North Dakota Realized

Wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. ©Tobosa Creative Group

By Kevin Tobosa

North Dakota Realized is a photographic and multimedia exploration of the state’s vitality. My goal is to travel the state, photographing the people and places of North Dakota, looking for the quality that makes North Dakota unique. The success stories. Photography helps me understand a place unlike any other media. The process of seeking images to represent an idea or in this case, a place, is a very deliberate and considered act and is precisely why I chose to formalize the task. It forces me to slow down, look, listen and live in the moment. It gives me a voice to start a dialogue with the people in the western, northern, southern, and eastern parts of the state. Our website, www.northdakotarealized.com is a place in itself where the project will be documented and where anyone is welcome to come and engage in a conversation with us. With the interactive nature of the social web, we can start an ongoing dialogue like never before.

North Dakota is an elemental place – our natural resources a source of power and life. The landscape is varied and unique, our people wholly honest and industrious. Yet, in my opinion, North Dakota remains one of our nation’s most underserved states when it comes to in-depth representation of the economics, the land, the people. Photographs depicting the vastness of our state, haunting scenes of abandoned farmsteads and lifeless rural towns, monopolize the image of North Dakota in the national media. North Dakota Realized is about turning the lens toward the growth and vitality of a state on the verge of becoming a national leader in domestic energy, agricultural technology, and quality of life, despite our harsh northern winters and migration of our youth from small towns to urban centers.

North Dakota Musician Tom Peckscamp performing live on Nighttime Live with Jason Spiess on KFGO 790.©Tobosa Creative Group

Adding to the uniqueness of this project is the social media strategy which allows the project to be experienced as it happens. The website journals the project from the preliminary stages through completion – perhaps even beyond. Social media tools such as Facebook, Flickr, and the blog, allow communities to not only comment on, but influence the project and provide valuable local knowledge.

I do not know what it means to have deep roots in a place. My childhood friends still ride their bicycles up and down the streets of my mind, play ball in the open lots, and hide in all the small places only kids know about. I was born in Washington state and, with my father working for the railroad, I grew up on the move; to wherever the job took us. A recent road trip found me back in Lincoln, Nebraska, and I visited the neighborhood where I once lived. It was my first time back since I left, had I been taken there blindfolded, I would not have recognized the street that at one time defined the boundaries of my universe.

We transferred to Minot in 1987. By this time, I was in Junior High School and I understood that this too was just another place I’d pass through. In ’89 we moved to Fargo and with the exception of my brief stint in the military and working for a newspaper in Helena, Montana, I remain in North Dakota. It’s difficult to say if I chose North Dakota or if North Dakota chose me, but I have never lived anyplace else as long. What atavistic forces conspired to bring me from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Plains of the Midwest, just a hundred miles from Aneta where my great-great-grandparents from Gran, Norway, homesteaded in 1889? Is there within me an ancestral calling attached to the land?

I now watch my own children riding their bicycles up and down our street, exploring the world within the boundaries my wife and I define for them. I wonder how different their relationship with places will be if they grow up with deep roots. How different will their relationship with North Dakota be than mine? Will they firmly plant their roots right here in North Dakota or will they pursue their dreams beyond our borders? These questions will be answered in time and I’m certainly in no hurry to find out. Until then though, I have an immediate desire to wander a bit, exploring life within the boundaries that make us all North Dakotans.

I’m just starting off on this journey and I’m not exactly sure where it will take me. Perhaps I’m sending myself on a fool’s errand – a modern Quixotic adventure but instead of traveling under horse power fighting windmills with a spear, I’m traveling the state under Jeep power while taking photos of wind turbines with a camera. Of course, I believe in the value of the project but ultimately it is up to the people of and interested in the state of North Dakota to decide if it is valuable to them. What do you think? I’d love to begin a conversation. ---

By Mark Puppe

We know creativity, industry, and culture thrive in North Dakota but also recognize how incomplete and inaccurate information causes the state to be underestimated, unnoticed, and even belittled. North Dakota has its flaws, but as a lifelong resident who has lived throughout the state, I reject the common notion that North Dakota is simply a barren and blizzard-prone place north of South Dakota. Further, and because you’re reading On Second Thought, I bet you know there’s more than snow here, too.

North Dakota offers far more than what population statistics, weather reports, generic postcards, and photo books of abandoned farmsteads cause many people to believe. Much of what distinguishes North Dakota is intangible and never truly experienced by those who view or capture those photos portraying the state as only isolated and cold. Negative perceptions of North Dakota even abound among its own.

Nonetheless, people believe what they see, and enlightening them to the state’s intangible assets requires more than a brochure telling them to discover the spirit or that this is a good place to raise children. Instead, people need an experience potent enough to trump the preconceived. North Dakota Realized delivers the images and means to effectively introduce North Dakota for what it is and the people as who they really are.

Fargo media artist and professional photographer Kevin Tobosa and I launched North Dakota Realized as a statewide, multimedia journey to discover and capture unique photo opportunities that reveal the underlying identity of the North Dakota people. This venture searches for what is now largely unknown, but those who follow and participate in the project will determine its path and focus.

Kevin and I have different roles and reasons for executing the project, but share the same mission and are determined to pursue it with passion. His media talents and expertise capture, format, and post the photos, video, audio, and online networks available at the project hub, www.northdakotarealized. com. Kevin recruited me to identify contacts and feature opportunities; cultivate, engage, grow, and retain our audience; and expand the project’s public presence. Our duties inevitably overlap, but the differences give us a powerful, yet balanced chemistry.

Part of the work I do through my communication consulting company involves helping clients draft and write resumes. From the very beginning, I realized that the Midwestern modesty of which so many North Dakotans are proud actually represents a disappointing tendency for them to sell themselves short. Cracking that modesty is prerequisite to making them confident applicants, but compares to removing lug nuts with pliers.

For whatever reason, they’re programmed to renounce praise and almost dislike success. It takes energy, diplomacy, and patience from me to convince them that they need not feel guilty for sharing their achievements, taking in pride their talents, or recognizing unique projects as an invaluable way to distinguish their resumes from others’.

The same can be said for North Dakota’s people at large. They’re humble, honorable, hardworking people who silently and selflessly contribute to their communities, but need a third party to reveal how those attributes, activities, and principles make them resourceful and praiseworthy. North Dakota Realized is that third party.

Over the next year and probably beyond, Kevin and I will travel the state using multiple media strategies and resources as to seek, showcase, and celebrate noteworthy characteristics about North Dakota that would otherwise go unknown. Our web site, online social networks, personal and email correspondence, and especially Kevin’s photography, provide an interactive forum for residents, natives, and nonresidents to meet, understand, and appreciate each other.

For me, North Dakota Realized functions as a dynamic, experiential resume that enlightens a limitless audience to how this state and its people are typically underestimated and overlooked, but constantly performing beyond expectation and without any expectation of title or premium pay.

North Dakota Realized finds and features things that provide every audience an honest introduction to North Dakota, its people, and culture, rather than what outside sources already perceive them to be.

It’s an admittedly an abstract objective, but pursuing it will be educational and inspiring for anyone who’s ever heard of North Dakota and everyone we’re fortunate enough to bring along. We invite you to hop on at www.northdakotarealized.com.

www.northdakotarealized.com

Kevin Tobosa is a Fargo-based photographer and integrated marketing consultant. In addition to the North Dakota Realized project, he is the Owner/Creative Director of Tobosa Creative Group, which creates and promotes brands through design, photography, and social media.

Mark Puppe creates, engages, and evaluates communication strategies as a consultant and writer at Master Manuscripts. He graduated from NDSU and UND and has lived in Bismarck, Cavalier, Dickinson, Fargo, and Grand Forks.