1894 - Andrew Lidberg, an immigrant from Jarpen, Sweden builds and opens The Lidberg Studio at 443 W. 3rd Street, Downtown Red Wing, Minnesota (the corner of W. 3rd Street and East Avenue), which is immediately next door to Charlie Wah's Chinese Laundry. The Daily Republican on April 9th, 1894 writes, "Mr. Lidberg opened his gallery today, and it is a fine one. He will employ only competent workers and work at the lowest living prices."

1899 - Upon graduating from Red Wing High School, Andrew 's son Edward joins the studio full time. The Lidberg's begin producing the first series of colored souvenir post cards of Red Wing and the surrounding area. The photos were exposed on glass plates and developed at the studio. Negatives were then produced and sent to Germany to be lithographed into color post cards. These postcards are now collector items with a passionate following.

1902 - Local businessman T.B. Sheldon donates money to the City of Red Wing to build the country's first city-owned theater. To make room for the Sheldon Theatre, The Lidberg Studio is moved across the park mall to 312 West Avenue where the building is located today. A glass wall is oriented to the east to provide natural light illumination for portraiture photography.

1910? - Andrew Lidberg retires. Frank Booth, a graduate of Effingham School of Photography in Illinois, joins the studio.

1915 - Because of the war in Europe, it becomes increasingly difficult do receive color lithographs from Germany. Senator Knute Nelson has to intervene to get a production run of postcards released. Production is moved to Chicago (Acmegraph Company) and Milwaukee (E.C. Kropp Company).

1915 - Edward Lidberg begins his real estate career and the photography business begins to wind down. By 1920 the building is a full-time real estate office.

1920 - 1953 Very few building details. The best guess at this point is that from approximately 1920 to 1936 it was a real estate office and from about 1937 until 1953 it was various photography studios.

1953 - The Chalet Studio opens. This portrait studio is owned and operated by Ms. Louella Champs.

1972 - Edward Lidberg dies.

1978 - The Chalet Studio closes. The building is in very rough shape with the roof in danger of collapsing.

1979 - The building is repaired and restored by Dick Tittle. It becomes home to InComm Realty and Maas Realty

2008 - The building becomes home to Red Wing Framing Gallery and Red Wing Portrait Studio.

What goes around, comes around. Even if it takes 114 years.

It's a poorly kept secret that Brad Pitt and I have had a professional feud for years. He won't return my phone calls and I probably wouldn't return his phone calls if he ever called. Kind of like Kid Rock and Tommy Lee.

Be that is it may, and in a completely objective observation, I need to call Brad out on his cover photo in the February issue of W Magazine. The photo was taken by Chuck Close (one of my favorite artists) and in typical Chuck Close fashion, every flaw is brought to attention in macroscopic detail.

The most interesting flaw is how the bank of three lights in the eye on the right is on the right side of the pupil, but in the other eye, these lights are on the left side of the pupil.

Remember, friends don't let other friends Photoshop drunk.

Barn Bluff vigilantly watches over Downtown Red Wing immediately from the east. This means the bluff casts a shadow every morning and says goodbye to the sun every day. The bluff is a long and narrow rock and the length of the bluff runs east and west for about a mile. It is an easy hike along the south side to the lookout over Downtown Red Wing. The top of the bluff is about 400 feet above the Mississippi River (immediately to the right in the above photo).

There was an unusual thaw this February and that opportunity was leveraged to get this photo. Once the tree buds start popping out, the details become hidden. If you look closely, our shop is the small triangle of lights in the upper left corner.

As with most mid-winter thaws, it toyed with our emotions, giving us a taste of nicer weather, only to slap us with a cold front and a dump of snow.

Back to muc-lucs and stocking caps.

Clare Baker called last November for an interview for The Big Picture magazine, which is a trade journal for the wide-format printing industry. The gist of the article is about printers who have carved out a niche business of providing wide-format, fine-art printing. Wide-format printing is anything larger than 44" and fine-art printing is usually defined as low-volume, high-mix printing with tight duplication standards.

Over a period of weeks, Clare and I would occasionally talk, but I lost track of the publication date. I was pleasantly surprised to receive the article in my mailbox this week. Clare did her homework and did a terrific job of detailing the priorities in wide-format fine-art printing:

1) Invest in capture, calibration and proofing technologies.
2) Push the envelope in new applications and learn from the failures.

An electronic version is right here.