Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

As this is being written in mid-June, we just returned from an afternoon in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, about an hour’s drive from our home in Fargo. I’d learned that on June 10, a permanent exhibition of Thomas Dambo’s trolls opened. I’ve been experimenting and learning how to operate a new camera. Knowing that Nikon would soon be releasing upgraded versions of the Z6 II and Z7 II, I opted to buy a Z7 II and a Nikkor 24-120 mm S lens. Why didn’t I wait for the Z7 III? A major reduction in price on the Z7 II provided the incentive for me to go mirrorless, even if it isn’t the “latest and greatest.” But I digress from this story about Dambo’s Trolls.

I learned about Thomas Dambo and his recycled art on the Internet. Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist with a unique twist on trolls. He creates giant, whimsical sculptures of trolls out of recycled materials. These aren’t your typical scary trolls under the bridge! Dambo’s trolls are playful and meant to inspire people to think about sustainability by giving new life to “trash.”

Dambo’s sculptures are found worldwide, and now Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, is home to the most extensive collection of troll sculptures Thomas Dambo has ever created in the United States. This whimsical art collection features six troll sculptures and three “portals” to help visitors find the troll’s treasure.

The trolls are made of recycled materials, staying true to Dambo’s signature style and message of sustainability. There’s even a treasure hunt element to the trolls. Each troll has a clue, and by following them all, you can find the hidden golden rabbit.

The puzzle begins at Detroit Lakes Washington Park, near the beaches of Big Detroit Lake. A book carved of recycled wood tells the story of Alexa, her portals, and clues to finding the golden rabbit. The six sculptures and three portals are not all in Detroit Lakes, so you can expect to visit communities as far away as Fargo, North Dakota, to view the portals and sculptures.

At Detroit Lakes City Park, Alexa is whipping up a potion with her spoon and a large pot nearby as she reaches into her portal for ingredients. Dambo’s troll creations, from Denmark and Europe to Asia, Australia, and the United States, can be found worldwide. He’s even had a project featuring six giant trolls placed around the Pacific Northwest called “Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King.”

If you plan to hunt for trolls, you should not expect to find them as easily and quickly as Alexa. The Project 412 website here tells us that Barefoot Frida is near the city’s east edge. You can learn more about the project and see photos of some other trolls on the website. We discovered it’s about a 1/3 mile (550 m) hike from the parking area on Randolph Road to see Frida. This was an excellent opportunity to capture some landscape photos with the Z7 II.

I prefer to bracket exposures and often use Lightroom Classic to create HDR images from the bracketed shots. That’s what I did with most of the photos in this post. I use aperture priority to keep my desired f/stop consistent, and I let the camera determine ISO and shutter speed.

After converting the 3-image brackets to HDR, I realized that the images from the Nikkor lens have the widest dynamic range of any camera I’ve ever used. In fact, some of the photos in this set were not converted from a bracket. I just chose the best image from the set and processed it. That, no doubt, is a result of the Z7 II’s 45-megapixel full-frame sensor.

The trailhead to Barefoot Frida is at the junction of Randolph Road and Highway 54. Until the parking area is built later in 2024, limited parking is allowed on the east side of Randolph Road. As I commented earlier, the hike is short but has several small climbs and descents. The trail first parallels a farmstead and meanders into the forest behind the farm. As we left a clearing, we followed the trail into a thicker section of forest. From here, we kept a sharp eye out for Frida.

We planned to have dinner in Detroit Lakes, and we had to take that short hike back to our car. The 93 bracketed images gave me 31 images for this post. From the processing I completed, I realized that with the sensor’s wide dynamic range, I won’t need to blend the exposures into HDR in the future. I picked the best eleven images to share and also posted them to my Flickr site here for you to pixel-peep.

As we returned to our car, I snapped another image of Frida and one of the many volunteer workers who helped Thomas Dambo create this attraction. He was just finishing a handrail to make it easier for us oldsters to make it down the steep incline to the troll’s base.

From this outing, I realized I still have much to learn about the Nikon Z7 II, but I already love the quality of the images it produces. I considered changing brands, as the Z7 series doesn’t have an autofocus system as robust as Canon or Sony. However, I have some dollars invested in Nikon glass, and coupled with the fact that the autofocus shortcomings are primarily for sports and wildlife, I won’t miss the advanced features of the other brands. It looks like my D500 will become my backup camera.

John Steiner