If you are like me, then you'd have no idea that the State Picture entitled Grace is actually really old photoshop and is a picture and not a painting. It looks like a painting, but it was some tricks of the photography craft that made it stand out then, and also 16 years ago when it was recognized as the official state photo. If you don't know what I'm talking about here is the picture:

Credit: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/about-minnesota/state-symbols/state-photograph-grace/
Credit: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/about-minnesota/state-symbols/state-photograph-grace/
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In the roster of state symbols across the nation that mark official state birds, trees, songs and others, Minnesota is believed to be the only state with an official photograph.

The photograph turns 100 years old this year. So how did he make the photo to appear like it was a painting? Well, photographer Eric Enstrom, manipulated the negatives to change that to a window with rays of light beaming in, a long precursor to Photoshop. That later version with the window is the better-known version.

Enstrom, and later his daughter Rhoda Nyberg, also hand-colored the photos — another pre-Photoshop trick — making them appear to many as a painting. Not only did Enstrom have a hit photo on his hands he also helped put his 'hometown' on the map the Nothern Minnesota mining town of Bovey. To celebrate the success of the photo the town displays "Grace" on its website, an original copy of the photograph hangs in City Hall although it's currently on loan to the Itasca County Historical Society for its exhibit; and the building that once housed the Enstrom studio still stands, with a mural of "Grace" along the top of the building.

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