Category Archives: Jason

Won’t Take that Credit; I know Where We Get It; Them Blessings Be Comin’ from God Above

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Rather than my standard picture of an inflatable turkey, thought (with apologies to Lecrae, I’d give thanks for some of the many blessings in my life.

Count it up, count it up, count it up.
Line ’em up, line ’em up, line ’em up.


Bennett 2017 Family Photo
Blessed with a tremendous biological family. Blessed to share DNA and a life with these people.


Blessed to be a part of Olivia’s family. Blessed to learn a new definition of the word “family” from Shorty and Doris.

Mission Trip  - Day 0
Blessed to be a part of an incredible church family. From Youth Group to Methodist Men to the people I see in the pews on Sundays.

Thanksgiving - 2017
Blessed to have a job and double blessed to have a great work family. 7 AM comes pretty early, but so many of the people I work with make the struggle worth the effort.


Blessed to share a life with this band of brothers. Not one of us has any fashion sense, but I’d still take a bullet for any of them.


Blessed to fit in with this band of sisters as well.

Movie Club
Blessed to be able to share my love of weird cinema with like minded individuals once a month.

October 28, 2017
Blessed to be a Cyclone and double blessed to have somebody to share so many trips to Jack Trice (a spiritual place for me) with.


Blessed to have a roof over my head that belongs to me. Blessed that I can extend that roof over friends and family when their life needs it. Blessed that when I say, “Want to help paint by house?” 20+ people show up.


Blessed that friends from past jobs are still important pillars of my current life.

The Howard Children
Blessed that people that aren’t related to me consider me an uncle to them.

August 15, 2017
Blessed to have a car that I can drive out of town and not worry about the tire falling off.


Blessed to have so many people in my life that when I say, “I’m coming to your city”, they say, “You’re staying with us right?”

Tenderloining at Nick's
Blessed to have so many people in my life that fill gaps.

Selfie Project - March 5
Blessed that even though I’m aged, I still healthy enough to still ball. Although pretty poorly these days.

Selfie Project - January 27
Blessed that even though I’m aged, I still have people in my life that keep me young.

Selfie Project - January 21
Blessed to have people in my life that want to change the world for the better, when I get cynical.

Selfie Project -January 14
Blessed to have art in my life.

May 25, 2017
Blessed to have a beautiful beard. Even if the old guys at my church hate it.


Blessed to have people who will help with projects like this, no questions asked.

Photo of the Day 0003 - May 5, 2014
Blessed to share a life and a domicile with this crazy beast. Teaches me about selfless love every single day.

June 28, 2017
Blessed to have a chance to spread my blessings to others, sometimes, with some of my favorite people.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of my blessings. But I don’t want it to start to sound like I’m bragging.

Selfie Project – April

Here are some of my favorite images from the Selfie Project for the month of April:


Selfie Project - April 1
April 1

Selfie Project - April 2
April 2

Selfie Project - April 4
April 4

Selfie Project - April 5
April 5

Selfie Project - April 7
April 7

Selfie Project - April 8
April 8

Selfie Project - April 9
April 9

Selfie Project - April 11
April 11

Selfie Project - April 14
April 14

April 15, 2017
April 15

April 17, 2017
April 17

April 21, 2017
April 21

April 22, 2017
April 22

April 23, 2017
April 23

April 24, 2017
April 24

April 27, 2017
April 27

April 29, 2017
April 29

April 30, 2017
April 30

Of course, remember that I publish these on the daily on Instagram and you can follow me over here: @christopherdbennett

March

Now would be a good time to check in on the Selfie Project. I’ve attempted and failed at this project 3 times now. The farthest I’ve ever made it is 116 days. I feel like this just might be the year.

Here are some of my favorites from March:


Selfie Project - March 1
March 1

Selfie Project - March 4
March 4

Selfie Project - March 5
March 5

Selfie Project - March 7
March 7

Selfie Project - March 8
March 8

Selfie Project - March 9
March 9

Selfie Project - March 11
March 11

Selfie Project - March 12
March 12

Selfie Project - March 13
March 13

Selfie Project - March 15
March 15

Selfie Project - March 21
March 21

Selfie Project - March 22
March 22

Selfie Project - March 24
March 24

Selfie Project - March 27
March 27

Selfie Project - March 28
March 28

I do post these daily on Instagram. You can follow me here: @christopherdbennett

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 78 – SILHOUETTE

Looks like the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE went on Spring Break. Perhaps SILHOUETTE is too challenging of a theme. I’m not sure, but participation numbers this week are as low as they’ve ever been. Worries me that the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE might be on the way out. I guess we’ll see what this week brings.

But you don’t want to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You want to see this week’s submissions:


WEEK 78 - SILHOUETTE - KIM BARKER
Kim Barker

WEEK 78 - SILHOUETTE - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT
Christopher D. Bennett

WEEK 78 - SILHOUETTE - STEPHANIE KIM
Stephanie Kim

WEEK 78 - SILHOUETTE - MICKY AUGUSTIN 1
Micky Augustin 1

WEEK 78 - SILHOUETTE - MICKY AUGUSTIN 2
Micky Augustin 2

While they might be small in numbers, the submissions are spirited!

But enough dwelling on the past. Time to look to the future. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future! This week’s theme:


WEEK 79 - ORANGE
ORANGE!

I don’t think I need to define ORANGE. It is a color. Not a primary color. But a color. There are lots of things out that are ORANGE. Even some humans fake tan themselves into a strange, creepy ORANGE hue. Of course there is a fruit that is ORANGE. In fact, there are several fruit that are ORANGE. Or you could even take a picture of anything and slap an ORANGE filter on it. Of course 1 of my favorite movie of all-time involves the word ORANGE. I know more than 1 person out there that that does art with an ORANGE or two. I can’t envision a picture where my inbox is just packed to the gills with ORANGE pictures.

Happy photo hunting!

HOUSEKEEPING


A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

1. The picture has to be taken the week of the theme. This isn’t a curate your pictures challenge. This is a get your butt off the couch (my personal experience) and put your camera in your hands challenge. Don’t send me a picture of you next to the Eiffel Tower, when I know you were in Iowa all week. I will point out that I have let that slide some in the past. I will not in the future. Since it is literally about the only rule.

2. Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge. It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nothing new to report. I’ll try to do better next week.

Want your own Photography 139 email subscription? Call, email, or text me and I’ll get you the hook up.

That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very orangish Monday!

The Birthday Party of Fate (Roundup)

I’ve thanked all these people in person, but I’d like to publicly thank everybody that helped out in some either small or big way with my birthday party on Saturday.

Big shout out to Scott for making tons of delicious mouth watering chicken and jalapeno cream corn. I only wish I would have had time to help do more than just brine the chicken. If I am so inclined to do this again next year and you are so inclined to help with the food next year, I will have to schedule this so I can be more hands on with the process. I may have been The Master, but Scott was undeniably the Smoker Master. I just can’t overstate how amazing the chicken was people.

Much love to Scott’s (better-other-less high maintenance) half for making the Pick and Pluck. If I would’ve thought of it, I would’ve bought several gallons of ice cold chocolate milk to knock down while setting up shop on that thing.

Thanks to Logan and Corinna for holding down the grill and making an assortment of hot dogs and sausages to compliment the mouth watering chicken. I don’t really have any photos of the event, perhaps next year I can talk him/them into doing some candid photography for the party.

I’m always able to count on Dae Hee when I need some assistance. He came over and helped put up the canopies for the outdoor dining area, the tent for an additional child area, moved all the chairs from the basement to the outdoors, and watched 2 hours of GAME OF THRONES. A pretty solid effort!

Thanks to Jason for loaning me his Cornhole set.

Thanks to Shannon for loaning me her canopies, although I’m still unclear where one gets tailgating tents that don’t have Iowa State colors. Or why a person would even want such a thing.

Thanks to Jesse for laminating the beverage identification signs.

Thanks to Teresa for helping out in various tasks before the party started.

Thanks to my Mom for making a copious amount of side dishes and desserts. Nobody went home hungry. That is for sure.

Finally, thanks to everybody that took time out of their lives to come visit me:


Teresa
Brandon
Logan & Corinna
Aunt Linda
Kio
Steph, Katie, Jeff, & Yin
Carla, Jason, Alexis, and Johnathan
Mom
Scott, Melissa, Austin, and Porter
Steve
Dawn, Kevin, Scott, and Kayelee
Jen, Derrick, Evie, and Layla
Sara, Shawn, and Gretchen
Jesse, Kelly, Kalista, Saydie, and Taylan
Willy
Dan and Angie
Suzie
Monica and Jeff
Bethany, Dae Hee, and Nora
Jason, Will, Ben, and Nader
Andree
Anders & Nicholas
Shannon and Jason
Geri
Michelle, Craig, and Lily
Kim and Kevin

A special thanks to Dae Hee, Bethany, and Nora who came from Minnesota. Aunt Linda who came from Kansas. Stephanie who came all the way from Brooklyn. I guess I’m morally obligated to visit her in October now. Right?

Since I think that this party was a success on some level, I am tentatively planning on doing it again next year. Tentatively thinking about some time on Memorial Day Weekend next year. We’ll see how the cookie crumbles.

Now to the less than stellar news…

The Photo Booth was a success, but far from perfect. It turns out that the photo booth program I used has a painful little quirk. If the “Finish” button wasn’t pushed at the conclusion of the photo session, the program timed out and didn’t save the photo strip! The good news is that it did save the original images. The bad news is that there will be a night in my future where I’ll be piecing together photo strips from saved images. Yeah me!

For that reason, I did load up all the images into the party gallery. Not just the “finished” photo strips.

To see those images, click on the link below… (You can also download them by clicking on the down arrow icon.)

MANOS & PHOTOBOOTH IMAGES

However, thought I would share a few of them here as well:


But the good news is that I now have a thousand different ways to improve the photo booth for next year. Tentatively.