Sometimes a perfect picture is first viewed through the windshield of a school bus. Other times, a perfect picture is found in the middle of the night behind a warehouse or under a bridge. Mother and son Brenda and Jadin Hanson share a talent and passion for photography, with opposing body clocks for when they best like to shoot.

Brenda usually looks to portray something flooded with color and light. Jadin sees beauty in places that most people might ignore in the daytime, and probably not consider lovely or interesting.

The Hansons were each drawn to photography at a young age. Brenda saved her babysitting money to purchase a seven dollar Kodak Instamatic with square, dangerously hot flashbulbs. Jadin laughs while she describes it, as if she had lived in prehistoric times. "Some of my best shots came out of that camera," she remembers, and she used it until it was obsolete.

The camera Jadin used as a child in the 1990s might not have been too much better, taking tiny 2x2 inch shots. He bought it for a vacation in Wyoming when he was ten and took five rolls of film. "I wasn't thinkng about he art of it at the time, I just kept pointing and clicking at anything I thought looked pretty."

The photographs from those inexpensive little cameras, however, were satisfying enough to lead them both into serious art photography.

Brenda has myriad interests. While photography is near the top of the list, behind studying the Bible, it's only the tip of the iceberg. She and her husband Jim have three children, Jamie, Derek, and Jadin, for whom she sewed many of their clothes as they grew.

She reupholsters furniture, does cross stitch, cooks her own original recipes, sings, installs windows, does sheet rock and all that entails. In addition, she was told she wouldn't be able to side her garage with a sunburst out of wood over the door, but she taught herself how and it looks fantastic. Some didn't think she could make a curved patio with steps out of blocks and bricks either, but she accomplished that too. "I don't like to be told I can't do something," she says.

Brenda has worked as a bus driver for ISD 709 since 1988. She currently drives for special needs passengers. Often, while driving, she comes across unusual trees, landscapes, and creeks that she never knew about. "I see them through the eye of the camera," she says, and makes a mental note to return without the bus or her precious cargo.

Her camera goes everywhere she does and often the pictures are cheerful looking, even if of a sobering subject, such as a man resting on a mat surrounded by goats near his tin shack, taken on a recent trip to Gambia, Africa. One of her favorites from that trip is of a little boy, gazing into her camera on a sunny day.

Another favorite is of a beautiful old winery in Napa Valley, sun drenched and leafy. She shoots both film and digital, matting them herself in store-bought frames. Her next project is learning to make her own frames.

Jadin is a 1999 graduate of Wrenshall High School and is a full-time digital photographer. He stays up most of the night photographing things most people never see in the wee small hours. One shot of the Superior Water Works looks like an abandoned swing set in a playground, and his favorite, of the Cutler Salt Plant, is strangely beautiful even though it's an industrial plant.

His eye for unusal angles and perspectives, along with the longer exposure time required for low light photography, imbues his night time work with cool funkiness and subdued energy. He likes his evening photographic perspectives because, "There's no one else around to see what I'm seeing, and I think it's good to record the moment, to share the experience."

He's also a web design artist with such local sites as Beaner's Central and Freestyle of Duluth to his credit. [outdated: now done by different designers] Jadin has had three showings of his work: Beaner's coffee shop in Duluth, Pizza Luce in Duluth, and a collection was accepted into the Coyote Arts Festival in Chicago in september 2005. Those twelve photographs were nominated for Curator's Choice award.

Jadin and Brenda recently shared a show at the Duluth Teachers' Credit Union. Their joint project had a total of thirty images on display. A mother and son art show appealed to them and was especially interesting due to the juxtaposition of their different visions.

"We figured [the show] out together, I love that it's something we have in common," says Brenda. They would like to show together again, but for now, Brenda would be satisfied with a website of her own, linked to Jadins "as soon as he gets around to it. And I want him to teach me photo-editing too."

Jadin agrees that photography gives them common ground in their relationship, "but we aren't able to take advantage of it enough because our schedules are so different." If their schedules ever do align, the world of photography will be the richer for their collaboration.

To view examples of the Hansons' photography, visit www.pepper-land.net.