For many, the hour of 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. is a liminal one. The night isn’t quite over and the day hasn’t yet fully arrived, or as photographer W. Scott Olsen says it is “a fuzzy, dreary, soft-focused hour.”
While some are finishing a night shift, the rest of us are just waking and fumbling our way to the coffee machine, or better yet, remain heavily asleep During that hour, Olsen, a self-proclaimed morning person, is often out capturing images that tell the stories of Fargo, Moorhead, West Fargo, Dilworth and surrounding communities.
“For some, it’s very early. For others, it’s very late. It’s usually very quiet. And it looks completely different than any other time of the day,” Olsen wrote in an artist statement about “The 6|7project,” which opened August 5, 2024, today at the Spirit Room, 111 N. Broadway, Fargo.
“The 6|7 Project” is street photography at its best, featuring photos of early risers waiting in their cars for Kroll’s Diner to open, or a care-free roster of turkeys trotting across a quiet north Moorhead street.
While out exploring, he observed shift changes at the Amazon warehouse and Sanford Broadway hospital, both in north Fargo. “I also watched Sandy’s Donuts being sent out into the world,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff going on. People are up but generally because they have to be somewhere. It’s the hour where the entire world is changing from the night of the day, and that hour here in August is very different from the same hour in February.”
For the project, Olsen spent the past year scouting and shooting scenes from the community using a Holga lens attached to his Nikon, rendering a fuzziness to the images.
“By every standard it (the Holga) is a horrible camera, but because of that it has become the darling of fine art photographers. It’s a special type of badness,” Olsen said. “At that hour, our town is quite awake and alive and energetic. I’m hoping [these photos are] a little bit enlightening and with the odd lens, I’m hoping the mood of that hour comes through.”
It’s not his first experiment with street photography. In 2022, “Ghost Signs,” a collection of 14 black-and-white images showing the faded and chipped painted signage of businesses long gone, displayed at many public venues, including Fargo City Hall and as part of The Arts Partnership’s ArtWORKS workplace art immersion program.
‘We’re all photographers in some way’
Olsen isn’t a full-time photographer. He’s been a professor of English at Concordia College most of his adult life and is the author of 11 books of narrative nonfiction and one short story collection and is the editor and co-editor of many anthologies and the Concordia literary magazine, Ascent.
What he gets out of taking photos is similar to what he gets out of writing, practices he considers complementary.
“A documentary photo project really is a mirror that’s holding itself up, and my act as a photographer is not only to frame an image, but interpret it and put it in an order that tells a story, as well,” Olsen said. “The very best photos tell a story. Writing and photography are very similar in what you can do for storytelling, but in execution they’re wildly different.”
Olsen remembers “holding a camera way back into childhood” and has been more intentional about his photography practice for the past decade.
“We’re all photographers in some way,” he said, noting that most of us carry around high-quality camera phones wherever we go. “But at some point you self declare, ‘OK I am not just someone taking pictures. I’m a photographer.’ ”
‘Three Days in Paris’
Olsen received a $1,000 Individual Arts Partnership grant from The Arts Partnership to pursue a street photography project that will take him to Paris for three days this August.
The resulting book, titled “Three Days in Paris,” will pay homage to the City of Light where nearly a century ago, artist Henri Cartier-Bressen mastered candid photography, effectively becoming the father of street photography. The book and exhibition(s) will combine narrative and images.
“As a street photographer, it’s a little bit of a pilgrimage. I’m going where the genre began,” he said of his upcoming three-day whirlwind Paris excursion. “The nice thing is I’ve been there ten times with students, so the Metro and where things are isn’t a mystery. This is the first time I’m going with no other agenda than to chase the defining moment of the entire artistic field.”
Olsen is excited to take advantage of an emptied-out Paris, as locals tend to go on vacation in late summer and the Olympics will be packed up by then.
“I’m expecting a Paris that is much quieter than is normal. From a photographer’s point of view that’s going to be great,” he said.
What he’s most excited for, though, is chasing the perfect photo.
“There is in photography the decisive moment, which has nothing to do with making a decision. It is the moment when all the composition elements come together. The world arranges itself in such a way that it becomes an image with range and depth,” Olsen said. “That decisive moment is something all photographers talk about. I’m going to be spending time chasing that idea.”
‘Fargo Street’ book coming soon
In October, after his Paris adventure and once he’s settled back in the classroom, Olsen will launch the publication of “Fargo Street,” an anthology of 100 black-and-white street photos of the metro region.
“For people interested in street photography, it’s going to be an interesting book for the style and genre,” Olsen said. For locals of Fargo Moorhead, “It’ll be really interesting to see their reaction.”
Published by Frames Magazine, the collection will be up for presale orders soon and will be available for purchase in 23 countries. It is the magazine’s first foray into publishing a book-length collection of monographic photos.
Tomasz Trzebiatowski, editor of FRAMES Magazine wrote, “ ‘Fargo Street’ is a compelling, funny, anger-making, intriguing look at Fargo, North Dakota, a town everyone finds surprising.”
Books are up for preorder on the Frames website.
Follow W. Scott Olsen
To learn more about Olsen, follow him on Instagram or Facebook where he posts frequently about his artistic adventures. More of his work is available on the Concordia College website.
About the author
Lonna Whiting is a freelance writer and owner of lonna.co, a content marketing and communications agency located in Fargo, North Dakota. She is a frequent contributor to The Arts Partnership’s content library and also provides strategic communications consultation to the organization.
