FARGO — "The whole idea of the project is to document a transitional hour. I am up early and I noticed there are a lot of cool things that are actually going on between 6 and 7 every morning," said photographer W. Scott Olsen.
Olsen is no stranger to documenting life downtown. The gritty, the down and out, the surprises. "This guy is a hero.
He is striping the parking lot at West Acres at 6:24 in the morning," Olsen said. His newest documentary work, opening Thursday at the Spirit Room called "The 6/7 Project," follows our community from 6 a.m.
to 7 a.m. "Even though most of us think about that hour as an hour between things, like sleep and work.
But it really is a resonant and defining hour by itself," Olsen said. There are photos from every weather condition we have. "As you go along, you will notice the seasons change drastically," Olsen said From early morning workers to photos that make you stand back and wonder, wanting more.
"Like anything, if you slow down and look, it becomes deeper and better," Olsen said. Olsen's project reminds us of where we call home. "It is who we are, both the good and the challenged," Olsen said.
Olsen, who is used to shooting with fancy lenses, used a cheap, plastic one for this project. It just felt right. "It is cheap plastic, focuses badly, with fixed aperture and fixed shutter speed," Olsen said of the lens.
"It is the lens that adds the softness and the challenged focus, the dreamy effect and that seemed right," Olsen said. Like the p.