Soot sample collection using static electricity

Soot from an electrical fire provided this excellent tape sampling opportunity.

Soot sample collection - 1 minute 7 seconds

Sheetrock mold growth time lapse

Seventeen days of mold growth on sheetrock compressed into 35 seconds

Sheetrock mold growth 17 days - 33 seconds

Frog sounds in April at Silverwood Park

Turn up the volume on this one. The landscape will be turning green soon.  The frogs voices were in good form.

Frogs at Silverwood - 33 seconds

Mirrored Meditations by N.G. Carlson

The latest in a series of mirror image photography books from N.G. Carlson is now available in Mirrored Meditations -paperback and  Mirrored Meditations- Kindle from Amazon.

Kaleidoscope image of a rusty pipe

These indoor and outdoor mirrored photos from the cold and snowy Minnesota Winter of 2019 provide a visual guide for meditation. This includes outdoor images images from decks and parks and inside buildings with frozen pipes that burst when the polar vortex moved north. The New Bell Museum provides a visual delight with wholly mammoths and a close encounter with the sun. A brief trip to Walt Disney World in Florida provides a warm respite and a welcome change of scenery.

The video below uses some if the images from the book with further images inspired by the book.

Mirrored Meditations - 1 minute 46 seconds

Fireworks, Flowers, Forests and the Minnesota State Fair by N.G. Carlson

The fourth in a series of mirror image photography books is now complete with shots taken from Minnesota during 2018. The book departs slightly from the format of earlier books with the inclusion of wildflower photos with no mirror imaging. Many of these photos reveal the intimate relationship between flowers and their insect pollinators.

The paperback version of Fireworks, Flowers, Forests, and the Minnesota State Fair: Image Reflections from Minnesota is available from Amazon.  There is also a kindle version of
Fireworks, Flowers, Forests, and the Minnesota State Fair: Image Reflections from Minnesota that is best viewed from a portrait orientation.

All photos were taken with Samsung cellphone cameras. The mirror image photos were taken using the Camera 360 app.

Mall of America floor mirrored - N. Carlson

The early section of the book shows the interiors of the Mall of America and Target Center. Photos from the University of Minnesota and Silverwood Park cover early spring through the fall.

Fireworks from both St. Anthony Villagefest and the Minnesota State Fair provide interesting photos of alien creatures, animals, and other images that will spark the imagination.

The video below uses some of the wildflower images from this the book.

Tom Petty - Wildflowers  3 minutes and 13 seconds

Scholars wall middle west

The scholar's walk connects Northrup Mall to the McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota. 

Second City online courses

During the months of March and April I took an on-line course in writing satire for the Internet from Second City Comedy based out of Chicago. We had weekly assignments to produce initial drafts of with a well defined point of view (POV).  We also learned techniques for generating ideas.  One of the former instructors, Scott Dikkers, wrote a book that supplements the information from the class.

I enjoyed the opportunity to learn from the instructors and from the other classmates.  I'm gearing up for the 2 month class section 3 in September.

SC Improv at work classes - 2 min.