'Hastings Bridge Watch' photographer logs 11,000 images

One year ago, Dave Youngren got a phone call from the man in charge of building the new Hastings bridge. He was calling to tip him off to a photo op that very few people would consider.

Did he want to go out to the shores of the Mississippi River around 2:30 in the morning and wait through the sleet and snow for a couple hours for the chance to record the dismantling of the last piece of the old bridge?

For most people — even photographers like Youngren — the answer would be an easy "No." But for him, there was no question he would be out there.

He was rewarded for his persistence with an amazing video of the steel plunging into the freezing water, just as he was on other days with other beautiful shots of the bridge in various stages of construction. What became a four-year project started in September 2010, when he saw a barge floating up the river with a shipment of materials. That day, he decided to snap a picture for his brother and a friend. Then he took some more, and uploaded it to a Facebook page he called "Hastings Bridge Watch."

Today that page has more than 3,800 followers. One of them is Mayor Paul Hicks.

"He's got such a creative mind," the mayor said. "Whether it be a building downtown, or a bridge or a river [ …] he has an ability to take the ordinary in Hastings — what we think is ordinary — and turn it into something that we would appreciate or might take for granted.

"He makes through his pictures the reasons why we live here. I think people in our community consider him a real treasure. I know I do."

He even became used to calls in the middle of the night from friends, telling him something new about the construction that they saw. Sometimes, he would get up and go photograph the new development. Other times, he didn't need to, because he just arrived home from shooting it.

With years of images — now he has 11,000 — Youngren was well-stocked "when people started asking me if I was going to take the best pictures and do a book."

"I thought about it for a week," he said, "and then jumped in with both feet."

That book, "Our Bend in the River," is a mix of his favorite photos and stories about growing up in the river town. It is now halfway through its first run of 1,000 copies since it was published this summer. It's available at stores in town, Youngren said, but he's also received orders online for expat Hastings residents — including one local mother who shipped a book to her son serving in Iraq.

Locally, one of the stores that carries the book is Tenacious K's, a downtown art gallery that also features a number of Youngren's photos and paintings. As it happens, said Jim Berens, a downtown jeweler whose wife runs the gallery, Youngren himself was "instrumental in us opening up." After a bridal shop in his building closed, Berens was looking for a new tenant.

The book, edited by Youngren's daughter, is a combination of photo journal, memoir and history on the three bridges that have defined the Hastings skyline for over 100 years. Youngren said the idea for the title came when he realized how so many people in town didn't grasp the extent of the Mississippi's bend through Hastings. It's actually "one of the sharpest navigational turns in the entire length of the Mississippi River," he said.

It's also a handy metaphor. "It's our bend, our part of the river," he said, "and Hastings proudly claims it and our Bridge."

Just like his Facebook project, the book has been a personal investment — self-publishing and printing 1,000 photograph-quality books was no small expense. But he expects with book signings — including a couple over Black Friday weekend — to help.

Beyond the book, Youngren takes his commitment to sharing the new bridge seriously, as well as the history of the old bridges. When he was tipped off about the bridge-dismantling, he said "I felt like it was my duty and an honor that he called me."

Before the last bridge was scheduled to be dismantled, he saw Hicks at the American Legion — where Youngren also painted a mural of the bridge — and mentioned how it would be fun, once traffic was shut down, to let residents walk across the bridge and take pictures. The mayor took him up on it.

And the week after Youngren went on Facebook to post the photo that's now on the cover of his book, his nephew called him from school. "Uncle Dave," he remembers his nephew saying. "Every cellphone at school has your photo as their screen saver!"

In his 50s, Youngren is a creative director at a printing and marketing company in Burnsville, and owns an arts event business, Arts Aloft. But he's always been a photographer.

He has "had a camera in my hand since I was a little boy," he said. He recalls the words "Don't use up all that film," being used more than once.

Digital storage has solved the challenge of running low on film. In addition to his bridge photos, he also photographs architecture and wildlife and has a penchant for sunrise and sunset shots.

"They say that every picture tells a story," he said. "Well, I took 11,000 pictures in four years, so I've got 11,000 stories to tell you."