Brad Dahlgaard
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rustypatched.bsky.social
Brad Dahlgaard
@rustypatched.bsky.social
A science obsessed artist with an amazing fiancé and 2 cool kids. Progressive liberal nerd. Iterative methods rule my work. I’ve lived abroad. "Play is learning with all systems engaged!” Photography and Artwork is mine.

iNaturalist.org Do Science!
Just saw this in one of our wee hotels. Stick construction? New to me. When do the brick laying bees arrive? #invertebrates #insects #nature #gardening
July 12, 2025 at 10:31 PM
We took our 13 year old daughter to Munson Fest tonight! It was important for me to show her a special community that was formed around music in the 80's- one that inspired & helped shape her dad. She now understands why I keep telling her to find a local band to love. #MN #Music #FirstAve #MNMusic
May 2, 2025 at 7:14 AM
I found myself biking around Minneapolis on Christmas Eve licking wounds from an especially difficult break-up. You know the type that also tears you from a web of friendships and professional connections?

Nothing could have helped me at that moment other than living in the moment. I LOVE MPLS!!!
April 30, 2025 at 4:49 PM
An #endangered Rusty-Patched Bumblebee (Bombus affinis) on a young #Echinacea flower. It is a busy bloom and the competition for this food source is fierce. Planting native #prairie flowers in our #gardens not only provides more food sources, it may also help expand the range of threatened species!
April 27, 2025 at 4:31 PM
There are nine habitat niches on the back side of our pollinator gardens. Ground nesting bumblebees like the Rusty Patch will find abandoned rodent burrows within a few feet of hardwood or forest edge. Maybe leave those areas rough if you can. #endangered #Minnesota #gardening #pollinators #habitat
April 27, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Skedaddle is the proper term for what I should have done.
Gunslinger was gunslinging again. The blacksmith was hiding behind his brick forge, the streets were empty, and here I am trying to get the shot. Yeah, that's a special kinda old west stupid and here I am doing it- trying to get the shot. uf
April 27, 2025 at 6:01 AM
*posted without comment because that was the safest thing for me to do. Gunslinger had eagle eyes and I didn't need them on me. #portraits #Photography #MN
April 25, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Then there was the couple that time travelled to 2015 to party with the Old West Society of Minnesota at the Hopkins VFW. These two owned the dance floor. You wouldn't know it by looking at them, but they were moonshiners. Whoo wheee! Did they get the place to hopin' around like spring frogs! #photo
April 25, 2025 at 11:21 PM
My stepfather. Always fronting cowboy just a little bit whether he's in his boots & hat or not. He can get loud too. Those of us who know him well, are waiting for the snacks and gift cards he's pulling out of his jacket to hand to his grandkids. The guy is a softy to the core and we appreciate it.
April 25, 2025 at 6:10 AM
Didn't know this crafty woman very well, and if I had, I may have lost my wallet. No worries though, I think she would have kept buying us beers and generously tipped the waitress with my money all night long or until she drank me under the table and left me for dead. Whichever came first.
April 25, 2025 at 6:07 AM
Then there were the ones who became family because they have proven how kind & loving they are over the span of decades. My mom & her husband enjoyed these two so much! I would say if you look in her eyes & see that sparkle, that's what my mom found connection with. Mischief and a partner in crime.
April 25, 2025 at 5:04 AM
And some fine ladies found themselves stuck in a perilous game of oneupsmanship & cocksure assholery that stole their husbands & marooned them in a wasteland of ignorance, hope, and the gun. She had to rule & survive by her wits. She really owned the town but had some yes men doing her dirty work.
April 25, 2025 at 4:56 AM
I suppose one was a gambler if they were simply heading west to start a new life as they always said. Some were actually gamblers... and clever wolves.
Take a chance! Everyone's a winner!
#portraitphotography #practice #Minnesota #gambling #stockmarket #suckers
April 25, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Who paid for it all other than the victims?
And our great nation couldn't have comitted genocide, stripped Minnesota's great white pine forests bare, exploited our citizens, corrupted our politics, bought the cops, and bankrolled corruption and gambling while betting on the great westward expansion
April 25, 2025 at 4:47 AM
These two showed up at my mom's house once demanding brains, blood, & gore. My mom, stepdad, & this pair of adventurers were hired to be zombies and scary dead cowboys for a big ol production in Wisconsin. I did their makeup. They put my mom on the cover for the whole terrifying woodland gorefest!!
April 25, 2025 at 4:39 AM
And then there were the cowboys that rode into town in such a way that my instincts told me to vacate Main Street in a hurry. The gunslinger. I think he carried his 6 shooter in his front pocket but I stuck to my job and asked no questions. #MN #PortraitPhotography #Photography (dance partners, lol)
April 25, 2025 at 4:28 AM
Generations of families could probably consider most of their activities as family time. They camped, paraded, and feasted as a family. I watched this family go through some very hard times and their love and their friendships got them through it.
#Photography #portraits #MN #family #grandparents
April 25, 2025 at 4:06 AM
If you have willingly volunteered to step in front of my camera & these ginormous lenses to be my lighting guinea pig, dressing in fur is going to cause me unintentional fits of laughter. Not giggles, laughter. It isn't you it's me, promise. I literally can't help it. :) #portrait #photography #MN
April 25, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Some of the members were simply incredibly cool. They had super cool and important jobs that required locked-on focus and the ability to improvise on the fly in the highest stress situations. These are the ones I ended up sitting down and getting to know a bit better. #practice #model #portrait #MN
April 25, 2025 at 3:46 AM
I always made certain a few of them knew how special they are to me. They loved my daughter. Her membership in the Old West Society of Minnesota was voted on. My kid stands as the youngest member they've ever had. And the kid loved them right back with all of her heart. #photography #portraits #love
April 25, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Can you think of an easier or better way to practice shooting textures, fabrics, hair lighting, back lighting, etc???
On a couple dozen models in full costume... and nobody thinks they're models... so they are extra polite, grateful & easy to pose? +They always fed me well 2. #photography #portrait
April 25, 2025 at 2:20 AM
The members of the club were easy to shoot, other than the cowboy regalia- nobody smiles at all. Life was hard back then. Nobody smiled in the old photographs.

Maybe long exposure issues? I never corrected them because damn, it was a lot of fun. So many grumpies making me grin & laugh! #portraits
April 25, 2025 at 2:12 AM
I learned to use my strobes by practicing on my Mom and her friends. Portraits of the Minnesota Old West Society 2015.
#photography #practice #gear #camera
April 25, 2025 at 1:58 AM
If they haul away and harm our neurodivergent Cassandras and earnest truth tellers there is no coming back. Maybe you didn't see it before but you will notice it if we are gone. Boy will the survivors notice it so take heed now. A klaxon call is screeching like a banshee. The bad guys have engaged.
April 23, 2025 at 6:40 AM
This is it. Zero hour. Democracy is no longer alive in America, not even technically. I had a potential art client tell me today he wanted to visit MN & perhaps purchase some art but he is afraid to come to the US now. We are all experiencing these abhorrent fascist Christo white nationalist wounds
April 23, 2025 at 6:33 AM