I had a shoot today for a client that needed some head shots for press releases. When I arrived to meet him at the Guthrie, I was *thrilled* to see this head of hair! I mean, all portraits are gonna look good when you have THAT going for you, am I right?Anyway, I forgot to ask this client if it was OK to post his image on my blog, so I chose this shot because he remains anonymous. Plus? You get that pretty view of the riverfront. Happy Monday!

Today we headed west to Glencoe, Minnesota. Sadly, this was not a fun visit, as we were attending the wake of Julie's father who passed away last week. It has been a strange year so far as I've been to 2 funerals and had 2 friends give birth -- 2012 is full of highs and lows so far....Jamie and I had never been this far west in the state of Minnesota before... at least during the daytime, so I snapped a few shots on the way.Jamie always loves it when a field has one or two trees in the middle, so I shot this one for him. But I had a tough time choosing today's shot, because I also really liked this one. Which do you prefer?

Tonight we headed over to the Howler CD release show at the Triple Rock. Howler is this local band that not many people had heard of 6 months ago, but apparently they are all the rage over in Europe, and so they started getting more radio play here. And they *are* good. I don't mean to discount that by the "over in Europe" comment, it was just weird to have a local band blowing up overseas and be kind of unknown around their hometown.Part of that, it turns out, is because they are very young kids (I doubt they are even 21) and they are from the suburbs (or at least the lead singer is). The average age in the crowd was mixed because while I was surrounded by 18-20 year olds up front, a lot of the band members' parents came to the show, evening things out a bit.Anyway, they didn't go on until after 11:30, and because apparently I'm getting old (or I can't sleep because I keep thinking of stuff I should be doing for my class), I could barely keep my eyes open and was thrilled that their set was only 30 minutes. And yup, that's two shows this week that didn't even last an hourOh! And the dude in the headband? Yeah, he was in that shot two days ago that I posted. I had no idea he was in both bands.

Oh look! Our new bed was delivered today! And here is Merlin, right in his "proper" place. Other than that, the day was full of class preparation and ... um... more class preparation. Pretty dull around here, but I did get to work by the fire all day, and that was nice.

Tonight we headed over to 7th St. Entry to catch Dom, a band that I had on my list of acts to catch last April, but that was scheduled after a long run of other shows (and I was sick), so I skipped. In all fairness (and in defense of me not being a wimp) that week I saw Black Joe Lewis, Those Darlins, Titus Andronicus with Bright Eyes two nights in a row and then Joy Formidable. So see? I love this town. All of that amazing music in just four days! And you can see why I was worn out by the time Dom rolled into town. But I digress...We were excited to see them tonight, and were absolutely delighted when we entered the club to find the opener, Nice Purse (above), covered face paint, halfway disrobed, with a stage full of balloons, piñatas and birthday cakes and some of the band members wearing party hats. And these were kids. Literally (had the Xs on the hands to prove it). But they had a blast on stage and it was infectious.And then Dom came on, and the lead singer was surly and complaining about the sound and they were skipping songs in their setlist (which was right in front of me, so I could keep track) and then finished after only TWENTY FIVE MINUTES of playing. Yeah, don't waste your money on these guys.

So this was probably taken somewhere over Colorado or maybe Nebraska... or maybe Wyoming? Somewhere northeast of Denver, for sure (but only about 20 minutes into the flight). I spent the majority of today either waiting in the airport or on the tarmac during my flight home. Overall it was a decent flight, I was just a tad miffed when the pilot told us we were circling above Minneapolis because they were having to plow the runway. And then we landed and there was no snow at all. AT ALL. I don't know whether to call that pilot misinformed, a liar or a tease.I also finally posted a few more shots from the drive in the mountain yesterday. Enjoy!

Today we ventured up into the mountains and man, was it pretty. This photo is from an alpaca farm we stumbled across, and the farmers were great enough to let me come up to the fences and shoot some photos. We also got shots of horses and deer and such, but I'm too tired to post all of those... maybe tomorrow.Oh, before I forget! There were three HUGE dogs that guard the herd. They are called Anatolian Shepherds, and they weighed 130 lbs. And yet? Total sweeties.UPDATE: The rest of the photos from our trip into the mountains are up. You can spy them here.