EVERY Family Christmas Photo Shoot

Turn it up and enjoy. This is spot on:

Direct link: https://youtu.be/nG73mhtiSS4
Merry Christmas!

Hamline's "Open Studios" Event

Last night was the "Open Studios" event at Hamline University for the Fine Arts and Digital Media Arts (DMA) students:

The event was featured on Hamline's main page.

On Hamline's website, it was written that "the departments will open the studios and classrooms to display some of the best work made this semester in graphic design, photography, audio, video, web, games and more. There will also be 3D printing demonstrations."

The map of the buildings involved in the event.


Some work from my students this semester up in the halls.


It's not a sexy space to display work, but the classrooms around the corner are fantastic.


The classroom where I teach with games, videos, interactive pieces, and audio pieces created
by DMA students. (Along with photos from students in my class being projected on the big screen.)


The other side of the classroom.


People starting to stop by.


Typology pieces.


Design work in the lab with the 3D printers.


Design work in the hallway.


Design work and my students' photos in the hall.


Watching a short film.


An audio installation in the room next door.


More people in the classroom...


... it was really starting to fill up.


Watching video and animation work on the big TV in the hallway.

Then I headed out to studios A, B, and C (as noted on the map at the top of this post):

Drawings in studio C.


More drawings.


Now in the Fine Arts Building, I had to check out the printmaking studios.


Printmaking.


More printmaking.


Yet more printmaking.

I realized I never made it up to see the paintings, so no photos of that from those studios. Sorry!

Nice job, DMA and Fine Arts students! The work looked good last night!

Portable Darkroom

An old advertisement for a "portable darkroom:"

Web Developer Humor

This doesn't have too much anything to do with photography, but I think my nerdy readers would appreciate it. I found a project posted on Quartz that had fun imagining the most ridiculous ways for people to input their phone number on a website. Enjoy:

This one is based on your mouse position.




Well, OK.






Pi. Just find your number.


Call me old, but I think this is backwards for a rotary phone.

More Portfolio Prints

I printed my "new portfolio" of 4 a.m. photos to take to Colorado for a portfolio review back in July, but I also printed some 11" x 17" versions of old images from my Faribault County series from about 10 years ago. If there was time, I wanted to get some more feedback from the gallery director on those. (She told me she really loved the "stories" that these Faribault County images seemed to tell.) I forgot that I never posted this, so here they are 4 months later:

Prints "drying."


Fine-tuning.

Anyway, I just remembered that I didn't share these images. Here's my 4 a.m. portfolio prints in a post from June that I took to Colorado in July.

Non-Job Opportunity

My "dream job" that was open at the University of Minnesota last winter is back open again.

And I'm not applying.

It was one of the easier decisions I've had to make.

It's funny that I was so bummed about not getting that position a few months ago, and now it quickly turned into not wanting to reapply for it.

I sent my wife this text 2 weeks ago, and here's her reply:

(It's a cute thing we do when we say "I love you exclamation point" because when we "text"
via Siri, we speak that into our phone to get an actual exclamation point. Our 2-year-old
has started saying "I love you exclamation point" because we say/text it so often.)

It's not about me. Ten years ago, it COULD be about me. But a family is not about an individual member. It's about how we work as a unit. This "Stenzel Unit" will work MUCH better with me at home more often. It's a no-brainer.

If you don't have kids, you might feel a bit sorry for me, maybe like I'm throwing something away. But I promise you that you shouldn't. Life is just a collection of stories - do I want to have more "work stories" or more "family stories?"

Here's 10 examples of what we've been up to as seen on Instagram in the last few weeks:

At the pool with my 2-year-old.


We're working on it.


Hanging out with Papa Dale.


After another swim.


Bow tie buddies.


An after school trip to the Science Museum.


"Helping" rake leaves.


On an adventure by the Mississippi River.


Still. Working. On. It.


The compost site is great fun.

In the end, here are the 2 options (I could go into a LOT more detail here, but these are the basic points):

1. Apply for this job. If I get it, I would probably take home about as much money as I do now teaching part-time because the rest would go to child care. I wouldn't see my family as much. Doing this would put more stress on my life, more stress on my wife's life (having to make sure to get home by a certain time on certain nights to get the boys from daycare/school, and then having to worry about making supper and fitting in anything else in her life when I'm at work), and more stress on both of my boys (as we're zipping them quickly off to daycare early in the morning while trying not to be late for "life"). In 40 years, a handful of students might remember me as "that semi-goofy teacher who made photography interesting and wore funky shirts at times."

2. Don't apply for this job. Work part-time as I am now, and keep spending lots of time with my boys. Be there to volunteer at Henry's school and to take Charlie on play-dates (we did 2 this past week). Be there to walk Henry to school every morning as we've done for the last 12 weeks (we've only driven 4 times so far this year). Be present for my wife and family. (Try to) keep the house clean and the boys fed. Have more adventures. Spend more time with my boys teaching them to be good men. Be their rock. In 40 years, my (maybe growing) family might remember me as "the dad who was always there teaching us that anything is possible (and yelling at us for getting into sh*t at times)."

I've never seen such an obvious choice. Now pardon me... I'm off to hang out with my boys.