Photography & Music

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  • Time For Some Original Music

    I have composed music intermittently since I was a teenager. The first instrument I learned (barely) was piano, and then I fell in love with the drums. As a late teen in music college, I persevered at making sounds on a guitar since it’s hard to get people to sit and listen to a song that you wrote on the drums.

    This particular creation started in late 2019 as a chord progression on guitar. The demo was charming, but soon other instruments suggested themselves into the arrangement. Words came, too. It’s the most adventurous recording I’ve made at home so far, with a nuanced mix of more than 70 different audio tracks.

    I was almost done with the song in the Spring of 2020, but then the pandemic, George Floyd was murdered, and the US election chaos dominated the emotional environment. I couldn’t see how I could finish and share the song until the world was in a better place. Finally, in May 2021, I sat down one Saturday afternoon and knocked out the final vocals and solos.

    You can listen on Bandcamp and even download the song for free, or see the video on YouTube.

    You have to have a music video!

  • A little isolation music

    I’ve been home almost solidly for… I don’t know how long. A month? Longer? Not really keeping track. So, in my spare time, I recorded a cover of Here Comes The Sun and made a music video. It turns out, I used to be a musician and a recording engineer. This experience came in handy. I made it for sharing with Facebook friends so the beginning references Facebook. There you go.

    Check it out on my YouTube channel

  • The Exhibition is up at Hudson Hospital and Clinic

    A selection of my landscape photographs were chosen as part of the Healing Arts Program curated by the Phipps Gallery in Hudson, WI. I’m exhibiting at the Hudson Hospital and Clinic starting this week and until the end of May, then again starting in July at Westfields Hospital & Clinic in New Richmond, WI. There are nineteen works including color prints on metal, black and white silver gelatin prints and some Giclée.

    color landscape photographs
    Landscape photographs at the Hudson Hospital and Clinic.

    black and white landscape photographs
    Landscape photographs at the Hudson Hospital and Clinic.

    Large metal color landscape prints
    Landscape photographs at the Hudson Hospital and Clinic.

  • Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition!

    One of my photographs was selected for the 2018 Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition! After several years of solid rejections, I got one in. This is a 14″x18″ print on Ilford Classic 16×20 silver gelatin fiber paper enlarged from an 8×10 film negative in a traditional darkroom. Traditional portraiture with a large format film camera is apparently still a thing.

    8x10 film print
    8×10 black and white film portrait enlarged in a darkroom on silver gelatin fiber paper.

  • New exhibit at Amore Coffee in St. Paul

    I have the good fortune to display 18 photographs at Amore Coffee in St. Paul for the summer. There are 5 new images and I’m happy to have them out in the world. This online gallery shows what is on display at Amore with the exception of four photographs. There are prints from formats ranging from 35mm to 8×10 large format black and white film, both contact prints and enlargements.

    There are also Van Dyke Brown historic process prints and a couple of pinhole images as well. Finally, I threw in a few prints from digital files just for the fun of it. As always, something for everyone 🙂
    It’s a great shop and the fresh-roasted coffee is superb, but that goes without saying! Stop by if you are in the area.

  • Dramatic Landscape Photographs – Cloudscapes 2016-2017

    Spring is heating up into Summer. Here are some dramatic cloud formations captured between 2016 and 2017. These cloudscape photographs will be printed as archival inkjet prints and are available in several sizes.

    Three Pillars, 2016
    Three Pillars, 2016 – Available in 6×9, 8×12, & 18×24

    Anvil & Storm, 2016
    Anvil and Storm, 2016 – Available in 6×9, 8×12, & 18×24

    Landscape in Infrared, 2017
    Landscape in Infrared, 2017 – Available in 8×10, 11×14, & 16×20

    The Anvil, 2017
    The Anvil, 2017 – Available in 6×9, 8×12, & 18×24

  • 8×10 black and white film portraits

    Portraits on black and white 8×10 film

    It’s 2017 and I’m making large format film portraits with a vintage 8×10 camera that is 100 years old. This camera is the Folmer & Schwing 8×10 Home Portrait Camera No. 1 with a 14” Wollensak Velostigmat Series II lens.

    Why pursue photography with this combination? Photographs such as this one are made with a “view camera”, a camera where the photographer composes the image upside down and backwards on a ground glass on the back of the camera. View cameras use film that is typically 4″x5″ or larger, thus called large format. Often, images made with these cameras on large format film have a look that cannot be achieved in any other medium. The tonality has a smooth gradation between tones that feels open compared to smaller film formats. Also, vintage lenses designed for 4×5, 5×7, 8×10 or larger have a timeless character that is hard to replicate with modern photographic equipment.

    Part of my artistic vision is to create photographs that are not easily identified with any particular period. Sometimes clothing or hairstyle gives it away, but other times it’s hard to tell whether a photograph is contemporary or made anytime back to 1928.

    This portrait of a woman was made on Arista EDU Ultra 100 black and white film and drum processed for 9 minutes in Freestyle’s L110 developer at dilution H 1+62.

     

    photograph of a woman
    Portrait on large format film made with a vintage camera over 100 years old.

  • Artist of the Month at Dunn Bros. Coffee in Hopkins

    Starting November 1st, my photography is featured as the Artist of the Month at the Dunn Bros. Coffee location at 4 Shady Oak Rd, Hopkins, MN 55343. There will be an open house on November 19th from 2-4pm. Stop by for some coffee from fresh-roasted beans, and take a look at some photography. Sounds good to me.

    Dunn Bros. Coffee

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  • Presentation at the Mpls Photo Center – Thank You!

    Thanks to everyone that came out to the Pinhole Photography presentation at the Community Film & Darkroom Night at the Mpls Photo Center on Tuesday April 12. It was a fun group with great questions. Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is coming up on April 24th. I hope to see some of you out there with pinhole cameras!

    Pinhole Photography presentation at the Mpls Photo Center
    Pinhole Photography presentation at the Mpls Photo Center

     

  • Pinhole Photography presentation at the Mpls Photo Center

    It’s almost Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day!!!
    I’m doing a presentation on pinhole photography for Community Film & Darkroom Night at the Mpls Photo Center on Tuesday April 12 2016 at 7PM. If you would like to learn about pinhole, see some photographs, and check out the photo center, that’s the night to do it. We will also have a drawing to give away a 35mm pinhole camera called the Populist. How cool is that?

    Here is the page with the information, I hope to see you there.
    Thanks,
    Scott

    www.mplsphotocenter.com/darkrooms/community-darkroom.php

     

    world wide pinhole day, 2010 Minnehaha Creek Water Abstract Paris Street liquid ice digital color landscape cowboy and camel reflected in a lizard's eyeIt’s April, that means it’s time to get excited about pinhole photography!