Aqua City

It is ALIVE...

2012-01-23T13:13:00.002-06:00

First Blog

2012-01-22T20:41:00.001-06:00

I started my first blog in 2002, as a way to chronicle a harrowing jeep trip across the desert with my wife, baby and dog, as we moved to San Francisco without much of a plan.

Everything was new and exciting, and it was a great way to keep a journal. Soon after, Gourmet magazine hired me for a 10 day travel shoot... And then I was sent to the Bahamas for a month, on my first digital job. It was the beginning.

Along came another baby, and we decided to move back to Minneapolis. Somewhere in the shuffle, I lost my first blog entries.

Until now. You can read them here: End of Land Sadness (End of the World Gladness) and Bahamas.com.

My Big Fat Ad

2011-12-29T15:39:00.021-06:00

Earlier this year, Syngenta hired me to make a photograph on a golf course to help advertise fertilizer.

We started small, and worked our way up.

The trick was to not leave any Steam Roller marks on the green.

A big thanks to everyone for making this happen.

Agency: Martin/Williams

Art Director: Rachel Roddy

Art Buyer: Lisa Crawford

Producer: Sally Mars
Retouching: Jellysquare

Digital Tech: Karl Herber

Assistant: Josh Quigley

Assistant: Bryce Bordenkecher

Location Scout: Anne Healy

Precision Driver: Brian Denny

Breakfast Burritos: Black Cat

Italians Invade Minnesota

2011-11-07T12:23:00.002-06:00

Fast Company magazine sent me over to Mauro Porcini's house, to photograph him with his wife, Elisa. They recently moved to Minnesota from Milan. He's the new head of product design at 3M, and she's a clothing designer.

One of the first things they did after moving into their suburban ranch house was install a sculpture of a lion in the front yard, which he spray-painted pink.

After photographing outside, we moved indoors. Elisa served a nine-course lunch, and I photographed Mauro's shoe collection. The espresso flowed like water.

Read the complete article here.

Sticky Fingers... and more

2011-10-30T21:57:00.005-05:00

The 2011 International Photography Awards just gave my Electric Avenue series a first place award -- and the Minnesota State Fair hired me as the Official Photographer for a couple of steamy days.

Mortgage Payment in the Sky

2011-10-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

Whenever I drive past this billboard, located at the interchange of highways 35W and I-94 (arguably the busiest place in Minnesota), my daughters point up and say: There's Daddy's beer ad!

The Time I Met Steve Jobs (sort of)

2011-10-14T17:02:00.000-05:00

I was living in Sausalito, CA, with my wife, baby, and dog -- sharing rent with my wife's mom and teenaged sister. We all lived together on the edge of a cliff; A crowded little house where the bedroom walls touched our mattress on three sides, leaving about 2 feet to maneuver. But the view was amazing. At night we could hear seals barking. And the searchlight from Alcatraz lit up the walls every few seconds.

I was starting to land my own shooting jobs. I had recently returned from a 10 day trip, photographing a William Least Heat-Moon travel piece on the North Shore of Lake Superior for Gourmet magazine. Prior to that, I'd mostly been working for other photographers, as an assistant. I was happy to get whatever work I could.

Someone called and asked if I might drive down to Apple and help another photographer shoot a portrait for an international magazine. Perhaps they mentioned Steve Jobs, I'm not sure. I wouldn't have recognized his name if they had. Yes, I owned a couple of Macs. But I never thought about the guy who invented them, any more than I thought about Henry Ford when I drove my car across the Golden Gate Bridge.

I met the photographer at his hotel in San Francisco. He'd flown up from Los Angeles the night before, where he'd been shooting some ads. His main thing was fashion, and the editors figured he'd make an interesting shot of Steve Jobs with his latest product: the iPod. (something else I'd never heard of).

We drove down to Cupertino, about an hour along the coast. All the while, the photographer chatted on his cell phone with his publicist, pitching his idea for a reality show about himself. Eventually, we arrived at Apple, and set up equipment in a conference room.

Steve Jobs walked in, holding an iPod with the headphones in. The photographer tried to say hello, but to no avail. Jobs was listening to music. He couldn't hear a word. During the shoot, Jobs didn't talk -- or turn it down. He just stood there with the iPod, nodding his head to the music, ignoring the photographer's gestures. And then he left.

How I Got That Shot

2011-10-14T12:32:00.001-05:00

PDN magazine features an interview with me in their October issue, describing my photoshoot with Brian Setzer for Guitar Aficionado. You can read the story here.

Camden

2011-10-06T11:10:00.000-05:00

Corner of 44th and Penn, North Minneapolis:

Metro Cover

2011-09-12T12:36:00.002-05:00

I photographed this month's cover story on Minneapolis neighborhoods for Metro magazine. Upon seeing the work, Coverjunkie.com picked up the issue and featured our cover alongside that of Esquire, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. See it here, and here.

Photo Editor: Bryan Nanista

Cape Cod

2011-08-22T12:10:00.000-05:00

I love this place.

Streets of San Francisco

2011-08-14T23:25:00.001-05:00

I left Bernal Heights on foot...

and made my way across the Mission, through Noe Valley and the Castro, before stopping for lunch in Haight-Ashbury.

I grabbed a salad at Whole Foods, and watched a tennis match with some homeless folks in Golden Gate Park.

From there, I kept north along the Avenues, cut through the Presidio, and walked barefoot on the beach at Chrissy Field before crossing the Bridge.

Climbed into the Headlands and turned right. Taking the stairs down to Sausalito, I caught the last ferry back to SF. It was the perfect walk.

I need new shoes.

Golden Birthday

2011-08-10T23:43:00.002-05:00

The best ten years of my life.

Brian Setzer for Guitar Aficionado

2011-06-20T09:19:00.002-05:00

Anatomy of a Photoshoot:

The magazine emails me on Monday, asking if I'm available to photograph Brian Setzer the following week. Since it's winter in Minnesota, we set up the shoot for Monday morning, in a rental studio. But over the weekend, it starts snowing sideways... and never stops. On Sunday, Brian's manager calls. His flight from California bas been cancelled, due to the blizzard. He needs to move the shoot to Wednesday.

Unfortunately, there's no rental studios available in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Thanks to some nimble phone work by the photo editor, however, we parley the shoot into the busy lobby of the W hotel, downtown Minneapolis. An amazing building, it was built a few months prior to the stock market crash of 1929: The perfect location for a media frenzy.

By the time I start shooting, we have a wardrobe stylist, hair and makeup person, multiple assistants, guitar tech, manager, body guard, wife, and Brian Setzer himself -- all on set. The only thing I don't have is time, with Brian's manager and the hotel staff telling me I have three minutes to wrap it up. Crossing my fingers that the strobe won't blow any more fuses in the beautiful, ancient building, I focus my lens and fire.

Lucy's Pencil

2011-06-12T16:35:00.003-05:00

I turned my daughter's backpack upside down and this little artifact rolled out. Goodbye 4th grade!

On Newsstands Now

2011-06-06T23:15:00.002-05:00

The prostate screening RV for TIME magazine...

Bonnie, a double mastectomy survivor for Psychology Today...

and Brian Setzer, former Stray Cats frontman, for Guitar World...

(more from the Setzer shoot to follow).

An American Girl

2011-06-06T12:22:00.013-05:00

Make The Snow Go Away

2011-06-06T00:52:00.064-05:00

People often ask: Can you make the snow go away? The question comes up mostly between February and May, when editors start working on the Spring Issue. The problem is, they need to shoot a couple of months ahead of time, in order to be on schedule.

But as this is Minnesota, we have snow on the ground for more than half the year. Nobody wants to see it when they pick up a magazine in June.

The simplest solution is to shoot in the studio. Or go somewhere warm.

For this project, we did neither.

Instead, we drove north, to the virgin sands of Duluth, only moments after the last snowflake departed.

Anything's possible with a fantastic crew.

Art director: Barbara Schmidt, bstyle inc.
Hair & makeup: Jen Santoro Rotty
Wardrobe & prop stylist: Rachel Lupton, bstyle inc.
Model: Mary, Vision Management Group

Shot for Spaces magazine; also published in this week's Sunday Pioneer Press, on the front and back of the Living section. See it here.

SDP Member's Choice Award Finalist

2011-05-20T00:50:00.001-05:00

My State Fair series, as published in Minnesota Monthly, has been named a finalist in the Society of Design Professional's annual Member's Choice Awards. Other finalists include Elle, GQ, and Women's Health.

See the competing work here, on the SDP website.

Night Walk

2011-05-19T11:25:00.002-05:00

Lake Harriet, Spring, 2011.

Setting out after dinner with a camera, I'm always late. It gets dark halfway around the lake; I hurry home.

Breakfast of Champions

2011-05-18T09:43:00.053-05:00

The Minneapolis skyline, as photographed through a hole in the fence at sunrise -- despite paranoid motorists, a brush with the cops, and impossibly cold weather.

Read more in my original post Guerrilla Advertising.

Kid Coco

2011-05-17T19:49:00.000-05:00

Soccer dad in training: day one.

Popular Photography

2011-04-15T16:23:00.002-05:00

The May issue of Popular Photography magazine features a spread of my work from the Minnesota State Fair. The text includes a Q+A on the technical nature of how the pictures were made, along with some insight into what it's like to photograph with a large camera in the path of almost 2 million people.

See more of my state fair images, and follow my original experience here.

Sublimation

2011-04-05T21:00:00.003-05:00

Sublimation occurs when solid water (ice and snow) bypasses the liquid stage and turns directly into gas (water vapor). This happens when the air is dry and photons from the sun are present.

The snow disappears without ever becoming water.

Guerrilla Advertising

2011-04-02T00:44:00.001-05:00

or, How to Shoot a Beer Ad Through a Hole in the Fence.

Hard to believe it's Spring, with a fresh blanket of snow and 14 degrees F at sunrise. Maybe the smokers think it's warm, outside for a few puffs of sunshine. But the cold adds up when you stand in the same place for a few hours. It's cumulative.

This is guerrilla advertising. No scout, crew, motorhome, or retouching. Just me and a camera at daybreak, not far from my house, lens poking through a hole in the cyclone fence over highway 35W. By this time next week, the skyline will be stripped from the winter scene and pasted into a beer ad, just in time for summer.

Ten lanes of traffic below, honking their horns as if they know me. A stranger rolls down his window and shouts up, roaring toward the city at 65 mph. A cop walks up and asks what I'm doing. Says a driver called in to complain about suspicious behavior: Someone photographing the city through a hole in the fence.

Student of the Month

2011-03-18T12:28:00.001-05:00

For recognition of outstanding achievement during the month of March, 2011.... Lucy is a positive and funny person. She is a wonderful helper and a good friend to many of her classmates.

Go Lucy!!!

Thin Ice

2011-03-16T13:39:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, the Ides of March. A perfect day to go walking in Minneapolis: 50 degrees and sunny, with 4 feet of snowpack beginning to melt.

I made my way down to Lake Harriet, sliding gingerly across the sidewalk.

It must be Spring.

Back from Atlanta

2011-03-16T13:38:00.001-05:00

I flew down to Atlanta this weekend, for the Society for Photographic Education's national conference. Caught lectures by photographers Abelardo Morell and Catherine Wagner, and had my work critiqued sideways. Many thanks to the Midwest SPE for sending me down there... a fantastic experience.

Bathysphere

2011-01-31T00:31:00.013-06:00

In early 1861, a year before his death, naturalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau left Concord, Massachusetts, to visit Minneapolis. He had TB, and his doctors thought a change of climate might improve his condition.

Thoreau stayed at Mrs. Hamilton's boarding house, on the shores of Lake Calhoun.

He spent his last healthy days in Minneapolis, studying the lakes.

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

Kidnapped by Iran

2010-12-23T22:05:00.004-06:00

I photographed Cindy Hickey for a story about her son, 28-year-old Shane Bauer. He was hiking in Northern Iraq with two friends on July 31, 2009, when Iranian soldiers illegally crossed the border and threw them into prison.

He's been sitting there for 510 days. The Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979 only lasted 444 days.

Cindy Hickey photographed outside her home in Pine City, MN.

Read the complete Minnesota Monthly article here. Follow and support the hikers on facebook here.

The Longest Street in Minneapolis

2010-12-08T11:42:00.007-06:00

Lyndale Avenue is the longest street in Minneapolis; the only street extending from the northern city limits to the southern city limits. It cuts through the center of town, offering the harried commuter a curious blend of strip malls, motels, laundromats, and dive bars. There's houses too.

Untitled #1, Lyndale Series, 2010; 8x10" Archival Pigment Print

We bought one of those houses in 2004, at the height of the subprime fiasco. It's not every day that a bank offers hundreds of thousands of dollars to the self-employed. We took the money and found our dream house: a 100 year old, one-story cottage on Lyndale. Within a few years, our mortgage provider (the largest subprime lender in the world) declared bankruptcy. We refinanced the night before, locking into a standard mortgage at the last minute on what might be the only house we'll ever own.

Lyndale is busy. When I mow the strip of grass out front, I'm careful not to fall into traffic, whizzing inches away. Crime isn't an issue so much as lurking road rage, ready to strike the moment I back my car into rush hour. I've had three accidents this year.

Airplanes scream overhead on their way to the airport. Strangers stop by and ask for money during the day. At night they cry. After the first year, we realized nothing good was going to come down Lyndale. I tore the doorbell out.

The backyard is our fortress, a sanctuary away from the river of noise, fenced in by our neighbor's yards. This project is a portrait of my family, and our modern life, on Lyndale.

Speed Baby

2010-11-03T15:25:00.003-05:00

I've had this 2x3" Baby Speed Graphic kicking around my office for some time -- not sure where it came from. I figured it might work, based on the sound of the shutter. But I never thought I'd be shooting with it, mainly because I didn't own any 2x3" film holders, which are an odd size.

Lake Harriet, Minneapolis, 2010; 8x10" Archival Pigment Print

Finding antique film holders on Ebay wasn't difficult, although I almost bought the wrong kind (2x3" Graphic holders, rather than 2x3" Graphex holders). For film, I cut 4x5" sheets down to 2x3" size, in complete darkness, with a rotary trimmer. I had to set the markings with tape in advance, so I could feel them in the dark. I tried not to worry too much about how rough I was handling the film.

Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis, 2010; 8x10" Archival Pigment Print

The camera itself is difficult; over 50 years old and falling apart. The handle is missing, and the 2x3" ground glass is almost impossible to see through. With one hand holding the camera, I need the other to work the focus. At the same time, I have to press a loup agains the glass with my eye. Even so, I can barely find a point of focus, as this lens is completely whacked when used wide open. The widest aperture is f 4.5, and the slowest reasonable speed for hand-holding is around 1/60th of a second.

Mississippi River, Minneapolis, 2010; 8x10" Archival Pigment Print

After focusing, I cock the shutter, place the film holder in the camera, remove the dark slide, recompose using the external viewfinder, and shoot. The biggest problem, other than lack of focus, is the rain. Back home, I hand process the film in trays, eight sheets at a time. The drawback to this method is that it scratches the film. And my fingers stay in the developer for a long time, something I normally try to avoid.

I wasn't impressed with the film at first glance, in the darkroom. Everything looked out of focus and wrongly exposed. But once I'd made selects, and a few scans, I came to like it.

The mini Speed Graphic is a direct challenge to what I'm used to in a camera, particularly in regard to focus. But after two afternoon's shooting, its limitations felt more like possibilities, offering a new way of seeing Minneapolis. Rather than acting like a transparent window, these photos reveal the otherwise invisible veil of the medium itself.

Mini Speed Graphic

Time Magazine

2010-11-01T21:49:00.002-05:00

I photographed this week's Time story about new frontiers in advertising: Billboards plastered across kids' lockers in Minnesota schools -- the ultimate captive audience.

Cultivator at Starbucks

2010-10-21T18:21:00.007-05:00

I ate dinner with my four brothers and sisters every night at 5:30 pm. We'd eat, and my father would say: Let's talk about the garden at the cottage. He’d say this every single night. It was a joke between us because at some point in the meal my dad would invariably put down his knife and fork and say: Let's talk about the garden at the cottage.

Séamas, 20x24" Gelatin Silver Print

He’d look at each of us and ask: You - what's your job going to be this summer? What are you going to grow? He’d go around the circle of his family and strategize next year's harvest. A farmer had agreed to plow for us an adjacent field. It was a huge garden. My father's plan required that each of us commit to raising a different crop. While my friends back in Chicagoland may have spent their summers playing baseball and going to camp, I could be found 200 miles north, sequestered in rural Wisconsin with my brothers and sisters. We spent endless days together, pulling weeds, swimming in a polluted lake, and getting chased by farm kids.

We still see each other in the summer. But now we bring our 17 kids, miniature versions of our past. In their faces I see us as children, reenacting the condensed dramas I knew as a child, sifting the dirt of our garden, growing up. In them, I see myself; I see my parents, still dreaming of their garden, and making plans for spring. These photographs tell the story of my father's garden. They tell the story of what he grew.

Selected works showing at the 50th and Lyndale Avenue Starbucks, in South Minneapolis.

Sun Drawing

2010-10-15T23:04:00.004-05:00

Nicephore Niépce shot the first photograph from an upper, rear window of the Niépce family home in Burgundy, in the village of Saint-Loup-de-Varennes near Chalon-sur-Saône.

He had discovered that bitumen of Judea, a kind of asphalt, turned grey and hardened when exposed to light. He also figured out that the unexposed bitumen could be washed away with linseed oil.

One day in 1826, he coated a pewter plate with bitumen, attached it to the back of a camera obscura, and pointed it out the window. The photograph took eight hours to make. During the exposure, the sun moved across the sky, illuminating both sides of the building.

View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicephore Niépce, 1826

In the photo, you can see the frame of the open glass window on the left. Beyond that is a lofted section of the home, referred to as the pigeon house. To the right is a pear tree. A barn roof slants through the center of the image. The long roof and low chimney of the bake house are behind. On the right is another section of the house.

Niépce referred to his invention as heliography, or drawing of the sun.

Original Heliograph, 8" x 6.5", University of Texas at Austin

Happy Hour

2010-10-08T11:41:00.002-05:00

Happy Hour comes early on Friday -- with a cup of coffee and the variety section of the Star Tribune. The best part is scanning for friends' names. And reading Mary Abbe's art reviews.

This morning she wrote about the Black and White exhibit at the Minneapolis Photo Center. Read the complete article here.

Minnehaha

2010-10-05T15:16:00.011-05:00

Minnehaha creek runs through Minneapolis, connecting a chain of urban lakes and streams, before dumping into the Mississippi River at Minnehaha Park. The waterfall there was mentioned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his well-known poem, The Song Of Hiawatha, written in 1855.

Minnehaha, 2010, 8 x 8" Archival Pigment Print

What strikes me most about the Minnehaha Creek watershed is how it was landscaped, rerouted, and park-ified back in the late 1800's, to coincide with a certain romantic or Arcadian idyll, similar to Longfellow's poem. Much of the landscape is old and beautiful, yet it retains a certain man-made quality that could almost be described as an improvement on nature.

September Shows

2010-09-08T10:49:00.051-05:00

Target Bandshell, St. Paul, 2010, 17 x 22" Archival Pigment Print

Stephen Shore, the second living photographer to have a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, selected two of the images from my Lowertown project for the juried PHOTOcentric exhibit, showing this month at the Garrison Art Center in New York. Co-juror: Harvey Stein.

Dingo Traps, NSW Australia, 1994, 16x 16" Silver Gelatin

George Slade, curator of the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, included a photograph that I shot in Australia in the Minneapolis Photo Center's Black and White exhibit, opening this week.

Fighter, Minnesota State Fair, 2008, 17 x 22" Archival Pigment Print

And Circa Gallery in Minneapolis will auction one of my prints from the Minnesota State Fair this Friday night, September 10th. Proceeds provide free dental care in underserved communities.

Mayhem

2010-09-07T15:41:00.002-05:00

I went down to the Cannon Valley Fair to watch the demolition derby. It was a hot summer night. I wore white shorts, no socks, and a light gray t-shirt. Not a good idea.

I got covered in mud.

Nobody noticed.

See more minnesota mayhem here.

Electric Avenue

2010-08-04T19:46:00.008-05:00

Minnesota Monthly published an 8-page spread of my State Fair images this month.

Follow my original fair experience, and see more images here.

Read the complete magazine article, and watch a slideshow here.

Your Beer Man is Here, in Stereo

2010-08-03T11:26:00.028-05:00

ESPN The Magazine sent me out to photograph Wally the Beer Man against a white backdrop for this week's page 2 feature.

The best part was listening to his world famous spiel.

Press play to get a load of Wally:

Two-Faced Duluth

2010-07-22T10:19:00.111-05:00

Duluth is only about 2.5 hours away, driving a champaign minivan due north at 75 mph. First stop: a cup of coffee on Lake Superior, whether it's freezing out, of just sort of cold.

Never in my life have I seen people swimming there, because the water temperature could kill you, even in the middle of summer. This year, however, the lake is 20 degrees warmer than usual.

Learn more about Lake Superior, and how its temperature is an early indicator of climate change here.

Jack Daniels, the Cops, and a Baby Blue Moped

2010-07-02T02:16:00.020-05:00

or, How I Got to Australia:

I was living in a houseful of Buddhists, in Boulder, working as a cook in a cajun breakfast joint when my dad calls up:

"How'd you like to burn down the cottage?"

New Franken VFD, Archival Pigment Print, 4x10", 1993, (printed 2010)

He was about to give a stranger $6,000 to knock it down and haul it away. But if I came home and torched it, he could pay me the money instead. I'd been wanting to go to Australia for a long time. This was my golden ticket.

I just needed to give the fire department a call beforehand, to let them know that I'd be doing a little burning on our property.

Step One: pay a guy $175 to knock down the cottage with his backhoe. Although it was a two-story building, it didn't have a foundation. It came down in less than an hour.

Step Two: drive my brother's baby blue moped up to the gas station and buy a gallon of gas. And some matches.

Step Three: talk calmly to the agitated state trooper when he notices the blaze from the highway.

Step Four: hang out with Jack Daniels, captain of the Luxemburg VFD, when he shows up with his crew to dampen things down.

"Nice fire," he says. "Frickin cops."

Jack Daniels, Archival Pigment Print, 6x10", 1993, (printed 2010)

Affable Militia

2010-06-14T20:52:00.046-05:00

I stumbled into a military training camp.

untitled, gelatin silver print, 8x10", 2010

Not the kind with razor wire and camouflage, buried deep in the Pacific Northwest. Or the kind in Michigan, bred in trailer parks scattered alongside abandoned Ford plants.

untitled, gelatin silver prints, 8x10", 2010

These guys didn't have NRA bumper stickers plastered across their trucks. They drove sedans. And they were shy; more prone to reading books, playing chess, and collecting stamps -- than to driving four-wheelers in the name of freedom.

untitled, gelatin silver print, 8x10", 2010

They might even have voted for Obama.

untitled, gelatin silver print, 8x10", 2010

Plum City

2010-06-12T19:19:00.016-05:00

The premise behind our first date was a 4x5 portrait. We got up early, loaded Hallie's drums into my rig, and headed for Wisconsin.

We found ourselves in Plum City as the sun went down.

hallie, gelatin silver print, 8x10", 1999 (printed 2010)

In The Beginning

2010-06-12T16:25:00.016-05:00

I resurrected my b+w darkroom this month, after a four year digital hiatus. The first negative I printed is my oldest.

It was 1986. I was in my bedroom, with a self-portrait assignment due the next day. I had already broken my dad's camera. This one was a loaner from my high school photography teacher, Mrs. Garside.

I didn't have a tripod, so I set the camera on the edge of my desk, introducing some blur around the bottom of the frame. I put the camera on automatic, stripped to the skivvies, and grabbed some candles.

self portrait #1, gelatin silver print, 8x8", 1986 (printed 2010)

LOWERTOWN

2010-05-31T12:00:00.033-05:00

I've added a new project to my web site:

LOWERTOWN

While most of St. Paul exists uphill from the flooding Mississippi, the Lowertown neighborhood was developed below, at the landing point of European contact. Prior to that, the Mdewakanton Dakota people referred to the area as "Little White Rock", for its sandstone bluffs. It wasn't until a Catholic priest arrived in 1841 and built a chapel on the cliffs above, that the community officially became known as St. Paul. Prior to that, Lowertown was simply called "Pig's Eye", for a popular bootlegger's tavern, located in a cave.

As a gateway to the West, St. Paul thrived as an important railroad and river town in the late 1800's. As the city grew, modern development reached its peak in the early 20th Century. But by WWII, the star of St. Paul was eclipsed by its rapidly growing twin, Minneapolis. The barge and railroad traffic continued, but future regional development shifted to Minneapolis, while downtown St. Paul stagnated.

I first saw St. Paul through the window of a Greyhound bus, before moving into an empty railroad warehouse that had been converted to artist's lofts. In the years since, I've explored every inch of Lowertown, reading the landscape and daydreaming about what might have been. My Great Grandfather passed through Lowertown a century before me, on his way to California, in search of a better life. But he never got there. He died alone in a hotel room, downtown St. Paul.

The Mississippi River is an uncontrollable force, bordered by a virtual wasteland within the city; a buffer zone against Spring floods. The abandoned riverfront affords temporary shelter to those who travel through, most of whom arrive on freight cars, searching for a place to rest. A sanctuary of sorts, this brutalized utilitarian landscape offers both refuge from, and tribute to, the architectural and industrial achievements of St. Paul. In Lowertown, you never know what might float past next: an uprooted tree or a human body. Forgotten property and urban decay offer clues to a brilliant past, along with a certain disregard for the law -- of both man, and nature.

my dad's chair

2010-04-07T12:53:00.007-05:00

Easter Narrative

2010-04-04T12:49:00.008-05:00

PDN Photo of the Day

2010-04-01T14:17:00.013-05:00

Photo District News named one of my ice racing images Photo of the Day. And it's April Fool's Day. What are the odds?

Browse the complete Photo of the Day catalog here.

david bowman shoots for VANITY FAIR

2010-03-27T20:38:00.007-05:00

Portrait of the Bravewell Collaborative for this month's Vanity Fair.

Testimonial

2010-03-26T18:39:00.003-05:00

Climate Change

2010-03-20T16:02:00.003-05:00

In a good way.

Our first official day without snow in the back yard.

Testimonial II

2010-03-13T18:01:00.003-06:00

Wisconsin Meth Trip

2010-03-07T11:56:00.006-06:00

The first thing I notice is the liquor display by the front door. Heading for the restroom, a man smiles broadly with huge teeth, inches from my face, on his way out. In the hallway, two men discuss a Norman Rockwell. Back in the main store, I pass a kid wearing a respirator mask. Although it's for the swine flu, he's strutting around like someone in a new hat. In the Burger King part of the gas station, a man with full sleeve tattoos emerges from the back to take the order of the woman in front of me. He's wiping his nose on his shoulder, so as to not touch his nose. But it keeps running, so he keeps wiping. The large woman in front of me wears a baseball jersey and baseball pants over ankles so swollen she couldn't possibly play the game. Turning, she looks into my eyes and starts talking -- to the person behind me. I order coffee, and grab some gum.

A Foot in the Door

2010-02-26T20:26:00.027-06:00

My artwork's hanging at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, in the Foot In The Door exhibit.

hotel lobby, north of duluth

I Shot Alec

2010-02-04T10:03:00.016-06:00

- for elle decor.

Normally I wouldn't recommend photographing another photographer, especially on assignment. It's an awkward proposition, to say the least; something I would compare to gracefully trying to wrestle a bone from a dog. But Alec was amazing. It was a rare treat to spend the morning in the studio of another photographer, seeing how it's done.

the twins

2010-01-31T21:04:00.067-06:00

dog days minnesota

2010-01-11T23:56:00.369-06:00

Minnesota Monthly sent me out to photograph dogs and their humans.

I get a little anxious when I have to confront strangers with my camera.

Besides the actual picture-taking, there's lights to set up, and camera angles to find. The weather's a factor, and of course, people are usually in a hurry.

But they say Yes anyway.

I love that about people.

See more pictures and read the interviews here.

Serious Tower

2010-01-10T11:12:00.023-06:00

While in Chicago, I stopped at the Sears Tower Skydeck.

I hadn't been to the top since I was a kid, when my dad brought me up on his lunch break. His office was only a couple blocks over, just across the river.

Looking west from the 103rd floor, the grid of Chicagoland opens up like a topographical map.

I could almost see LaGrange.

JnJ

2010-01-02T22:25:00.005-06:00

Drove down to Chicago to shoot some stills for the Johnson and Johnson web site.

See the video here.

Mighty Wurlitzer

2010-01-01T23:06:00.028-06:00

Harvey Gustafson mans the Mighty Wurlitzer at the Heights theater, the hideaway of choice on a subzero new year's day in Minneapolis.

American Photography

2009-12-16T14:04:00.022-06:00

The American Photography 25th anniversary award book arrived today.

Juried by Kathy Ryan from the New York Times Magazine, it features my work alongside that of Edward Burtynsky, Thomas Demand, and Annie Leibowitz.

You can order the book -- and view the entire collection right here.

Riding the Megabus for Time

2009-11-30T00:22:00.022-06:00

The Megabus only stops in Minneapolis for 30 minutes.

I spend the first part of the afternoon shooting a portrait in the western suburbs. At 2 O'Clock, my strobe pack explodes, blanketing the location in smoke. At 2:30, my assistant races me across town to the Megabus stop, the scent of burning electricity still fresh on our clothes.

We are late. It's raining.

I photograph the exterior for 10 minutes, and climb the stairs to the upper deck. It's a full bus. The seats are crowded and the windows are steamed. I'm dripping wet. Someone asks me if my camera is waterproof.

Roaring into Wisconsin, I'm on the phone to my assistant, who follows close behind in my champagne minivan.

200 miles later, the bus stops. There's an umbrella over my head while I shoot the exterior.

We turn around and go home.

I just got off the phone with Dion

2009-10-22T00:43:00.050-05:00

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

2009-09-08T13:25:00.017-05:00

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

2009-08-31T21:49:00.002-05:00

Chicago

2009-07-23T12:31:00.005-05:00

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

hey baby

2009-07-04T12:46:00.000-05:00

it's the fourth of july.

National Geographic Adventure

2009-07-03T13:37:00.002-05:00

chevy malibu

2009-06-17T11:28:00.025-05:00

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

2009-05-23T17:09:00.013-05:00

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

2009-05-15T10:41:00.032-05:00

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

2009-05-08T14:47:00.003-05:00

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

Ice-Out

2009-04-27T08:28:00.103-05:00

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

2009-04-12T14:00:00.018-05:00

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. The littlest baby didn't make it.

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

Fast Food World HQ

2009-03-09T09:04:00.005-05:00

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

2009-03-06T09:06:00.001-06:00

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

2009-03-02T11:28:00.013-06:00

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

2009-02-18T12:22:00.000-06:00

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

2009-02-13T09:56:00.018-06:00

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

2009-02-03T00:25:00.081-06:00

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...

2009-02-02T19:02:00.011-06:00

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

2009-01-28T09:50:00.004-06:00

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.

ohio blue tip

2009-01-12T12:01:00.047-06:00

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

2009-01-01T12:49:00.006-06:00

press play to listen:

Good People Helping Good People

2008-12-24T21:20:00.058-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:39:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:37:00.000-06:00

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?

2008-11-14T16:36:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:35:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:34:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:33:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:31:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:30:00.000-06:00

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

Day eight attendance: 116,143 people.

State Fair day IX :: avalanche

2008-11-14T16:28:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:25:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:24:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-14T16:22:00.000-06:00

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

2008-11-05T01:59:00.032-06:00

Men's Journal sent me to the western suburbs of Minneapolis today, 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.