Coming Soon: A preliminary photographic study of manufactured cultural identity inspired by Barnesville, Minnesota -- Home of Potato Days.

For information on attending Potato Days 2008 in Barnesville August 22 and 23, click here.

Today... a photographic adventure with musician Dory Kahale a.k.a. Dirty McKenzie. We stumbled upon Columbia Gardens -- an absolute haven of visual delight over in Northeast. More Columbia Gardens here. More Dirty McKenzie here.

I am a Big [BIG] fan of online shopping. Or - conversely, I am not much of a fan of non-virtual shopping. So, I am pleased to announce the launch of the Becky Olstad Photography online Store! Let's go shopping!

Bring back the art of correspondence by putting the art back in correspondence. Now for sale -- Sets of 12 notecards featuring either:
Selected images from the planetarium

or Selected Minnesota Landscapes.

Shop online now Here!
Check back soon for additional items including prints, buttons and handmade books.

If you have any questions about the store or if you'd like to see additional merchandise for sale - Contact Me.

High Contrast Cyanotype - My favorite so far.

Original Image:

Regular visitors to the website may have noticed a new look -- stayed tuned for even more Big changes including an online store -- whoo!
2006 Boston Marathon: Commonwealth Avenue

I've recently been collaborating with a friend on some ideas for some product packaging and kickin' it old school with some cyanotypes.

The cyanotype is a fabulous summer photo process because when you're not painting with chemicals in your closet - you get to be outside in the sun making pictures. However, I've been running into a few issues with paper types and, as a result, have been experimenting with a few Banksy-inspired alternatives.

U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken won the DFL endorsement after one round of balloting on Saturday in Rochester, Minnesota.

U.S. Senate hopefuls, Al Franken (left) and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer (right) answered questions during the DFL state convention in Rochester, Minnesota.

U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken hugs his wife Franni after receiving the DFL endorsement in Rochester, Minnesota on Saturday.

After receiving the DFL endorsement in Rochester, Minnesota on Saturday, U.S. senate candidate Al Franken will compete against incumbent Republican Norm Coleman.

Selected images from my 2006 trip to Gulu, Uganda are on display at Spill the Wine in Minneapolis. Stop by. Check it out. Let me know what you think.


For over 20 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, has waged war on the Ugandan government. The roots of the conflict between the north and south in Uganda come from the divisive political climate that was embedded by British colonialism. In this war however, Joseph Kony, (a northerner) terrorizes the civilian population of the northern region – not only as a means of maintaining attention and challenging President Yoweri Museveni but also in response to the lack of support his opposition movement has received from residents in the region.

In 1996, in an effort to provide better protection to the residents of the north, President Yoweri Museveni forced 1.7 million Ugandans into camps for internally displaced persons. Within the camps, residents face starvation, poor sanitation, psychosocial trauma, lack of education, HIV/AIDS and prostitution in gross levels. Nearly 1,000 residents die each week as a result of the camps' conditions. These conditions exacerbate the hostility between residents in the north and the government in the south. Some residents in the camps believe the government is trying to kill them.

The impact the conflict has had on the children of the northern region is terrifying. As many as 66,000 children have been abducted over the course of the war by the LRA who use them as child soldiers and sex slaves. For the children in the camps, fear of abduction and forced soldiering are not the only insecurities they face. Food shortages, poor or nonexistent health care and a wrecked educational system are daily realities. In some areas, the student to teacher ratio has been as high as 300:1, the student to classroom ratio 400:1 and the student to toilet ratio, 150:1. In many cases, the school fees are prohibitively expensive and many children are unable to attend at all.

While peace talks have been active on and off since 2006, comprehensive efforts to expand access to quality education, healthcare and livelihoods are urgently needed if the children of northern Uganda are to overcome the legacy of decades of war.

For more information on the conflict in northern Uganda, visit www.ugandacan.org.

This week at work brought me backstage at the Bryant Lake Bowl with comedian Jenn Schaal:

More coming soon to: www.libertyparade2008.com.

This week at work, I stopped by the studio of Eddie Hamilton to photograph some paintings. Check out the happenings over at painteddiepaint.com

The more I look at these images, the less I want to explain them. Beware the Ides of March.

this week - (playing) - at work:

Special thanks this week to Sally for being a good sport at the Rollerdome and to Jen & Ed for helping me out at the gokart shoot. I forgot how fabulous the Rollerdome is - I'm quite certain it's time to invest in a new set of wheels. (Although, posting images from two different shoots this past weekend makes me realize how Awesome it would be to drive gokarts around the rollerdome -- which, to my knowledge, is something they neither encourage nor allow.)

This week at work took me to Rehbein's BMX Arena. This place is spectacular. If you're looking to try something new Rehbein's has open practice on Tuesdays and Fridays where everyone is welcome, from the dudes in the air pictured below, to complete beginners.

The water park at Thumper Pond in Ottertail, Minnesota has a water slide that allows you to select your own visual and audio experience. The field of water slide technology seems to have made significant advancements since the days of my youth. At the water slide I knew as a child the water pressure was usually hit or miss. Sometimes, it would slow to a trickle bringing you to a seemingly anticlimactic halt in the middle of your descent until the child behind you, riding the wave of renewed pressure, inevitably rounded the corner slamming into you creating an awkward mass of tangled adolescents whom it would subsequently dump into the landing pool. The landing pool was just shy of being large enough to stop your momentum from slamming you into the opposite wall. You were guaranteed to chip a tooth if you ever went down head first. And, the CPR skills of the 'life guard' staff were questionable at best. Who knew the field of water slide technology had made such significant advancements in the last 20 years? How delightful!

This year marks the second annual photo shoot for Ken & Sally's Christmas card. It's always a tremendous amount of fun to photograph the cast of characters these two create. Below, a few out takes:

Check out Balls Cabaret every Saturday at midnight at the Southern Theater. Whether you're a performer or observer - you never quite know what you'll get from this Twin Cities institution that provides an open stage to aspiring and established performing artists. But quite often, it's delightful.

This week at work: Minneapolis night life -- at noon.

This week at work... more night life:

Camp, a new bar in St. Paul features the lovely Miss Ti-Nea's Pop & Soul review on Friday nights. She'll blow your mind.

Special thanks to Jeff and Lia for helping me out with a shoot at Fuji Ya:

This week at work is exceptionally busy. Assuming all goes well, stop back for more pics more often. Tonight I headed out to Apple Valley to check out salsa dancing at Enjoy!. (Hmmm, a grammatical quandary - if the name of the establishment ends in a punctuation mark other than that of the author's intended usage, is it grammatically acceptable to double up?!) The dancing was quite fantastic - after a 9:00 lesson, which Enjoy! hosts every Wednesday, the dance floor attracts a rather eclectic group of people. It was great.

This week at work, I photographed the Ballet of the Dolls' production of Le Chat Noir ( a french cabaret ). Housed in the Ritz theater in northeast Minneapolis -- this innovative dance company puts on a fabulous show. If you miss(ed) Le Chat Noir - I suggest you reserve your seats for the Nutcracker?! (not so) Suite - December 12-31.

This week at work we covered the Minnesota Roller Girls at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul. It was a tremendous amount of fun and I highly recommend checkin' out the next bout.

This week at work I celebrated my German roots at Oktoberfest in New Ulm, Minnesota with Lynn, Carol and the crew. The people were fabulous. The weather was great. The beer was tasty.





And of course, a few behind the scenes...

Fun with German hats!


Self portrait in sun glasses.

This week at work I finally found my night life. Images from The Weakerthans at The Triple Rock Social Club:


The Weakerthans put on a fabulous show to a sold out all ages crowd.
We also hit up the Turf Club in St. Paul - while the music was a bit of a bust ... I did find a Blatz Attack:

Besides good music and great beer - it was one of those rare nights when I got paid to go to work with excellent friends. I would like to send a very special thank you to Dan and Michael at Aesthetic Apparatus for allowing us to invade their studio and for taking us out on the town.

Thanks Michael and Dan! You're the best.

This week at work: Canoes!




When not riding against the current in a shallow river on a tippy canoe full of thousands of dollars worth of gear - we finagled the rocks. That is where we found this guy:

This week at work we were shooting Night Life in the Twin Cities. Let me first start off by explaining that, my night life, if you can call it that, typically consists of a trip to the dive bar across the street - where the beer is eight dollars a pitcher, the popcorn is free, the juke box hosts a variety of Johnny Cash and the same man has been coming every day at noon for 25 years and every day he drinks until he falls asleep at the bar.

My dive bar, however, is presumably not quite tourism worthy - and the night life we did cover was highly unfamiliar territory. To the wealth of inebriated folk who called me 'Paparazzi' with either a fit of uproarious laughter or a smug grimace filled with disdain - thanks. Thank you very much. I hope the next day you grasped a faint memory of having been captured on camera as the drunkest, most intolerable version of yourself. And, also, there are no paparazzi in this town -- let's all take a moment and be thankful for that.

To the inebriated underclassman in Dinkytown who repeatedly obstructed the view from my lens and then loudly exclaimed to your friends, "She's got a rough job..." I must respond, "Yes, at times it can be difficult. It is a lot of hard work. But, at the end of the day - I get paid to take pictures for a living and that is pretty rad." ("Oh, yeah - and also, your backpack full of Budweiser is not as inconspicuous as you might think.)

On to some pictures...





...and one from behind the scenes:

This week at work we headed to the Classic Car Cruise-In on Main Street in Hastings. The majority of people in the quaint town were quite lovely.




I'd like to take a moment tell you that my father is simply awesome. Thanks Dad, for lending the crew your spectacular car and for being the best dolly grip in the business.

Behind the scenes with Dad, the crew and Dad's '66 Mustang. (Photo: Steve Barone)

Hi-tech set.

Last weekend I explored the Brainerd International Raceway for the Muscle Car Shootout. There were lots of cars... and drunk people. Presumably the drunk people were not in cars but rather they were driving four wheelers.

(* Disclaimer: While there were many intoxicated attendees at the track - neither of the individuals pictured below were drunk. At least to the best of my knowledge.)

This past week we've been on the road exploring rural Minnesotan night life and visiting Voyageurs National Park.

We met all kinds of great people and interesting characters...




...and the scenery wasn't bad either.

for more behind the scenes from this week at work - try catching the extra on KARE 11(msp) at 10:00 8.1