W. Scott Olsen

W. Scott Olsen is a professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.  The author of twelve books of narrative nonfiction, he also writes reviews and articles for outlets such as Frames Magazine, LensCulture, and others.  He also hosts the photography podcast series for Frames. His photography has been featured regionally with solo exhibitions at places such as the Plains Art Museum, venues curated by The Arts Partnership, Atomic Coffee, frequently in The Forum, Broadway Square and now The Spirit Room! Internationally, his images have been featured in places such at aCurator, Frames, Terrain, LensCulture, and elsewhere. He is a mentor in the Vital Impacts International Environmental Fellowship program, the National Park Photography Expeditions program, and locally the Lake Region Arts Council mentorships.

The Attractive & Unexpected Error

One of the real advantages of digital photography is the ability to see, immediately, the result of a hope. Looking at the small screen on the back of the camera, I can tell if what I captured matches what I imagined. In the field, I can change a thousand settings, to correct or experiment, and I have a fast understanding of at least the rough draft of an image before post-processing. With film, however, this luxury—and that’s exactly what it is—does not exist. Photographers can meter and frame, can set iso and shutter speed, but until the film is developed, we have no real evidence of success or failure. The error can be in our understanding of the machine, and the error can be in the machine itself. What this means is film often captures an image we did not intend. And sometimes, if we are very lucky, that unexpected error is beautiful, as if the camera has an imagination of its own. Working on this project, my eye kept coming back to the images that did not achieve the photo-realism I was chasing and, instead, took a step toward the surreal.

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Jon Solinger

Jon Solinger’s work is motivated by his conviction that fascinating people with stories to tell are always nearby, and that the commonplace, the local and grassroots, is worthy of artistic expression. He aims to offer insight into his rural Minnesota community’s culture by bringing individual members into the art-making process, then sharing the work with a wider audience.

He has exhibited his work regionally, including at the North Dakota Museum of Art, Rourke Art Museum, Plains Art Museum and galleries in Minneapolis, Fargo and Fergus Falls. He resides with his family in Lida Township, Otter Tail County Minnesota, maintaining a studio there and working as the third-generation owner of Solinger’s Resort on Lake Lida.

Fish Stories

In 2013 I challenged myself to do portraiture, despite anxiety felt when working face-to-face with a subject, camera in hand. Since then, I have focused on making portraits of people in their workplaces, where the environment becomes an expressive part of the photograph’s composition.

I think of these photographs as workplace portraits, even though the people pictured are on vacation.  They eagerly venture out for hours at a stretch, working at a clearly defined task with a tangible reward: catch a fish, feed the family.

I enjoyed pulling my Mamiya 6 medium format camera out of the closet and shooting some film again. I always liked the square image it produces, and how this film size can record such rich detail, while still allowing for an easily portable camera.

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Chris Walker

Chris Walker works exclusively in photography, typically using a wooden, 8x10" view camera. His work has been featured on Smithsonian Magazine’s web presence, and his own website, chriswalkerphoto.com, is on The New York Times’ list of “Must See: Most Provocative Websites.” Walker’s current work blends engrained journalistic sensibilities with his deeply rooted concerns for our rural countryside. Chris lives in Fargo, North Dakota, and teaches lens-based media in the School of Communication & Journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

Various Stages of Prairie

My photography has always been rather amoebic – it’s all about stimulus / response. Our landscape is constantly in flux, no two days are exactly alike, and to look on it from the distance of time we can see clear trends and changes taking place that show why our present is vital to understand and document – because it won’t last long. In a country where the function of owning land has changed through the centuries from a means of attaining wealth to a reflection of how much wealth one has attained, we’re constantly reminded of the varying states of intent for the land that surrounds us. From a strictly personal perspective… After spending five years exclusively on learning video, it was refreshing to get back into the field with a big camera