Secrets of the City

Local photographer Deke reports in his blog about an unusual encounter he had in a local restuarant when he decided to snap some photos of the food her was eating. An employee approached him, rather aggressively, about his camera: At this point I was approached by an employee, I can only assume she was the manager that day, who asked what I was taking pictures of. I thought I was pretty straight-forward with her explaining that I was taking a picture of my lunch. She asked, “Why?”

My response was that I’m an amateur photog that simply sees a nice image in front of them. To which she replied, “I’m not that gullible.”

“I’m not that gullible.” Now, what do you say to that!?! (Via)

Stuff about Minneapolis republishes some awesome, half-century-old local arrest photos from the Least Wanted collection. (One, two three, four)

Also, there is a local artist who creates painting based on these images.

Every now and again, or weekly, we’ll direct your attention to some items on the Deals page of this site. Since this is the first Deals Round-Up, we want to note that these are not paid write-ups; we just keep an eye out for good deals, free stuff, and various cool events. In fact, comments and suggestions for upcoming weeks are encouraged. This week – from the ridiculous to the sublime:
Contests: An advance screening of Dance Flick; tickets to the Red Eye theater gala; Zoo passes; a 3-day photography workshop
Deals: Sale at ROBOTlove; rare books at Central Library; free breakfast for bikers
Happy Hour: Chambers Art Bar

TC photographer Wing Young Huie will be doing a project at the Walker Art Center tonight called “Identity Portraiture,” in which “participants ask questions of someone they don’t know and then photograph that person with his or her responses.” For those unfamiliar with the photographer, he was responsible for both the Frogtown and Lake Street USA projects, in which he took thousands of photographs of neighborhood residents and then displayed them on buildings, buses, and billboards. I did a interview with the photographer, recorded on digital video, a few days ago; it is available on MnStories and my site.

The Deets guns for City Pages again, this time pointing out that the paper’s online site has a history of lifting photos without credit or compensation. I don’t expect there is a Website that hasn’t been guilty of this to some extent, but City Pages seems particularly egregious in it, with editor Kevin Hoffman very much leading the pack.

MPR interviews photographer and U of M instructor Nathan Lewis, who uses his camera to try to capture images of ghosts. Belive in it or not, the accompanying slideshow of spirit photography (definition) — including some discussion as to how such photos might be forged — is great fun to look at.

I have mentioned photographer Thomas Allen before (although I can’t track down the link just now), who crafts incredible 3D dioramas out of pulp book covers and the photographs them. Turns out he has a rather fasinating blog (occasionally NSFW), which details, in part, how he makes these images. He also has a book available from Aperture. (Via)