You Are What You Art

This was found in the window to the Digital Media Art's Printshop at Hamline University:

Two Acknowledgments in 'Inside Hamline'

News about my 4 a.m. exhibition has been showing up on Hamline University's "Inside Hamline" page. First was the announcement of the exhibition about 2 months ago:

[click the images for a larger view]

Second-to-the-bottom here, along with news about the sculpture professor 2 stories above me!

As the exhibition came down, I was featured again, and they noted the recap of the exhibition that I'm doing on Instagram at @PhotoStenzel. Here's where I appear on "Inside Hamline" and then also on the "Accomplishments" page:

On the "News" page.


On the "Accomplishments" page.

'Directorial Mode' Images

My Digital Photography II class has some work hung in the hallway outside of our classroom. It's from the "Directorial Mode" project. Here's the text that's hanging along with the prints:

For this assignment, students created 4 final images that lend themselves to the idea of what A.D. Coleman calls the “Directorial Mode.” In his essay he writes: “The work of every photographer describes a unique, personalized version of the universe shaped by that photographer's sensibility and intentions. In the imagery of those who choose to function directorially, this shaping is more aggressively done...”

So these students “aggressively” shaped their images, controlling all aspects of what appears on the print.

More from Coleman: “The directorial mode challenges our long cherished assumptions about the transparency of the photograph, its purported neutrality, its presumed objectivity; insistently undermining the credibility of the photograph, it puts the image in question.”

Students “put their image in question” and created 4 highly controlled photographs. They printed one of their 4 final images on 17” roll paper, and those are the images displayed here.

And here are some photos of their work.

[click each image for a larger version]

And here are a few of their individual images:

A. Stromdahl did seperate compositions about 4 different musical artists.


M. Randall composed this image in her bathroom.


These next two are cut paper illustraions by A. Lindner where
she Photoshopped herself into the 4 seasons. This is summer...


... and this is spring.


K. Hart showed herself doing everyday things along side her dog. Here's eating lunch...


... and working on homework.


L. Bernardy spoofed the over-the-top nature of Peta advertisements
with anti-vegan instead of anti-meat propaganda as seen in these 3 images.






And finally, here's A. Yang's project showing little still lifes with different Funco Pop figures.






This was a striking image printed 17x22" as seen in the opening images above!

If you are around campus, stop by the lower level of the Bush Student Center to see these prints for the next week or so!

Last Day Teaching Film?

I just posted this:

New Office Space

I recently just moved into my 6th office space at Hamline University. (Oh the life of an adjunct!) It's in a building at Hamline that I'd never been in:

Apparently, it's part of the old library. Who knew?

My space is just a temporary move in someone else's office who is on sabbatical (or just off-campus short-term) for the semester, so I can't really "move in" as I'll be giving it up by summer.

Hi, I'm Robin.


There's a mini-fridge back there as well as a microwave on the desk.


Wide angle shot.

The first day I got my key, I sat there and worked on a lecture for an upcoming class. As I worked, I realized I had a window... with a view?...

Catch me in the GLC if you're ever at Hamline this semester!

Here's a post about my previous office that I moved out of nearly a year ago. I'll enjoy office #6 for these next few months!

End of Spring Break

A co-worker recently posted this on Facebook as our Spring Break at Hamline University is wrapping up:

Final Solo Exhibition Prep

Here are 2 pics from my last 2 days of work (you can click them to enlarge).

Yesterday, I spent all morning triming down prints that will be unframed and shown behind glass:

And this morning, I made a few final prints as I noticed I had 1 frame that still wasn't used:

Two of the 4 options (17"x22" prints).

I'll be dropping off 90% of my work later today at the gallery. I'll be helping layout and set up the exhibition in about a week (so stay tuned for more on that, because I'm really exicted about that day!), and then the opening is 2 weeks away: Feb 24 from 5-7 pm (with an artist's talk at 5:30 pm). See the postcard here.

First Week of J-Term

My class is 3 days into an intense 2.5 week "semester" in my J-Term Photography course. Here was the board after our first day 48 hours ago:

It looks similar to this post from last year, only this board is a bit smaller, so things are more cramped. Besides the smaller white board, I'm enjoying our new space as first showed last month in this post.

Big News: Upcoming Solo Exhibition!

I'm so happy to announce that at the end of February 2022, I'll have a solo exhibition of my 4 a.m. work at the Concordia University Gallery in St. Paul! I'll have a lot more about this over the next few weeks and months, so keep checking back for more details.

Here's a handful of images from the last few weeks of prep work:

Early October: I sat down in the faculty office space at the University of Minnesota for a few hours of planning.


Notes, image lists, and gallery maps to be working with.

After I put together a 3-page list ranking most of my 4 a.m. images back in August (something I'll never show publicly), then I started thinking of ways to use the gallery space: did I want to just show my best 4 a.m. photos? Did I want to highlight different mini-series within the larger 4 a.m. series? I currently have 4 different possible mock-ups of the gallery layout.

More recently, I gathered all my 4 a.m. files in one place and made 5 large contact sheets of images:

Nearly 120 images from my 4 a.m. series cut out and ready to sort.


(I made the contact sheets on some old CVA paper - nostalgia!)

Then last weekend I really started planning in earnest. I had my stack of images ready to sort in a big open quiet area at Hamline University:

It almost sounds silly, but it took hours of work (and pacing back and forth) to get to this point.

The upper left are images I wanted to print large and have framed, the lower left are images I'd frame in some "normal" sized wooden frames (13x19 images framed 22x28ish), the upper middle are images I'd be putting in 24" black metal frames, the lower middle are images I'd like to print larger (24x30 overall) and have behind glass, the upper right is a mini "social justice" series around George Floyd's murder and the Mpls riots, and the lower right are alternatives. All-in-all, that was 120 images cut down to 45-55 for the exhibition.

The work continued at home: our dining room table looked like this for about 5 days.

Then a few days ago, I headed to the DSB on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota. This is a big printing room right across the hall from where I worked and taught from 2005 to 2011, so it was a bit sentimental to be back:

Looking east in the DSB.


Looking west back to the printer I was using in the corner.




Waiting on my first image to print: 24" wide and 32" long.


Large prints.


More prints.


My biggest print coming out: this one was 44" long.


Starting to wrap-up after 4 hours.


There are about 16 large prints wrapped up in there, all ready
to be secured between 2 pieces of foam core for the ride home.

That brings us to today. The prints are "drying" in my studio, and I hope to start framing in about 10 days.

I've had pieces in that gallery before, and if you are interested in seeing the space I have to fill, here are 3 posts that show it from a few years ago:

     - Photos from the "Rise" exhibition
     - A single panoramic image from that same show
     - Some images from "The Art of Teaching" which shows the vertical height in parts of that gallery

Stay tuned for more! There's a LOT of work that still needs to happen in the next 8 weeks! In the meantime, keep the evening of February 24, 2022 open if you are a local...