David Abele gets to spend time in some pretty cool spaces.

David Abele, Lakes Sotheby's Realtor

He sells real estate in Minneapolis, specializing in the downtown market – a place full of windows looking out over the entire metro area. I photographed him in the Skyscape development, a beautiful high rise near the Metrodome – the first of the Sample Circuit sponsors to subject himself to a small portrait/interview experience for the Sample Circuit Blog.

I work with several realtors, and something that I really appreciate about those that I’ve met is their involvement in the community. There’s a real appreciation for neighborhood, and history, and how cities fit together. With David, one of the ways that interest manifests itself is through philanthropy: he’s been on numerous boards and contributes generously to many more that do important work downtown and across Minneapolis.

Plus he’s a really funny guy.

More work at chrisbohnhoff.com

My wife Johanna and I have a long, positive connection to the Birchwood. I moved to Seward, blocks from the B’wood in 2001, and ever since it’s been my dining yard stick: where should we go tonight? We could go to the Birchwood. . . creative, good, local, organic food, walk-able, Surly on tap, or. . .

Then when Johanna was in grad school she held down a counter job at the Birchwood and loved it. Even though she’s gainfully employed in her chosen field of study, I would say on a monthly basis (and whenever we eat at the Birchwood) she daydreams about giving it all up and returning to her spot behind the counter, chatting with the regulars, giving the occasional latte a foam flurish. I also held a job there for a couple months, right when I got back home from my stint in photo school.

What I’m trying to say is, I’m down with the Birchwood.

That’s why I’m really excited to have started a fun project with them, shooting portraits of their employees of the month (stay tuned!), as well as some special events like last weekend’s Wine and Dine, a seven course extravaganza complete with wine flight and over the top creations of head chef Marshall and pastry chef Sandra. Of special note, speaking with my diner’s hat on for a sec, were the small plates on the menu: the beef carpaccio with chevre and beets were as light and delicate as a dish containing raw beef can be; and the sea scallop, black rice, and caviar were well complimented by a few unassuming strands of fried jicima. A job well done.

Plus, even if you don’t live in the neighborhood, when you’re in the Birchwood it just kind of feels homey and nice. A special event like the Wine and Dine has the energy of a truly special family occasion, everyone’s on their best behavior, and all the skills come out. Good stuff, and I was very happy to be a part of it.

Duck in the kitchen plating line

Duck on the table

Beef Carpaccio

More work at chrisbohnhoff.com.

One of the things I do in the name of paying the bills is photographing new real estate listings for an agency in town. They’re great to work with, and I enjoy the variety of the places they send me. Most of the time, given the requirements of the average home shopper, the houses have been ’staged’ for showing prior to my arrival; furniture and furnishings have been supplemented, everything is perfectly clean. . . the house has been sterilized and packaged up so that prospective buyers can imagine themselves in the space.

Not so with the house I shot yesterday.

It was a sprawling rambler out in the woods in a remote outer ring suburb – a house where you walk in and you smell the smell of grandparents. Just last year I helped my Grandmother out of the house she’d lived in for over 50 years, and her house had smelled comforting in almost exactly the same way.

Even though most of the previous residents’ stuff had been moved out, there were still things lingering that fit together in a way that gave me this sense that I knew them: the 19th Century-era German Bible, the knotty pine, the piano in the corner, this well-worn armchair in the window looking out over the back yard. Such a personal thing photographing a person’s house. So rich in the sense of presence is a house that a family has lived in for decades.

I’ve been photographing real estate listings for the past year, and I’ve never lingered over the act before, but in this house I sat down in the armchair’s dented seat for a minute. I imagined what it would have felt like for the owner to sit in that spot before moving on or out, after what I imagined to have been a long stay. I congratulated him on a job well done and wished him well, then moved on to the next room.

More work at chrisbohnhoff.com.

As a photographer you get to put yourself in a diverse collection of spaces to do your thing. One day it’s a sawdust-laden construction site, next it’s a cubicle farm. Sometimes it’s a beautiful, minimalist fine dining establishment in the region’s premier modern art museum.

Man, I like those days.

Yesterday I got to spend a few minutes with Asher Miller, Executive Chef at 20.21 Restaurant & Bar, the Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the Walker Art Museum. The concept of the restaurant is an interesting mix: the decor is monochrome with pink accents, the cuisine is Asian, and the service is French. And the kitchen is open to the dining room, as is the view to the expanse of traffic below. Nutty.

Asher is a really cool, down to earth guy. I discovered we have several things in common: we look kind of similar (as remarked upon by my Sample Circuit colleague, Melinda Feucht), we both spent a few years at Carleton College and have a complicated relationship with the place, and we both like Boca Chick’n Patties.

But what really made my day was when he told me I was the easiest photographer he’s worked with. And then he made me lunch, which was delicious: potstickers with a beautiful, mellow chinese dark vinegar and chili oil dipping sauce; a citrus chicken breast salad with candied cashews and crisp fried wonton strips; and a dessert sampler of chili merengue, cinnamon brownie, sesame caramel, and a bite of some Asian lemon/lime fruit tart that I forget the name of. A simple assortment of classic dishes, but the attention to each component made it exceptional.

More work at chrisbohnhoff.com.

I don’t have any kids of my own. My best friends have two young daughters who I see all the time, I’ve spent plenty of time around other peoples’ kids, and I consider myself a fan of the kid. And moreover, I feel like kids generally like me too, because I have absolutely no problem regressing mentally and emotionally to the level of a five year old. It’s pretty therapeutic, actually.

Having none of my own, however, puts me at a disadvantage from time to time.

I’ve started doing some work with the Plymouth Neighborhood Foundation, a great group that works on a number of fronts within the broad category of creating low income housing opportunities. Last week I visited two of the properties they manage to take a couple portraits, one of which was a family portrait: a Somali woman, her 18 month old son, and her 5 month old daughter.

Hawa and her kids

Rapport with my subject is absolutely the most important thing in my portrait work. If there’s no trust or element of connection between me and the people I’m shooting, the photos end up bland and uninspired, no matter how interesting the composition or how intricate the lighting. But also, that connection is why I’m a photographer. How many jobs are there where you can just enter the home of complete strangers and get a glimpse of their life? This kind of shoot is exactly why I love my job.

But back to rapport. When there are kids in a shoot, they are the wellspring of all rapport: if you get them on your side, the adults will be with you. If you lose them, the adults will be spending all their energy getting the kids in the game and none of their energy making some kind of connection with the camera. So we walk in to the apartment, and the son, Aris, has this look like, Who are you and why are you in my house? So I get to work. I make eye contact, get the smiles going. As I start opening my light cases and camera bag I make faces to him that say, Ooh, what’s this great stuff? You wanna look? And that’s when the control slips from my hands, about 48 seconds in to the shoot.

Turns out that Aris is at the exact age where everything he does is a search for the edges – is standing on the couch going to get him yelled at? How about pulling his sister’s hair? (Not that these things happened; they’re just examples.) If you’ve ever been around toddlers you know the button pushing I’m talking about. So as soon as I open my light case, I’ve way oversold how interested Aris needs to be about what’s going on; he’s very quickly all over everything, pulling out cords, trying to actually *jump* on my camera bag, wanting to open everything.

As I’m putting these very breakable and expensive electronic lights up on light stands around the room, I realize the scope of the tactical error I’ve made. Aris is totally sold on how fun this stuff is, and what would be really fun would be to yank it all down and see what happens when it hits the floor. So he’s toddling from light to light, making like he’s preparing to pull. Luckily, part of what he’s doing is testing Hawa, so as he does these things he looks over at her and at me as owner of these great toys, to gauge our reactions. We have time to lunge over and stop him before he does any damage.

Meanwhile, between lungings, I’m metering the light, composing the shot, trying to get a word with Hawa. It’s kind of lunacy, but the shot comes together and it’s time to get the family sitting on the couch together. So Hawa drags Aris away from the lights and onto the couch and I get a couple shots before Aris squirms away. I play goalie and protect the gear. Hawa re-apprehends Aris. We get a couple more shots.

And so on.

Luckily, Hawa’s daughter was just stoic. I can’t remember her name, which is fairly fitting: you always remember the troublemaker more than the good kid (spoken by a classic good first child). I was able to get 15 or so shots before our demands to stay on the couch transformed Aris’ fun into definitely not fun, rendering him pretty much unphotogenic for the purposes of a photo shoot meant to show happy apartment residents. We called it a wrap, and I have never packed gear so quickly.

More work at chrisbohnhoff.com.