rock Resort. The last time I was at Hollow Rock, about a month ago, the ice extended far out into the lake. The warmer late winter weather had taken it's toll on the ice as seen in this image. You could still walk thru the hole in the rock but not beyond the lake side entrance.



Credit goes to Travis for this image. Travis first saw this composition and photographed me looking at 'Gull Rock' (my name), then we switched spots. I was interested in seeing how two photographers interpreted basically the same scene. This is my intepretation.



Next, we snowshoed to the top of Mt Rose which has a great view of Grand Portage National Monument. The image doesn't show a monument but a tree that caught my eye. The day was overcast but mild, low 30s, and most importantly no wind at all. A beautiful snowshoe hike, thru the woods, followed by a breathtaking view and topped off with a fine companion, one couldn't ask for a better experience.



We completed our photographic day at the Little Cedar Spirit Tree. It is always a special treat to visit the Spirit Tree and wouldn't you know it as soon as we arrived the sun started shining and the clouds cleared away.

As I work my way thru the images from the weekend as well as those taken on previous trips I'll post them to the blog.

Roger

Digital Image Cafe - POTD

I recently joined the Digital Image Cafe, a friendly group of photographers from around the world that help each other and compete daily for Photo Of The Day honors. My friend Travis, whose work I very much admire, is an active member of the site and introduced me to it. The POTD contest is a very competitive one as there are some very fine photographer participating. It is quite an honor to have your image selected as the POTD.

The first 10 POTD are rather easy to capture. An 'appetizer' section is open to all members with fewer than 10 POTDs. These 'appetizer' groups have a fraction of the images from which the judges make their selections. For instance, the regular Scenic category has upwards of 500 images from which the judge makes her/his selection.

Now that I have my first 10 'appetizer' POTDs the real fun begins. If/when my images win POTD I will 'brag' about them here. Today I had 2 images selected as POTD, a rare event indeed.

Tillamook Bay



This first image was taken last May when my brother Ralph and I met Jack Graham in Oregon for a weekend of shooting. Our first day was spent by the Pacific Ocean and was started in Tillamook Bay. The morning was quiet, calm, overcast and had a nice soft blue cast. A wonderful Oregon morning.

The Chase Is On



Great Gray Owls by the hundreds, if not thousands, migrated south to Minnesota due to a food shortage in Canada during the winter of 2004-2005. I traveled two hours north 6 weekends in a row to watch and photograph these beautiful creatures. Rarely would the owls encounter each other but when they did you wanted to make sure you had them in your viewfinder. This was the one encounter I was able to capture.

Roger

Gutter Beauty

This morning Thule, my soon to be 10 year old Aussie, and I went for a walk. We were out for a long walk to take a couple of DVDs back to the stores from where they were rented.



Of course I took my little Canon G9 along with me to capture anything I found interesting. It didn't take long to find an interesting subject. Actually it started right at the end of the driveway.



We're finally experiencing the first glimpse of spring and there is alot of snow melting going on during the day with refreezing at night. Looking down at the gutter there were some very interesting patterns.



Here are a couple of the images from this mornings walk. All were taken in the gutter of the streets we traversed. You never know what your going to find in the most unlikely places.

Roger

Northrup King Building

Howdy...



After a bit of an absence from my blog I think it is time I get back to it.



Today I spent some time at the Northrup King building in Northeast Minneapolis. This building was built back in 1917 by the Northrup King & Co seed company.



Northrup King occupied the building until the late 1980's before selling it to private owners.



It is now the home to about 150 artists and is one of a number of older buildings that make up the Northeast Minneapolis Arts district.



A particular draw for me is the Icebox Gallery which always has a photography exhibit in progress. Howard M. Christopherson, the owner, is currently showing his images from Peru.

Roger

Arts in Harmony 2009, An Update

The reception and presentation of awards was held yesterday at the Sherburne County Government Center. Again the Arts in Harmony show featured lots of excellent work. Representatives from the State Fair Art competition were there and said all of the work selected for this show met the standard to be included in the State Fair show. I guess I'll submit one of my three images in this show to the State Fair Show since I've failed to get into the State Fair show for 4 or 5 years.

I knew where my images were displayed so I purposely made that the last part of my journey thru the show. I admired the variety of excellent art work. As I approached my work I happened on a photograph with an Award of Excellence ribbon and I jumped when I saw it was mine. I forgot where this one was and was shocked to see the award. The image is from the trip with my brother Ralph to Oregon and is of Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach.

This makes the third year in a row where I have won a cash award which makes me quite pleased especially when you look at the high quality of work submitted.

Roger