Revisiting Cottage View

I made a return visit to the Cottage Grove Drive In theater on Friday. My original photo at this location I really liked, but I wished I had a bit more sun light in the photo. Besides, this is the final season the theater will be open and a photo like this will be gone forever unfortunately. I am happy with the amount of daylight left in this shot.

There is talk of putting a walmart store in this location. Yet there is another one of these stores in the neighboring city to the north, south and west, all within a 15 minute drive of this location. Their thinking is it will bring in shoppers from the other communities. Why on earth would someone drive to Cottage Grove to shop at walmart when there is already one in their city? Wouldn't it make more sense to build something original that the other communities don't offer? I've talked to my wife about running for city council in the past, this may be the last straw that gets me to be serious about it.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Quito, Ecuador
Bastia, France
Wellington, New Zealand

Windows Galore

Seen At Holman Field

Home of the Minnesota Army National Guard Aviation is located at Holman Field just across the Mississippi River from downtown St Paul.

Pipes, Tubes and Water

The lock and damn in hastings. Just showing a little bit of the mechanics of the damn.

Crossing The Mississippi River

Just showing the view as you cross 35E going south over the Mississippi River. Take note of the few houses you are able to see in the photo. [click to enlarge]

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Flagstaff, Arizona
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nantes, France

My Feet On The Ground

Yesterday I showed you the penthouse level of The Saint Paul Hotel, today is the lower level, more specifically the lobby entrance.

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Quincy, Massachusetts
St Paul, Minnesota
Paris, France

Penthouse

One building I've wanted to capture a night photo of is The St Paul Hotel. As long as I can remember, this is downtown St Paul's most famous hotel. The historic value of this building, I wouldn't know where to begin. It is however within a stones throw of yesterday's Landmark Center photo.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Miami, Florida
Saigon, Vietnam
Wichita, Kansas

Not The Red Roof In

This is historic Landmark Center, downtown St Paul. Believe it or not, over 18 years ago, I was dancing inside this building at a prom. It was my soon to be wife's prom at the time. Considering what this building was originally, for it to be used to host a prom many years later is, well, laughable.

Clean Up In Isle Four

From the September 1 racing night I attended with my family, I was following our company sponsored car, the number 31 car. I was just about take a photo while it was coming out of turn number four at Elko Speedway, when all of a sudden, the tires squealed, a car spun out, a minor fender bender occurred shortly after this shot. It really was a lucky shot. I was planning on a different photo, but ended up capturing this in action pre-accident. The red and orange cars directly behind it would eventually crash into the car that is not headed in the proper direction in the photo.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Naples, Florida
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Detroit, Michigan

More Streaking Fun

In yesterday's photo, I mentioned the stop light had just turned green as I took the photo, a few seconds later, I took another one as the cars passed by. It's quite a different take on the same view. The streaks of head lights, some odd streaks from reflections perhaps, the lit up street, the shadow from the rock on the sidewalk. A lot of small differences on a calm night on Highway 61

As You Enter Hastings

While I was standing on the bridge in Hastings that overlooks the downtown area, I mentioned I was standing about two feet of sidewalk and behind me was Highway 61. I snapped a quick shot of the road using the railing as my tripod. The camera is looking south for this one at the incoming traffic, the stoplight had just turned green in the distance.

Curb Side View

The city hall in Hastings, I've been here before and have shown you the rear of the building. I promised to return and show you other views. This is one of the side entrances to the building. The trees really hide a lot of the beauty of the building unfortunately.

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Constanta, Romania
Baziege, France
Szentes, Hungary

Just A Bit Of Fog

An opposite view of my September 10 subject, Cottage View Drive In, during the morning fog.

Do I Creep You Out

My son spotted this creepy crawler one morning on his way to school just sitting there waiting for the next meal. It was the size of an average grape. I have not looked to see what type of spider it is, but I'm glad it was outside of my home and not on the inside.

Under The Lights

I'm finding night photography can be a challenge, especially when there is movement involved. Throw in a lack of a tripod and to me this is a so-so photo. I'm so new at night time photos, so for me, this is on the job training. Try a a setting, see how they turn out, tweak the settings, see how it looks now. It's coming around, photo by photo. The darkness adds in so many elements to discover. Those of you who are familiar with nighttime photography, I'll take any advice I can get.

Any way, today's photo is from the same game as yesterday's football photo between Cottage Grove and Woodbury. This time, the sun has dropped below the horizon, the lights are on, and Zentmrs of San Diego, California, formerly of Woodbury, Class of 1984, Woodbury Royals are victorious. I graduated from St Paul Humboldt, so this doesn't bother me all that much.

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Jakarta, Indonesia
Miami, Florida - little older, but a great football photo
Detroit, Michigan

Cottage Grove Wolfpack Football

Last Friday, the Wolfpack of Cottage Grove played host to rival city Woodbury Royals [the city directly to the north]. Despite the Wolfpack leading at halftime 21-10, they couldn't hold off the Royals in the second half and lost, 22-21. My son plays his first football game tomorrow morning, he's in 3rd grade football. The boys on the team are encouraged to attend the varsity team play on Friday nights. So last Friday was the first high school football game I had been to in 20 years. The school pride by both schools was a bit over the top for me, but again, it's been a while since I had gone to a high school game.

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New York, New York
Van Buren, Arkansas
Brighton, UK
Selma, Alabama

Stars And Stripes In The Sky

Okay, make that one bright star and many strange striped clouds. So my wife calls me around 5:15 today and asks me if I had the camera with me, I did thankfully. She said I should grab the camera and take some photos of the clouds. She'd never seen anything like this before in her lifetime. What she described from her vantage point was there is the sun, low in the horizon with cloud rays coming from it [sort of like when you see sun rays through the clouds, but these were actually clouds] and the tube like clouds were from one part of the horizon to the other side.

She peaked my curiosity, I grabbed the camera and went outdoors to see the sky. I opened the door and there they were, just as she described. It was amazing seeing clouds like this. I can't explain how or why they were like this, I'd have to ask the local weather boy on this one. The photos don't do it justice as I couldn't capture the entire sky, but the cloud stripes were there from the western horizon all the way over to the eastern horizon, to the north and south as you can see in the smaller photos below.

  

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London, England
Boston, Massachusetts

Mini Car Display

Every time I look at this photo, it looks like these are tiny model cars. In actuality, these cars are the real thing. I made it to Elko Speedway back in August, but the race was canceled due to rain. I was given race rain checks for two dates in September. I made it to the first one on September 2nd over Labor Day weekend. It was difficult to take photos of fast moving cars in the dark. So much blur, so much movement, but I was able to get one photo that I absolutely love, today's photo. I was panning with the cars as they moved around the track. I was focusing in on the car my work sponsors, the number 31 car, driven by Mike Hanson of Turn-Key Racing. During the nights race, Mike started in the 4th position, but ended up in 6th by races end. He is in the white car in front of the pack, he was able to hold back the majority of the cars behind him during the entire race.

I'm also posting a couple of the failed, terrible pan shots I attempted trying to get one decent shot. The next race I go to, I'm going to try a few more camera settings and experiment a bit more with night, action shots. I will say, the failed photos have a uniqueness about them and they do make for an interesting shot.
 

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
St Paul, Minnesota - Carol's final daily photo post
Chandler, Arizona
Selma, Alabama

I Want A Redo

I had hoped this photo would have turned out a tad better, or I'm being to critical today. I was waiting for a car to drive past me so I could get the lights in the photo. Back up on the river bridge, I waited, and waited, and waited. If you've been following along the past few days, the streets looked and were very deserted. Finally a car passed, I wasn't fully prepared. I set the camera down on my camera case, pressed the button and the two second delay had to elapse before the photo took. The photo is a bit crooked, if I straighten it, the tail lights go out of the picture. The photo is out of focus a bit because of the cars on the bridge shaking the camera, the tail lights are almost out of frame, the lighting is to bright in areas.

Straight Out Of A Hollywood Movie Set

From the same night I took the September Theme Day photo in Hastings, I walked a bit down the road and took this one using a garbage can as a tripod! Many of the comments mentioned the street looked deserted, [take another look at the September 1 photo and you'll see blurs of people on the sidewalks]. When I took this today's photo, there were no people in the shot and it looks even more deserted with very little cars in the photo.

Friday Night At Cottage View Drive-In

Summer is winding down, Cottage View Drive-In will soon be closed. With the kids back in school, the drive-in is only open on Friday and Saturdays. I heard from the staff that this will be the last year of the drive in, the land will be sold. He did say, the own has said this very thing for the last six years. I'm keeping my fingers crossed this is not the final year of one of the two outdoor theaters in the Twin Cities.

I took this photo just before it was completely dark out, standing in the brush with my tripod. I was not alone, there was me and several dozen mosquitoes swarming around me. I walked away with a couple of outstanding shots and 19 bug bites from my friends. I actually left much sooner than I wanted to because the bugs were so bad that night.

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Newcastle, Australia
Paris, France
Hong Kong, China

Just Married And Sitting In Traffic

Congratulations to the bride and groom whomever you are. I was sitting in traffic on my way home and the SUV with the words Just Married written on it slowly made their way past me. I had to grab my camera and take a photo of it. This was on a Thursday when I took the photo, not your normal Saturday wedding. I am happy for them and wish them well.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
St Paul, Minnesota
Torino, Italy
Montreal, Canada

Late Bloomer

The bees have been busy as of late, we have one flower bush that is just starting to flower. It's taken all summer long for these to start to bloom. The bees have taken to this flower and I cannot recall the name of it, but it has a very late summer bloom. I've seen about six to twelve bees roaming on the flowers, oddly enough, it's only this type of bee that I've seen on it.

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Saigon, Vietnam
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Villigen, Switzerland

Fantasy Football Season 2007

It is that season once again, Thursday, September 6 kicks off the new NFL season and the Fantasy Football craze begins. These photos were captured at the football draft that I host with a few of my friends about a week ago. There are 12 of us in the league and everyone one of holds on to the hope of winning it all at seasons end. I am in this photo, I'm the one with the red shirt, Nick is in the middle and fellow blogger, Short Arm Guy is on the right. The smaller photos below has everyone else in the league except for myself and our auctioneer, he's just out of frame unfortunately.

More than 13 million people play fantasy football via the internet, yeah, 13 million people. That just boggles my mind. I heard the best online video game only has about 8 million people, that game is World Of Warcraft.

 

2 Minutes For Tripping

Oh wait, that's hockey where you get a two minute penalty. Third grade soccer at Kingston Park in Cottage Grove can get a bit rough at times. When I took this photo, seconds after I snapped the shot, the boy in the red shirt fell to the ground. The red team was allowed to kick the ball from the spot of the foul.

You Are Here

There I was, standing on the white X mark on the map looking at what field I needed to be at. I felt it was appropriate to take a photo of this eventful occasion and share it with you all.

My 3 Daily Photo Favorites:
Maple Ridge, Canada
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Grenoble, France

The Road To Nowhere - Revisited

A photo at the request of a comment from Don of Rotterdam, Netherlands: he requested a photo without the fog from a post I made on August 26 featuring fog in Newport as I drove to work. I described as best as I could of what you couldn't see in the photo from memory. The crane is gone, the houses are there on the hill, [you'll have to trust me on this, the leaves are blocking their view, but I did a pretty good job from memory. There are a few items out of frame, but the lens wouldn't allow them to be in this shot. Plus it took me a few days to get this shot, I took it on a morning when the traffic was light and was a bit safer to take a photo.


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Manila, Philippines
St Paul, Minnesota
New York, New York
Prague, Czech Republic
London, England

Enjoy The Holiday Weekend

If you're in Minnesota, watch the speeds, stay between the lines. The state patrol is working the highways in force during the final weekend before schools begins. I was out and about this evening and can verify the increased police activity.

Theme Day: Street Lights And Street Signs

Septembers theme day in the City Daily Photo community are street lights and street signs. My photo is from Hastings overlooking downtown hastings. The rows of lights has always caught my eye when I've driven past it and today you get to see my view of the street lights.

To view other 'street lights and street sign' photos from other Daily Photo participants, select the cities listed below this photo:


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