Last month we spent time at JRG Middle School in Kimberly, Wisconsin. It was one of the first large in-person programs we have done since the pandemic started and it was good to be with them. A Peace of My Mind is rooted in story gathering, but also in storytelling. So being in community and using these stories to build connections is a key part … Continue reading Support
Jeff Rennicke is a writer, a photographer and a storyteller in Bayfield, Wisconsin. He is the Executive Director at Friends of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. “Pay attention. Things get really interesting below the surface. Wherever you are, there’s more going on than a superficial glance will reveal to you.” “I was a freelance writer for 20 some years and traveled to six different continents, … Continue reading Jeff Rennicke
Tony Sedgwick is the President of the Board for the Santa Fe Ranch Foundation, a working cattle ranch near Nogales, Arizona and just a few miles north of the U.S. border with Mexico. With a background in international business law, Tony offers a sweeping view of history and economics of the borderlands and sees a need to shift our international policies away from fear and … Continue reading Tony Sedgwick
Joseph McGill is the founder of The Slave Dwelling Project. I interviewed him at the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina. Ten years ago, Joe started spending the night in historic slave quarters and has slept overnight at more than 150 such sites across the country. He uses the experience to talk about the importance of preserving these historic structures so that we may have full and … Continue reading Joseph McGill
It’s 1,300 miles from Minnesota to South Carolina. With our trailer in tow, we are learning that transit days are slower than we expected. You can’t drive as fast. If you stop, it takes longer to park. It gets dark early this time of year, and as we get used to setting up camp, I’d prefer to do it in the daylight. There are other … Continue reading New Voices
Over the past few weeks, I’ve produced a series of remote portraits with Ithaca College and gathered stories around the question, “What does community and belonging look like for you in this time of pandemic and protests?” It’s something I’ve thought of a lot lately, as we all learn new ways of navigating the world. As Karen and I leave our home of 20 years. … Continue reading Ithaca Remote
The creative process isn’t always tidy. My office certainly isn’t. Nor is my handwriting. I’ll often vision about project ideas and future plans on a scrap of paper. I’ll tape rough notes to my office wall and see how they hold up over time. Some of them never happen. Others could not be stopped if you tried. As I struggled through packing up 20 years … Continue reading Visioning
I don’t often talk about gear and technique as I tend to be more interested in soul and story. But I’ve had several people ask about the logistics of our George Floyd portrait series from 38th and Chicago, so I thought I’d make a behind the scenes post to share a little bit about my process. These images have high production value, like a studio … Continue reading Tech Talk
Public projection from John Noltner Photography on Vimeo. For 10 nights, we projected the stories we gathered from the George Floyd memorial. We amplified the voices of the people we encountered. We projected their portraits 20’ x 30’ on the side of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. And we climbed down off the rooftop to have conversations with the people who stopped to look. … Continue reading I can hear the streets talking
On Monday May 25, George Floyd was killed by police at the intersection of 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis. Because the COVID-9 pandemic had caused all my programming to be cancelled, I happened to be at home, 11.6 miles to the south. On Wednesday I went to see the site where a small memorial was taking shape and on Thursday returned with an improvised portable … Continue reading Maybe this time
