When I think of school lunches I remember back to some pretty bland, mediocre stuff: the most basic of dishes, with the bare minimum of fruits and vegetables. So I was surprised and heartened to learn more about what Jean’s got going in St. Paul.

Menus have expanded to offer dishes representative of St. Paul’s diverse population. Efforts are made to source ingredients locally. Student helpers scrape food waste into compost bins prior to sending the trays to the dishwasher. As I don’t have kids myself I’m not really up on the state of school food programs in general, but what they’ve done in St. Paul gives me hope.

Not only that; the lunch ladies were super nice.

Some images from the story:

When photographing executives – or any busy person, really – you never know how receptive they will be to the photographic process. My magazine contact had asked for a fairly ambitious list of images: a group shot of James working with his team, and environmental portraits in three or four locations. Which is great, as long as the subject is willing and able to give a couple hours of time and attention to the process. Luckily, James was up for it, and I’m really thrilled with the photos. In particular, the shot above is one of my favorites in recent memory, in large part because it tells much of the story of James’s origins, as well as where he is today. It’s a personal image, and it’s not every subject that allows me in to create truly personal portraits.

Thanks again to James for his generosity of time and spirit. And more thanks to his assistant Angela for showing me around on my pre-shoot scouting trip and coordinating logistics.

The cover story was shot at the Seward Child Care Center. They’ve received a neighborhood grant from the coop to teach their kids about food. One of the teaching tools is a compost bucket, which they keep underneath the fish tank. They feed it their lunch scraps, and leaves, and keep it watered, checking in with the worms and keeping ‘em happy. If there’s one thing you want it’s happy worms. Ask any of these kids, they’ll tell you the same thing.

Next up was a house remodeled to Gold LEED certification a couple years ago – amazing and very personal in the way they used materials that in most remodel projects would’ve been chucked in the dumpster, to make a super livable and beautiful new home. Definitely check out the magazine for the whole story on this staircase and all the other sustainable touches. Pretty inspiring.

Lastly, we’re entering the inaugural year of Growing Lots, a new farm being created right on top of an old parking lot. It will operate on the community supported agriculture (CSA) model, which is a fairly cutting-edge idea for an urban core area not on one of the coasts. I got to photograph the team at Seward Redesign, an incredibly innovative real estate development firm who is sponsoring the project (among the many projects they’ve got going, all enhancing sustainability and livability in the Seward neighborhood).

How great a client is the Seward Coop, sending me to meet all these amazing folks?

I know it’s a good day when I open the info for a shoot and see a word like ‘Lasermonks.’ How could that not be a fun assignment???

Turns out that Lasermonks is the business arm of a monastery in Southwest Wisconsin that sells (among many other things) toner cartridges. They kind of stumbled upon the toner business on their way to other ideas: in the process of exploring how the monastery would provide for itself, the monastery was producing a lot of research documents, Father Bernard McCoy went to place an order for more toner. He was flabbergasted by the markup on toner, and the Lasermonk idea was born.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I went to the shoot; it was my first visit to a monastery. But Father Bernard and Sarah Caniglia (the Business Development Manager aka “Monk Helper”) were extremely warm and welcoming. I had a preconception that the monastic life is austere and detached, but at least at Our Lady of Spring Bank, outside of the morning hours spent chanting and in other devotional activities, the brothers are encouraged to explore and develop their personal talents and gifts, and the economic necessity of covering the expenses of the community pretty much requires a certain connectedness to the larger world.

Many thanks to Sarah and Father Bernard for their time, for the Benevolence Biscuits Sarah sent home for my dog, and for the glimpse they provided of the Lasermonk life!

Here’s the original version of the image Consumer Reports selected, along with a couple more of my favorites from the shoot.

The hallway where we did the portrait fit the direction I had been given really well, I thought: clean & simple, good for the laying over of text. When I scouted it I envisioned a nice natural light shot, using the row of windows running the length of the hall. Of course it was raining buckets the day my assistant TJ and I went out for the shoot, but we found a very fortuitous overhang outside one of the windows that was the perfect size for a big strobe with softbox. So we moved along Plan B: bring the sun with you! And make sure you’ve got it well-wrapped in tall kitchen garbage bags, with a couple sandbags weighing down the light stand. While we futzed with lighting, Ulf kept us entertained with tales of cross-country RV trips exploring America with his extended Swedish family. (Turns out car problems in the Dakotas aren’t much fun, but make for good stories when you get home.)

Thanks loads to Sanoma Magazines Finland for the assignment! Hopefully we’ll get another chance to work together in 2010.

Which is one of the reasons I’m so excited to be working with them on their imagery – you can see the first newsletter I shot for them in PDF form here. The other reasons to be excited: great people who are fully willing to collaborate on the vision of a story, a mission that I wholeheartedly believe in right in my backyard, and amazing layout and branding provided by Spunk Design Machine.

Our first project was a backyard barbecue to highlight the August Eat Local promotion.

For you photog-types out there, a note on the lighting. I was absolutely excited about the evening sun blaring in from behind, but using only natural light would either have blown out the background and washed out the vivid color on the table, or left everything not the sky way under-exposed. So I set my base exposure to where I wanted the background to be, then I set two speedlights back from the near corners of the table to provide fill. The sweet spot was an exposure that gave highlights from the strong backlighting, with just enough fill to give detail and max color on the table and on peoples’ faces. The two speedlights were set to identical power, providing an even field of light over the table and subjects, giving me the ability to change my angle and not have to worry about resetting the lights. Then I could concentrate on composition and directing the subjects.

Carleton is my alma mater, and I love shooting for the Voice. Not only is it a beautifully designed publication, but the subjects I get to photograph are such interesting, warm people.

Professor of Religion, Anne Patrick

Julie Klassen, Professor of German

Jim Fisher, Professor of Anthropology

As we made these photos we talked about how each felt about retiring, and I asked them to occupy the memories they each had teaching in the very classrooms we were using. As someone on the early end of a career, it was amazing trying to put myself in the shoes of these accomplished people as they thought about all the students they’ve taught, interacted with, and learned from. It’s jobs like this that make me love photography.

Brian, on the other hand, if our photo shoot time is any indication, is a prodigious consumer of tootsie roll pops. Sure, as I got set up he mentioned that it was “a little early” to be hitting the pops (10:30). Then he proceeded to take down four or five in a little over an hour. And unlike earlier snack series participants Alex or Carrie, there didn’t seem to be any ill effects. In fact I’m pretty sure he went straight to #6 as soon as I walked out the door.

But what can you expect? He’s a software engineer; those guys resort to some drastic measures to keep the focus going.

I was a little sad, but not exactly surprised to learn from Brian that you can’t – and never could – collect a certain number of wrappers with the Native American shooting the star and turn them in for free stuff. Apparently that was an urban legend. But Brian does remember bringing one of the special wrappers to the store when he was little and getting a free replacement pop. Man, those were the days.

Samosa jazz trio

The shoot was an interesting experience; it was the night before a gig, and the guys were trying to dial in a few brand new songs. From what I’ve heard, Samosa’s music relies on some very precise rhythmic teamwork, and the rhythms we’re talking about are *intricate.* So there was some tension in their practice space as everyone was trying to find the same page. Given the deadline they had, there wasn’t a lot of time for photos, but there’s never as much time as you’d like for a photo shoot. So I made the most of the spare basement space as I could and shot away for a few minutes and let them get back to their rehearsal.

I just heard this weekend from drummer Neil Wadhawan that Samosa has released a new CD, available for sale on CD Baby. Neil was also interviewed here on the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Great news, both since the images I shot for them a year ago are getting an audience, and because these guys can friggin’ play. If you get the chance, definitely get out and see Samosa.

More work at chrisbohnhoff.com.