My niece is a soon-to-be-famous film maker. She recently won a grant from the IFP Minnesota Center for Media Arts that enabled her to film and produce her original screenplay called "Hole in the Wall". It is a short film about intergenerational tension between a father and a son.

I had the privilege of shooting still set photography on the movie set. Exteriors were shot the first day and interiors were shot the second day. The interiors were in a totally dilapidated house in Minneapolis with extremely small rooms. I shot with an extremely wide lens and mostly from the hip to try and capture the tightness of the set and also to minimize camera intrusion.

It was a fascinating and tedious process. Everything was captured with real film, which is in itself a true challenge. A single overhead jetliner can ruin a shot. And you never know if there was a light leak with the film until after it is processed.

My niece Mandy is on the left of the top photo and she is reviewing a shot set-up. The bottom photo is the primary room in which the father confronts the son.

It is difficult to take a bad picture of a moving train. They are just that photogenic.

Trains are big and powerful. They kick up dust wherever they go and nothing better get in the way of a moving train.

Slow your shutter speed down, find a static element in the foreground and shoot as many exposure combinations as you can, as quickly as you can.

This week marks the final chapter of the poverty awareness photojournalism exhibit entitled "In our own backyard". This exhibit has crisscrossed the United States for the past 18 months and next week the exhibit finishes in Washington DC at the annual Leadership Summit for Catholic Charities.

Since this is the final and highest profile stop of the tour, all of the large format images are being reprinted and remounted, which is close to 120 images.

It is a very moving set of images, that address all manners of poverty and everyday life. It is really hard not to stop and soak up the texture and realism of each image.

This has been a challenging and gratifying project. One of the best parts of this project has been working with Steve Liss. He is a natural-born educator and an amazing photojournalist who gets right into the thick of it. Please visit his web site at: SteveLiss.com.

It has 18 months since the last Max Becherer update. Just to refresh, we came to know Max five years ago when we hosted his photojournalism exhibit entitled "Through the lens; Life in Iraq". Max has been in Iraq since the very beginning of the conflict (remember "shock and awe"?) and has seen action in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza.

Max has since gotten married and splits his time between Cairo, Egypt and California when he isn't in the field. He is still a combat photojournalist and he is still extremely talented. Max's work has been featured in Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, The New Yorker, US News and World Report and Men's Health.

Recently Newsweek Magazine asked Max to retrace the Iraq invasion in reverse, using his photos. That feature can be found here.

After you visit that site, please visit Max's website and enjoy his talent. It is rare to see photography this deep in the action.

In 1969, friends of Richard Nixon paid for and had a two lane bowling alley installed in the lower level of the Executive Office Building. Nixon was an avid bowler and spent quite a bit of time at this bowling alley over the next five years. He had been known to bowl up to twenty games without a break.

Ollie Atkins was the official White House photographer and snapped this photo in 1970. Later that year, Nixon's White House staff used this photo to demonstrate that Nixon was not out of touch with the average citizen, and in fact was just like any other citizen.

It later achieved iconic status because of a single scene from the 1998 film "The Big Lebowski".

There is a tremendous amount of public domain imagery available from the US Government, some of it noteworthy and historically significant. Some of it kitschy. Since it was paid for with tax dollars, it really is owned by the public.

This note is being added after the fact. May was a nearly overwhelming month between work, a mini-vacation, graduations and non-profit activity. In lieu of posting anything of substance, here is a photo that was taken in May.

Grand Marias, MN on May 24, 2010. The fog was very thick and the air was very gray. Probably not a good idea to stand in the middle of the road, but it was awesome.

Because the sensor in a digital SLR camera is typically smaller than the 35 mm film that it replaced, the physics of the focal point of the lens are changed. This is known as "The Field of View Crop Factor" or sometimes "The Focal Length Multiplier". The net result means your long lens becomes longer and your wide lens becomes narrower.

Wildlife photographers sing the praises of The Focal Length Multiplier because their 200 mm telephoto lens effectively becomes a 320 mm lens. Creative photographers hate it because now a 24 mm lens becomes a 38 mm lens and you can never get wide enough.

My personal lens investment is from the pre-digital era, so I never had the chance to compensate for this effect. All of my lens became too long for many of my purposes. I satisfy my need for wide by occasionally renting a 14 mm ultra-wide lens (effective focal length of 22 mm), which reminds me of the good old days, when a wide lens was truly a wide lens.

Wide is a lot of fun and it also allows me to keep the header imagery fresh.

The definition of penumbra is 'almost shadow' or 'almost dark' (or light). Penumbra is typically used to describe events in astronomy, such as when an eclipse occurs.

In photography, penumbra is a unique opportunity to capture texture and atmosphere in an almost occult-like light. A strip club has always struck me as kind of sad and desperate. I have been meaning to take this photo for years but the highway has been re-routed and it is especially tricky to get to. This isn't exactly the effect I was looking for (drizzle and water puddles would have been ideal), but I liked the emotion the headlights provided.

Jake's strip club is located in Coates, Minnesota. It had a litigious relationship with the community and for years the town continually passed laws to close it down. In 2002 the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled finally that the town was within it's authority to close Jake's. In an unwise effort to vote the local politicians out of office, Jake's owner had 92 patrons (sometimes called rummy's) fill out voter registration cards, using the strip club as their home address.

You don't mess with the feds. It is never a good idea to break federal voting fraud laws and especially in such a stupid manner. Several hundred thousand dollars later, the case was finally settled. The bar never did reopen and it has been vacant ever since. No doubt it will be torn down and the opportunity to capture Jake's in penumbra light will be gone forever.

It has been a full year since we became involved in the Catholic Charities American Poverty photojournalism project. It has been a rewarding and challenging year and now a certain rhythm takes place as the exhibit crisscrosses the United States. This coming week the exhibit presents itself in Nashville, Tennessee. The map above demonstrates where the exhibit has traveled (in red) and where it is yet to travel (in blue). Additional cites might still be added and no final confirmation yet if the final exhibit will take place at the White House.

Steve Liss is the Project Director and will travel to each city immediately prior to the exhibit reception and artfully and tastefully documents the slices of poverty unique to each community. Our job becomes image preparation (printing, mounting and packaging) all of the images for each exhibit and delivering them directly to the exhibit venue. Usually there isn't a single day to spare and thankfully UPS has delivered each and every package on time and in perfect condition. Ideally there would be a larger buffer of time for production, but then, what would be the challenge in that?

It is a challenge and from every challenge you hope you learn and improve from the experience. The official web site is worth a visit. It is very well done.

January is usually a quiet month in the art and framing industry. There might be a small bump in business because of some Christmas follow-up framing, but that trickles away pretty quickly.

This January was an exception. Several projects came in the door because of fiscal calendar years that started January 1st. Another major Catholic Charities project was delivered, this time for a Centennial Leadership Summit in San Jose, CA. This was the largest venue so far (this being the 4th) and it will move across the United States every month until September, where hopefully it will exhibit at the White House. Go to www.AmericanPoverty.org to get the most current updates. I love working on this project because it leverages the power of photography and it is an absolute adrenaline rush in meeting the tight deadlines. In this business, this is known as a 'good gig'.

We also had our first order from Turkmenistan. To be more precise; Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. This is a former Soviet Union republic that declared independence in 1991. It was a nice sized order of 10 large format mounted images and one extremely large canvas print. There is a sense of satisfaction in knowing your handiwork is on the job in some remote part of the world.

On an unrelated note; Downtown Mainstreet agreed to co-sponsor a photography competition with Red Wing Framing & Fine Art Printing. It is always fun to have too much to do.

And finally, if nothing else I learned a long time ago to surround yourself with very smart people. Or at least stand close to them.

I am uber-excited about a new project that some very smart people I have come to know are advising me on. This is on a six-month timetable, so the details will roll out over time.

The Newseum is an interactive museum of news and journalism in Washington D.C. The mission of The Newseum (from their web site) is to "educate the public about the value of a free press in a free society and tells the stories of the world's important events in unique and engaging ways". In other words, it is all about the First Amendment. It is located just off Pennsylvania Avenue near The U.S. Capital. This is a high profile location in a high profile city.

As part of our ongoing relationship with the AmericanPoverty.org photojournalism exhibit, we produced several very large (48”x72”) mounted prints for a reception at the Newseum later this week. The images needed to be large because the reception hall is large and visual impact is important. This is an exhibit designed to create momentum for the AmericanPoverty.org campaign going forward.

These images have this beautiful platinum print finish. Platinum prints (sometimes called platinotypes) is one of the oldest photographic processing techniques and provides the greatest tonal range of any printing method using wet chemistry development. But because this is the digital age, platinum prints are ‘replicated’ in the computer, yet they do a terrific job of re-creating the original look.

2010 will see an acceleration of activity with Catholic Charities and AmericanPoverty.org.

And we can hardly wait.

For the humor-deprived the title might seem borderline inappropriate, but it actually is very appropriate.

Photographers have a responsibility to document the world as it is. So many icons of our existence are disappearing and once they are gone, they are gone forever. A drive-in movie theater only lasts as long as the economics of local development allow it to. Once the land becomes more valuable as anything other than a drive-in, adios drive-in movie theater.

Pay attention to everything and take nothing for granted. Don't tell yourself that someday you will take a certain photo. Take it today.

Last week Catholic Charities USA kicked off their annual conference in Portland, Oregon with the large format photojournalism exhibit produced by the In Our Own Backyard photojournalism team. This exhibit was entitled AmericanPoverty.org and is meant to raise the awareness of people living in poverty in the United States. Catholic Charities has declared the goal to reduce poverty in the United States by 50 percent by the year 2020. This is a very aggressive goal, but Catholic Charities understands that the only way to meet an aggressive goal is to set the bar very high.

In Our Own Backyard is a team of skilled and seasoned photojournalists who have witnessed first-hand the struggles of extreme poverty in the United States. This team includes, in part, Steve Liss, Jon Lowenstein, Brenda Ann Kenneally and Eli Reed. These are talented photojournalists, with strong personalities and stronger communication skills. They have crisscrossed the United States in capturing exactly what it means to be poor.

It has been a delight to be involved in this project. The deadlines were tight and God bless overnight delivery. There are a minimum of six more cities that will be hosting this exhibit over the next year, so we look forward to future involvement. Learn more about this large format photojournalism project at AmericanPoverty.org.

A little over a month ago, a prototype of the 2009-2010 traveling exhibit of the 'In Our Own Backyard; U.S. Poverty in the 21st Century' was unveiled at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. This was an opportunity to weigh the reaction and measure the effectiveness of the message. Think of this as a preseason event before the annual Catholic Charities USA convention in Portland in September, 2009.

Things have not slowed down since then. Details have been fine-tuned and the new web site can be found here. The tentative schedule for the traveling exhibit is:

September 24-29: Portland, Oregon
October 29, 2009: Sacramento, CA
January 21, 2010: San Antonio, TX
February 24, 2010: Atlanta, GA
March 8, 2010: Albany, NY
March 25, 2010: Nashville, TN
April 22, 2010: Cleveland OH
April 29, 2010: Chicago, IL

Track the updates by following it on Facebook:

1) T-2 weeks: Once the project is defined, the supply chain of raw materials begins to fill up. This exhibit required two cases of 4'x8'x1/2" black Gatorboard.
2) T-1 week: Each image was printed on a premium luster photo paper (a wide color gamut, scratch resistant, but susceptible to fingerprints), vacuum mounted to the Gatorboard and then trimmed to size and packaged. 50 images were printed and mounted for this exhibit.

3) T-24 hours: The finished materials were delivered the day before the exhibit opening. The exhibit panels were problematic for a few reasons, but the image layout was deemed the most critical.
4) T-12 hours: The image title blocks completed the story-lines. I was delighted to see that Carlos Gonzales from the Minneapolis Star Tribune was participating. I came to know Carlos from the Max Becherer exhibit.
5) T- 4 hours: No exhibit is complete without a politician. In this case it was the Honorable Mayor Chris Coleman of St. Paul.
6) T- 0 hours: This exhibit generated a lot of discussion. A 'first person, photojournalistic' style was used.

7) T+x: From St. Paul, the exhibit moves to Portland, Oregon and then begins a nine city nationwide tour, with the goal of ending at the White House in 2010.

Math, art and terrorists in a single blog entry. Now that is efficient blogging.

Steve Liss is an accomplished photojournalist, as evidenced by having 43 Time Magazine cover photos to his credit.

But it isn't this professional success that Liss takes the most pride in. Steve Liss is a humanitarian who uses photo essays to communicate tough topics. His subjects have ranged from poverty in the Mississippi Delta, to runaway youth living on the streets of Hollywood, to a study of the Nuns of Mankato and Alzheimer's disease. He has been the recipient of the Soros Justice Media Fellowship for his work on juvenile justice and the Alicia Patterson Fellowship for his work on domestic poverty.

We are delighted and excited to be asked to participate in his latest project entitled; In Our Own Backyard: U.S. Poverty in the 21st Century (web site). This is a unique poverty awareness project being undertaken by 15+ preeminent American photojournalists. The project goal is to use the visual power of large-format documentary photography to elevate the discussion of making the fight against poverty a national priority.

This project is in partnership with Catholic Charities and their campaign to cut poverty in half by 2020. Nine major photographic and multi-media exhibits, each with 50 emotionally-moving large format photographs will tour throughout the United States begining in the fall of 2009.

This project will be kicked off at a leadership summit on April 20, 2009 at the College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN. Registration is here and an invitation postcard is here.

Poverty has many faces and it is impossible to ignore when seen up close and personal. It is projects like this that make work seem less like work and more like purpose.

I was delighted to get a note from Max Becherer this morning. I have planted the seed of thought with Max to begin to prepare a five year retrospective photojournalism exhibit for next year. Max has been in Iraq since the initial days of "Shock and Awe" and has made a career of globetrotting to the hot spots on the planet. But let Max speak for himself:

"Hi John!

So good to hear from you. I hope you are having a great New Year! I am in Cairo, Egypt at the moment but should be heading to Iraq for the Provincial Elections later this month. I also think it will be a good place to be when Obama takes office. I was up at the Egyptian Border with Gaza last week and watched as Israeli bombs blow up the tunnels and as the Palestinian wounded came over on their way to Egyptian hospitals. It was a difficult scene. I was waiting for a chance to enter Gaza but they are keeping a tight lid on things there.

So, your idea sounds great. I would love to do a five year retrospective. There are so many ways we could go with it for sure. I have a portfolio book of images I collected from the last five years.

Last year I started covering the elections in Pakistan. It was interesting and I was even able to head up to Peshawar where the North West Territory begins. What a wild place. In any case, I was in Iraq at the last part of this year for the New York Times and then did an assignment about Samarra for the Smithsonian Magazine which is on newsstands now. This week I head to Baghdad for a month and then in April I will be in Afghanistan where things are expected to be difficult this year. That is all for now.Thanks for checking in with me. I hope we get to see each other soon. Say hello to the crew for me!
Best, Max"

I have been meaning to take this photo for years. The locals will recognize it as Wisconsin Highway 35 (northbound), just outside the Red Wing Airport. This stretch of road is in rough shape and road crews have aggressively patched most of the cracks.

Who is Tom? Is this a cry for recognition? An epithet for a lost friend? Or maybe it was the last day of seasonal labor?

Ode to Tom.