As autumn progresses in North Dakota brings a lack of color to the landscape as everything turns a shade of brown or gray until the following spring. I was craving a little bit of color and searching my photos for something else when I came upon this shot, one I’d forgotten to share.
I have a couple of stragglers from the photo walk, such as this photo of the crown of the federal building on 3rd and Broadway. I hope by now you’ve made a selection, but I’ dbe interested in how you like these.
These trees are on the east end of the parking lot at the Peacock Alley. It’s a parking lot now, but is apparently going to be an ice skating rink next year – because downtown Bismarck has way too much parking space right now.
That’s it! I was happy with the shots I brought back. I could have roamed more, but I had a nice morning walk and maximized the amount of time I had available. My new lens performed admirably, and I had good company.
Thanks for looking through my photos!
Here’s another set of photos from our local group’s participation in the Worldwide Photo Walk. I’m trying to decide which photo to submit.
This is the counterweight for a fire escape in downtown Bismarck. I love the sky in the background combined with my vignette.
Remember Gary Miller? If I remember the walk correctly, and I don’t know why I shouldn’t, this is one of the chains holding up the overhang at the entrance of Gary’s Gallery. I believe this gallery will be closing in the near future, as his wife had announced something about it a while back.
I love this sign. It’s attached to the freight elevator in the Anderson Building, which I hope to own some day. This elevator is no longer available to the public. I remember hearing a news report in the late 80s or early 90s about a young girl getting her arm pinned and amputated by this elevator. That’d do it.
I’ll shoot myself in the foot by saying that these three are my favorite of the bunch. I do have a couple more, but they don’t mean as much to me as these. I’ll post the other ones soon and hopefully receive your feedback in time to upload my selection to the Photowalk website.
Our photo club took part in the Worldwide Photo Walk this past weekend, and it was a blast. I didn’t stay for the entire window of time because of other errands, but I did walk around downtown Bismarck for two hours with a couple of photo pals. Each member of each local photo walk submits one photo to the group. The group them forwards one photo on to the worldwide walk, and so on. I got a few shots that I like with my brand new lens, and I need some feedback as to which I should submit before the deadline.
This was right at our starting point in front of the historic Belle Mehus Civic Auditorium. I tried to go for sort of an optical illusion effect.
On the other end of downtown, I found this little nook in the back of the Anderson Building…a building I one day hope to own. The frame gave it a nice splash of color.
Made in North Dakota. These are the bricks which sealed shut the window in the last photo. Good ol’ bricks and mortar, compliments of Hebron.
I did take photos of more than bricks, but I thought I’d share these first three together due to the similar subject matter. The ones I really like will be posted next. Shoot me an email or post a comment when you find your favorite!
I’ve had some great shots of the ISS over the years…passing over a Fort Lincoln blockhouse, streaking across the sunrise above the Double Ditch post, and above the Pioneers statue at the capitol mall. Tonight I opted to grab a shot of it passing over the tower from the north, and it didn’t disappoint.
I like those direct overhead passes because they take longer. There’s more to see. But sometimes that poses a photographic challenge, even with a 10mm lens. When it’s lower on the horizon it’s easier to get a nice arc over your foreground subject. In any case, I’m relishing every photo opportunity I can get these days!
I got this shot while being swarmed and attacked by squadrons of aggressive mosquitoes, the likes of which I’d never seen. My family and I decided to take a celebratory walk on the Lewis and Clark path, and man did we find skeeters!
The path was nice, although we were a few days too late to find the leaves in the photogenic state we’d prefer. The aforementioned mosquitoes cancelled our plans to find all the geocaches along our route. I was extremely glad that we didn’t bring bikes, as much of the western part of the path is overrun with tons of river sand washed up from the 2011 Missouri River flood.
As to the title of this post, I’m pleased to report that my recent “do over” surgery at Mayo Clinic was a success. So too was my wife’s surgery a week later. After giving up our house in March after receiving the bad news of my condition, we’re now in the process of building a brand new one. Even my kids’ health has markedly improved. I have a brand new camera lens on the way, one which I’ve wanted for a year or more. The path ahead looks sunny indeed.
One consequence of the capitol grounds construction is that the lights illuminating the north face of the tower are no longer in place. I’m sure there will be new ones once the construction is completed, but for now it’s just dirt where the parking lot used to be.
I took this photo a while back (click for larger size) and it shows how things are starting to take shape. The north side of the capitol will have more pedestrian area, much like the south side.
Don’t take my word for it – this information is posted and updated on the capitol’s Facility Management website. You can get a PDF copy of the plan by clicking here.
By the way, there were other notable song title candidates for the title of this blog post, such as “On the Dark Side” by Eddie and the Cruisers, “Moonshadow” by Cat Stevens, “Standing in the Shadows” by Dokken, “Ribbon of Darkness” by Marty Robbins…need I go on?
This terse notice to Burleigh County suckers taxpayers was posted on the Burleigh County website but flew mostly under the radar. If you read it, you’re about to get socked by another expensive sucker-punch by commissioners Jim Peluso, Doug Schonert, Brian Bitner, and Jerry Woodcox. I left Mark Armstrong off that list because he’s the one through whom I actually learned of this nonsense.
Here’s the obscure listing of the notice, which doesn’t even appear as plain text (just a PDF file). What in the world does that even mean? Well, apparently that’s all the explanation we’re going to get about this tax hike.
By the way, what do other Public Notices look like on their website?
They’re posted nearly in their entirety. Remember that Sesame Street jingle, “One of these things is not like the other”? Start singing it now. And then grab your ankles, because it’s clear that the Burleigh County Commission does NOT want you to know about this until it’s too late. Well, you’ve been warned. Show up at 6pm tomorrow and make your voice heard.
*BOHICA = Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
Two years ago I posted an April Fool’s post in which I claimed that United Airlines would be discontinuing service to Bismarck-Mandan because a new competitor, Frontier Airlines, was going to be receiving subsidies to come and compete with them. Apparently it was an entirely plausible idea, because a lot of people bought it. Gotcha. Well, it turns out that my satirical post was prescient in at least one way.
In the last paragraph of the post, I pointed out that the same thing happened in Fargo, where Frontier operated for the same two years, then left despite the incentives that city had provided:
Ironically, Frontier Airlines pulled out of Fargo in 2010 after only two years of being “touted as a low-cost carrier that would bring down fares at Fargo’s Hector International Airport” (Associated Press, 2/5/10). Flaweigh surmised, “Once that happens in Bismarck, maybe the City of Bismarck will consider offering United a ‘break-even guarantee’ and some other concessions as they are currently offering our competitors.
Here we are, two years later, and Frontier is doing the two-year two-step. I guess any consternation at throwing $250,000 and other incentives at them doesn’t seem so unreasonable after all. But if a simple photo blogger like me could have seen this coming, why couldn’t any of the local geniuses have done the same?
Little boy loaded in the truck: check. Camera bag and tripod: check. Sandbar with grit getting everywhere: check. Battery…battery? Oh, seriously. I even have a dual battery grip on my 7D, so how in the world did I get Munsoned out in the middle of nowhere? Well, as you can see I still had something capable of taking photos with me: another Canon DSLR in its bag, which I’d forgotten to remove from my truck yesterday.
Fortunately, I realized this just in the nick of time, and was able to catch the sun just as it was about to disappear over the horizon. I was in the best spot I could think of on short notice, and I think it paid off nicely. Then we came home to watch Courageous with the rest of our little family while I stuck batteries into the charger.
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