Photos Posts

Ore Boat Cribbage Board

Ore Boat Cribbage Board

This mighty ore-boat cribbage board, acquired at a rummage sale, is not quite as buoyant as one might expect. Though the peg-holed deck quickly floods, the vessel remains afloat. This cherished antique has all the signs of having been someone’s high-school shop project, so we salute the mysterious nameless craftsperson for the worthwhile contribution to society. It looks like a name may have been penciled on the bottom at one point, but it’s far from legible now.

Selective Focus: Impermanence

Aaron Reichow

Aaron Reichow, untitled

My grandpa Mohrbacher moved to Duluth in 1928 and was a tenant at the Traphagen home, which was gutted by arson the week before I arrived here. I was lamenting this loss to a sauerkraut maker I’d met at a cider pressing who told me he’d lived there in the 70s when the home became the Redstone Apartments, and that he had some interior photos. They were beautiful. I could picture my grandpa in the same sun room, occupied by a new friend over 50 years later.

Selective Focus: Summer

Kip Praslowicz

Kip Praslowicz, “divers-diving”

Judging from friend’s accounts, this has been an atypical, consistently beautiful summer here. It is my least favorite season; too immoderate, languid, febrile. Still, I had my first (ever) swim in Superior, took in ballet outside the library, saw a film at a farm about Japanese dwarves, and laid in lots of grass. Best summer I’ve had since boyhood, though I’ve yet to do my annual roll down a steep hill- Leif Erikson, Chester Bowl?

Where in Duluth? #128

Looking at the image title is cheating

Selective Focus: Anniversaries

Kip Praslowicz

Kip Praslowicz, “Crowd. 4th of July Parade. Superior, WI”

This was a tough theme, and it’s gratifying to see how each of you broadened it: Richard’s 50th Anniversary of the Wright gas station in Cloquet and the 25th Beargrease, Kip’s shots from the 4th of July, or Kyle celebrating a month of Jane’s being cancer free. I went conventional, with my folks’ belated anniversary honeymoon. We mark time in many ways.

Where in Duluth?

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Hint: There are actual living birds in the photos, they’re just hard to see.

Two Young Fawns in the Backyard Last Night

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I just saw these two gems with their mom a week ago, but she is nowhere to be seen now, unfortunately. Possibly hit by a car. These kids seem old enough to fend for themselves, and I hope they do well.

Custom Cheetos Speedboat

cheetosboat

Is Custom Cab Co. in Duluth bringing their service to the lake with this tricked out Cheetos boat or is it secretly filled with an infinite amount of Cheetos?

Postcards from the Arrowhead Bridge

New Arrowhead Bridge 1927b

Arrowhead Bridge in the 1940s

The Arrowhead Bridge connected West Duluth to Superior’s Billing’s Park neighborhood across the St. Louis River for 57 years. Built by the Arrowhead Bridge Co., it opened on March 15, 1927. The company charged a toll to cross the bridge until 1963, when Minnesota and Wisconsin state officials paid $200,000 to make it a toll-free public bridge.

The Arrowhead Bridge was dismantled in 1985 after the opening of the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge.

Selective Focus: Color

Brandon Wagner

Brandon Wagner , “Hawaiian Punch”

Paul wins the horse race from the 30 or so photogs who snapped Kip’s birthday shots last week. And I’ve included a black and white photo, because as Van Gogh asserted, they’re colors too; though pedants would argue that in a subtractive color space, white is the absence of color. I bristle.

Selective Focus: Silence

Bente Soderlind

Bente Soderlind, untitled

As a Catholic in exile, I am grateful to have found  a far less-dogmatic refuge in Quaker meetings, where silence is a central tenet. These suited the syncretic nature of my beliefs, and afforded somewhere to weekly “center;” to hear that inner voice, or to just mutely chant the Meow Mix jingle (“I want tuna, I want chicken, Meow Mix flavors keep me lickin…”). But as is evident this week, there are many ways to calm the din, and places to find quiet.

Selective Focus: Music

Aaron Reichow

Aaron Reichow, untitled

Many very good submissions this week, and I’m especially happy with all the unusual vantages points:  Brian’s empathetic portrait, or that lovely flower in Gaelynn’s hair.  I was also moved by the shots of crowds, after all music is as much about how it is received as it is about how it is made.

St. Louis River photos from National Geographic

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On April 7, National Geographic published a photo gallery featuring images of the St. Louis River. The intro to the piece notes the St. Louis is “the eighth most endangered river in the U.S.,” according to a ranking by the advocacy group American Rivers.

Selective Focus: The Human Comedy

Jeremiah Brown

Jeremiah Brown, “Heiko”

Mirthful man that he was, Nietzsche wrote “it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.” There’s a recognition there that being human is a difficult endeavor, and that taking ourselves too seriously is one of the ways we compound the difficulty. Thanks to all who braved letting down their stoic fronts this week.

Where in Duluth?

pdd

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