Back in the summer I visited my parents, the wonderful state of Minnesota to shoot a wedding of a friend, a bridesmaid from a wedding I shot in 2009, but this time I was determined to meet Dave. Dave Haas is a Minneapolis based photographer that I never met all those years when I lived there. But also my Facebook account was only focused on family and some old friends just like many of you. Even when I won the people’s choice award from Outdoor Photographer Magazine, the editor who called me said “you must be very active in social media, we had over 7000 photos submitted from 30+ countries” All I remember was I paused. I was in shock. I barely had a Facebook account with a dozen “Facebook Friends”
Dave Haas and I have become Facebook friends after I moved to Chicago, after I grabbed the stick of social media and gave it a good spin. I always went back to Minnesota to visit family but most of these trips were short, and schedule conflicts postponed our meeting in person. This year we finally met. We met on a hot day but still managed a very short photo walk. Dave with his DSLR, me with my Bronica medium format film camera. (Another name for Bronica is “Poor Man’s Hasselblad”) Great camera.
During this shot photowalk I took a few shots of Dave, a few shots of people shooting at the same place as we were, back of an old flour factory by St.Anthony Main.
Dave
Dave
Photographer during a senior session
That Famous “Bike Shot”
This gentleman was standing and looking at the map of the bike path, both Dave and I thought of a catalog shot. He was not aware of us although he seemed like he was. For an all manual focus, all mechanic camera in a hurry it did not turn out so bad I guess.
After Dave shared this “photographers heaven” to me, I went back there again on my next visit and took my brother Cihan with me.
This time it was all fenced up, we had to “trespass” and my brother, who is not a photographer did not want to do that. I told him what us photographers usually say: “it’s ok, I do this all the time!” 
On top of all, this camera and two lenses were given to me as a gift from a wedding client (the groom used to be hard core hobbyist)
Specially after I sold my Hasselblad system, this Bronica never made me miss the Hassy with the reliability and glass quality. Solid as a tank, both the body and the lenses, and superb image quality. (I have to admit, NOTHING sounds like the Hasselblad when that mirror flaps, I miss that)
My older brother who bought me my very first camera in 1999
