Exploring Base Camp

Produced for Architecture Minnesota Magazine, Exploring Base Camp is a series of 1-2 minute videos of the recently completed Historic Restoration by LHB for use by the Boy Scouts of America as an Urban Camp to connect young people to the outdoors and interactive experiences.

Click to explore Base Camp

The twelve 1-2 minute videos explore various elements of the building's history, restoration, and Base Camp's uses of the building today and the populations it serves.

This also represents an experiment in User Interface Design. Because of the multitude of video segments, the decision was reached to create an interactive map of Base Camp for viewers to explore on their own terms. Each of the buttons placed on the map correlate to subject of the film.

Bloomington Summer Fete (2011)

This image was purchased by the City of Bloomington earlier this year to advertise this year's summer activities In Bloomington, including Summer FeteIf you've ever wished you could make it to 2 or three shows when the Fourth of July comes around, Bloomington's annual Summer Fete celebrates independence day a little early.

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A disturbing new trend in public fireworks.

 I love capturing the audience's revelry as this light show begins, however in an effort to explore new territory, I decided to be a little further back from the fireworks this year. Partly this has to do with how rude I felt setting up in a location that affected ANYONE's view. That feeling was diminished when I saw folks who set up tent pavilions to wait out the sun the evening's show. The walking path may look like unused space in the day, but as 10-20 minutes before the show, this place is filled to overflowing and almost every patch of earth is filled.

I did spend part of the day earlier taking some pictures of the day's activities. These images are generally only good for editorial use since MN protects the public from commercial sales of an individual's likeness without concen. They are my way of giving back to part of the community I'm part of.

NOW On to the main Attraction! Click on any of the images below to view them full screen, or click here to see the full gallery. To get the best experience, I'd recommend watching the slideshow. Pricing and availability of these images is being determined. But for now, enjoy!

Opening shots are fired at Bloomington Summere Fete

Jockimo Glass at ING Direct

I met Tim Czechowski from Jockimo Advanced Architectural Products at the AIA-Minnesota convention recently. I was very impressed with the quality and interesting properties of his glass products. The Following is a product installation in St. Cloud at ING-Direct. If you're in the area and want to see it in person, the wall is in the public cafe.

I believe this is a product type that is given valued by going beyond the static image. So I decided that this is a perfect test case for my DSLR's video capability. Frankly speaking, I'm personally not satisfied with it's video quality yet. I saw a lot of noise and grain even before I started to play with contrast and exposure in post. If I have a client specifically interested in this use, I'll specifically rent better equipment.

However, the video (Viewed at higher quality here) is an example of how to incorporate mixed media for product promotional material using the photographer's eye. 

(Please note, this video is not intended for commercial use. It is only an experiment.)

State Fair - pt.2 (Sales)

So one of the greatest opportunities that the Minnesota State Fair provides, is to get the word out to the world about your product, invention, or idea. This series of photos was taken with that in mind. This is just a small selection of what caught my eye.

Every image you see in this set was taken with a fixed 50mm Lens usually with a shallow depth of field created with the aperture set somewhere between 1.8-5.6. I believe all the details are available if you click into my smugmug gallery. 

State Fair - pt.1 (3rd Lair)

This is the first set of photos I've had an opportunity to work on from the 3rd Lair set up at the Minnesota State Fair. These guys can definitely shred. I have over 400 frames shot that I'm working through. This is my first opportunity to use my D90 in this environment and I'm playing around with composite shots. The time it takes in post isn't exactly quick, but they're really fun final products. I plan to post more stills in a couple more days, just depends on how much time I have. 

Click on any of these to go take a look at the full size image. These should be able to be printed at about poster size for any of the guys like AJ who nailed his first successful front flip on only his 2nd attempt.

Give me a shout and tell me what you think!