PHOTOS TELL STORIES, record moments in time, preserve memories, prompt emotional reactions, convey messages and more.
My venture into photography began when I studied journalism in college with a photography class as part of the degree requirement. This was back in the day of film and darkrooms. Chemicals, water baths and contact sheets were part of a long process to get from photo snapped to photo printed.
During my twenties working as a small town newspaper reporter, I honed the craft of photography. I juggled interviews and note taking with shooting photos. Today’s reporters do the same unless they are employed by a metro newspaper with a staff photographer.
After a while, I got comfortable with the camera, confident in my abilities to shoot images to accompany hard news, features and other stories. Practice may not make perfect, but it certainly builds skills.
I’ve grown to love photography through the years, especially after acquiring a digital camera while freelancing for a Minnesota magazine. Digital unleashed the photo creative in me. I no longer had to worry about the cost of film or running out of film. So I took a lot more photos, tried new perspectives, began to see the world through an artistic lens. More often than not, I find myself thinking, oh, that would make a good photo.
But vision issues are now affecting and limiting my photography. My eyes are misaligned, meaning my brain works hard (even with prism-heavy prescription eyeglasses) to see. It’s exhausting. I do my best. Yet it’s challenging sometimes to tell if an image is sharp. I can feel the strain on my eyes when I use my camera for an extended time and when I process images on my computer.
Still, I persist. Until I either have another bilateral strabismus eye surgery or try a different (and expensive) prescription, this is the way it is. At least I can see. I manage. I can still create with my 35mm Canon EOS 60D.
Last Saturday I did the longest photo shoot I’ve done in several years. I took hundreds of images during six hours at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Fall Show. It’s a fun event to document with so much happening and so many people attending. I don’t want to stop doing what I love.
My biggest challenges in covering the event came in dodging golf carts that swarmed the grounds and in avoiding dust from some of the farming demonstrations. Cameras and dirt are not friends. I also always had to be cognizant of unintentional photo bombing by people and those pesky (but necessary for some to get around) golf carts.
I’ve already shared many show photos with you in an overall post about the event and in a second focusing on art. Today I bring you a hodge-podge of more favorites, with an explanation in the captions of why I like the images. Enjoy!
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
As school starts for most in Minnesota September 2, 2025
Tags: Annunciation Catholic Church & School, commentary, crime, education, first day of school, gun violence, Minneapolis, Minnesota, news, opinion, school, school shooting, violence
HOW WELL I REMEMBER the first day of classes at the start of a new school year. Decades ago as a student. Then as a parent of three. And now as a grandparent.
As a student, I felt excited. Nervous. Happy. I remember the sharp tips of new Crayola crayons. The discomfort of new shoes. Piles of multi-colored notebooks awaiting words.
As a mom, I remember worrying if my kids would catch the right bus, make friends, like their teachers.
But none of that matches the concerns I feel today as the grandmother of a first grader and a fourth grader who begin classes Tuesday morning in a community in the south metro. The deadly shooting of two students and injury of 21 others (including three octogenarian worshipers) during a morning back-to-school Mass last week at Annunciation Catholic Church in south Minneapolis weighs heavy on all of us.
Children, teachers and staff should feel and be safe in school. Parents should never have to wonder if their children will come home. Grandparents shouldn’t have to worry how their children, their grandchildren, are going to navigate all of this.
But school violence is all too real. And it shouldn’t be. I invite you to read a blog post by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson (click here), a mother, grandmother, writer, photographer, poet and activist. She writes with passion and clarity about the Annunciation shooting and gun violence, including steps we can take to change things. Kathleen’s words are powerful and move us to a place of action with the strong word, “Demand.”
As someone who grew up in Minneapolis, Kathleen writes from the heart. She is grieving. Angry. Frustrated. Just like me. Just like so many of us in Minnesota and beyond.
To the politicians out there who put guns before kids and who vote against funding for mental health programs, pause for a moment and assess your priorities. Walk in the shoes of kids, parents, grandparents, teachers. And then think of Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, shot to death in a Minneapolis church during the first week of classes at Annunciation Catholic School.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling