Category Archives: Night

Brandon, Candid Portrait, Football, Formal Portrait, Night, Russ, Teresa

10-27-08

February 23, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

The pictures in the folder called 10-27-08 are from Brandon’s Senior Night playing football for dear old Boone High.

Attending that football match against the worst town in Iowa (Ballard)* was the first time I had attended a Boone High football game since I graduated from the jewel of Iowa’s High School education system many years before.

I have in recent years worked the concession stand at a few Boone High sporting events to help a brother (or sister) out, but I still think I have actually only witnessed Boone High athletes competing maybe 3 times since my own graduation.

Here are some pictures from that night:

It was such a big event that Sara even came to town. I have to imagine it might have been the last football game she has attended!

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entry to its original glory:

Last Home Game

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a trip to Ottumwa to work on a house.

*Ballard isn’t even a town and it still sucks!

Brandon, Candid Portrait, Event, Faust, Football, Formal Portrait, History, Iowa State, Jay, Music, Night, Politics, Street Photography, Willy

10-26-08

February 16, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

There are 2 types of pictures in the folder called 10-26-08. Some are from Iowa State’s game with Texas A&M. The second type are pictures from a Suffrage Parade re-enactment that took place in Boone in 2008.

Perhaps you don’t know that Boone was (possibly) the site of the first Woman’s Suffrage Parade in the United States. That’s right, sometimes this backward hick town can be darn right progressive.

Here is some information on the event taken from a “Des Moines Register” article printed around the time of the re-enactment:

Boone Lead the Way

If you haven’t heard of this milestone event in women’s rights, you’re not alone.

Suzanne Caswell, who helped organize the re-enactment as a way to celebrate the parade’s 100th anniversary, says for the most part Boone’s marching suffragists have vanished from public consciousness.

Caswell hopes the re-enactment – which will include the dedication of a memorial – changes that.

“I think people need to realize that a small town was able to be in the vanguard of an important movement in American history,” she said.

The gathering
It was just before lunch hour on a windy October day in 1908 when the women gathered in front of the Universalist Church in downtown Boone.

Some were eager; others, afraid.

All were growing impatient with a struggle that showed no sign of ending, especially their leader, the Rev. Eleanor Gordon, a “relief minister” at First Unitarian Church in Des Moines and president of the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association.

“Perhaps the dreariest of all the dreary meetings of the summer were the monthly meetings of the Des Moines Political Equality Club,” Gordon recalled later in a first-person account compiled by the Iowa Suffrage Memorial Commission. “We listened to an earnest paper written by an earnest woman, read in an earnest manner, giving good and sufficient reasons why women were entitled to vote. … As I walked slowly home over the hot and dusty pavement, I said to myself, ‘Something must be done and done quickly or we shall learn to hate the whole business.’ ”

Less aggressive mood
Gordon was in the mood for more aggressive action, similar to the stories she was hearing from England, where a group of suffragists had led a march through the rain and mud that drew 3,000 participants.

Although Gordon didn’t want to take things quite as far as some of the more militant English leaders, who were waging hunger strikes from their jail cells, she thought it was time to take the movement to the masses.

With Iowa suffragists’ annual convention coming up in late October in Boone, Gordon enlisted the help of Rowena Edson Stevens, president of the Boone Equality Club, in planning a parade for the convention’s last day on Oct. 29.

The only thing not in the women’s control was the blustering wind that October day, which whipped dust into the faces of the marching women – some accounts say there were 30, others 100 – as they followed the band down Seventh Street, the hems of their long skirts brushing the dirt roads.

Accompanied by a few high-profile guests, including the Rev. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, they carried banners that read “We have knocked on Iowa’s door for 37 years, is it not time it opened” and “Like the daughters of Zelophehad, we ask for our inheritance.”

Many of the marchers were the wives of leading community professionals and Caswell, who has a doctorate in history and has done extensive research on the parade, said accounts written at the time clearly show they were worried about the possible ramifications of their involvement.

What if the townspeople disapproved and stopped going to their husbands’ businesses?

What if their daring cost their husbands their jobs?

“It took a lot of courage to do this,” Caswell said.

The women needn’t have worried. By all accounts, the town of Boone gave them a warm welcome. A large crowd quickly formed, politely cheering the speakers rather than jeering them, as had happened other places.

News of the event made the New York Times (which erroneously reported 600 participants) and the Boston Daily Globe.

First of its kind?

Some historians — mostly Iowans — maintain the Boone event was the first official suffrage parade in the nation but Caswell says you have to define the word “parade” pretty narrowly for that to be true. Female suffragists had marched through the streets that same year in New York City and Oakland, Calif., she said, although without bands or speeches.

After Boone, parades and open-air meetings became staples of the suffrage movement across America. Among the Iowa women who led the way, there was a strong feeling of satisfaction, as if they’d struck a powerful enemy a mortal blow.

One successful parade, though, didn’t change the law.

In the 1923 book “Women Suffrage and Politics,” authors Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler recounted how every two years, a contingent of women would go before the Iowa Legislature to ask for suffrage only to be steamrolled by liquor lobbyists who feared – correctly, as it turned out – that a prohibition on liquor sales would follow if women earned the right to vote.

It wasn’t until the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1919, 50 years after Iowa suffragists first took up the fight, that they finally were able to celebrate victory. Some of those who marched in Boone that October day, like Mary Jane Coggeshall, a charter member of the Polk County Woman Suffrage Society, died before they were able to cast a ballot.

Here are some pictures from that folder:

By adding these images to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Suffrage March

An Explosion of Catastrophe

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a Senior Night.

Andy, Animals, Basketball, Bethany, Jim, Michelle, Naima, Night, Road Trip, Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait Project, Youth Group

Selfie Project – January

February 5, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

Loyal leaders may recall that I started up the Selfie Project again in 2019. At the end of every month I will check-in with it to share some of my favorites from the month.

If you don’t want to wait until the end of the month, you can follow me on the Instagram to see what I have done and where I have been.

To follow me on the Instagram, scan my Nametag below:

Spoiler: For January I’m not sure I did anything all that exciting. Although I did leave Iowa once to visit the Miller Triplets in Kansas.

Here are my favorites:

December 31, 2018

January 4

January 8

January 10

January 12

January 14

January 16

January 17

January 18

January 20

January 21

January 22

January 23

January 25

January 26

January 27

January 29

January 30

January 31

Hopefully I will be interesting in February. There is a baby I need to visit up in Minnesota. A baby I need to visit down in Des Moines. If the weather gets nicer, I could spend some time pursuing THE TOWN SIGNS PROJECT or I could spend the entire month hanging around the house with Naima.

The struggle is real!

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Here is a big update on my pursuit of a drone:

~~Car paid off. – I got the pink slip daddy!~~
~~Training Budget Reimbursement – Bought about 10 books and signed up for an online portrait photography class that I will discuss someday.~~
~~Purchase Popcorn Maker – The Union Street theater has procured its very own popcorn maker from Flat Earth Joe. The one that was borrowed from Andy’s friend of a friend has been returned.~~
Computer Upgrade – I have completed upgrades on my home computer. I’ve put in a solid state drive to run the OS and the applications, I upped the RAM to 16 GB and I replaced the video card with a video card with twice the ram and that is capable of running 3 monitors.
Figure out the effect of the Iowa GOP Tax Scam – The Iowa GOP Tax Scam will indeed result in me paying more taxes. There is about a $7 effect on my paycheck, meaning I am getting a tax cut of roughly $200. (Assuming the withholding from my paycheck is being done right.) However, since the Iowa GOP Tax Scam made it so a 6% sales tax is levied on all online purchases, I will be taxed well more than the $200 benefit. For example, I’ll pay over $100 in taxes on purchasing the drone that I wouldn’t have had to pay before the Iowa GOP Tax Scam became law.
~~Rear Brakes – I had the rear brakes replaced on my car last night. It costs me about 40% of what I was expecting Win!~~
~~Computer Mine Bonus – I did indeed get a Computer Mine Bonus. I can’t complain about it one bit.~~
Bank Fraud Resolution – I am going to consider the bank fraud situation resolved. I haven’t received a letter saying that it is a done deal, but the bank did place the $350 that I requested in my bank account as a provisional credit. The investigation is still to be closed by January 31. I have a naive faith that the investigation will end in my favor. Otherwise, Credit Union Time?
Federal GOP Tax Scam – The Tax Scam didn’t effect my tax refund at all. It was almost like it wasn’t meant to be a tax cut for lower class and middle class people. It is almost like it was a cash grab for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations under the ludicrous precept that some of the benefits would trickle down to us poor folks. I can say this with 100% certainty. I respect a person that believes the earth is flat way more than I respect somebody that believes in the Laffer Curve.
Change Jar -I have added some change to the change jar, including the change I won in a football pool at the Computer Mine. However, I am still probably 2 inches short of being almost full. I should effort to go through the cushions of my couches. If I can get within one inch, of the top of the jar, I will call this quest complete and proceed to order my drone.

That looks identical to last week’s drone update. This is because it is identical to last week’s drone update.

Here is what is different. I’ve decided not to wait until the coin jar is full to pull the trigger on the drone. I pulled the trigger last Friday and it should arrive to be safely caressed in my arms tomorrow.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to actually use it due to the weather, but I will monitor the weather closely. It is possible that the first day of decent weather I’ll take off of work and go play in the skies above us. No higher than 400 feet and not within 5 miles of an airport.

I know what you’re thinking, you snagged your reward before achieving your goals. That shows a lack of discipline. This is very disheartening, considering you have been yammering on and on to anybody that would listen that you are going to be more financially responsible this year.

This is true. My main goal of 2019 is to be lest wasteful with money in certain ways. However, the benefit of that is that I get to be more wasteful in other veins.

My way of being more financially responsible is to have set some goals.

Goal #1: Decrease my actual debt load my a certain amount of money. I’m not heavily in debt. I have a house payment and some credit card debt. However, while I don’t have a car payment, I want to hammer on my debt and get it below #X by the end of the year. I’ll report on my progress here, because congratulations, you just became my accountability buddies.

Goal #2: Figure out why my website is costing me so much more money than I ever intended. I have partially concluded this goal. I actually (I know people should do these things) sat down and reviewed what my webhost was charging me. I discovered that I was paying $10 a month for something called Website Builder, that I don’t use. I built my website with my own two hands and Vest’s two hands and WordPress. They are also charging me like 8 bucks a month for PHP 5.2+. I’m still trying to figure out whether or not I need that, but at the very least, I’m saving $120 bucks a year on this website.

Goal #3: To stop wasting so much money going out to lunch at work. It is not an exaggeration to say that in 2018 and the years before I went out to lunch, on average 4.5 out of 5 work days a week. If I conservatively estimate the average lunch to be $10, I probably spent $200 a month on lunch. That is $2400 a year. My goal is to only eat out for lunch 20% of the year. I estimate that just by bringing lunch from home, I can save $1800 a year. The good news is that I’m on track this year. In January there were 22 work days. I went out to lunch one time. I’m currently at a 4.5% eating out for lunch percentage. My worry is that I will get burned out on eating in. So I’m going to try to mix it up as much as possible. If you have any cheap, healthy lunches that are easy to prepare either at work or on the Sunday before the work week starts, throw them my way. This week I’m eating overnight oats. This space is a place where I might also share some of the recipes I come across. I have to thank American Ninja Steve for introducing me to overnight oats. I’m not making his recipe yet because it involves lots of exotic ingredients I need to be able to track down like flax milk and hemp heads. But when I make that for a week, I’ll share that recipe here.

Goal #4: Save money by buying used lenses. I’m still torn on whether or not I’m going to buy a new camera this year. It has been almost 3 years since I bought a new camera and I’m getting the itch. However, I am vexed on what camera to buy. I’ve thought about crossing over into the Sony mirrorless realm, but that means a whole new camera mount. The other option is to buy the camera that is above my camera in my current platform. That camera sells for about $3200. That price tag is going to take me a lot of meals of overnight oats to justify in my head. Especially with my debt lowering goals. While I don’t know about buying a new camera, I have compiled a list of lenses I want to buy this year. I’ve decided to hit the used lens market this year as I can save sometimes as much as 30% by going used. Some of the lens I want are pretty cheap, but some are not. The exciting news for you is that every time I get some used glass, you’ll get to read an exciting equipment review! Yay you!

Goal #5: Up % of the paycheck that goes into savings and 401K.

But none of this explains why I felt it was okay to pull the trigger on the drone with the change jar still 2 inches from the top.

There are two reasons for that:

#1. Through my works and luck at the computer mine, I had $325 in Amazon gift cards burning a hole in my virtual wallet. In my wildest dream, there isn’t $325 in the coin jar.

#2. I recently ordered a new photo toy called arsenal for $185. It is a camera attachment that allows you to control your camera with your smartphone. Now I can already control my camera with a smartphone, but there is limited control. It basically throws the camera into automatic and you get what you get. Arsenal allows you to control pretty much all the main settings on the camera. Plus it is supposed to do its own focus stacking and HDR. Plus it has some pretty sweet time-lapse settings. However, I got an email that they can’t make it Arsenal work with my camera and don’t think they ever will be able to. They refunded me that money. Although to be honest, that $185 isn’t going toward the drone. When the refund hits my account it is going towards some glass. Not sure which one I’ll pull the trigger on first. But don’t worry I’ll let you know.

So where is that change jar money going to go. Well, one camera purchase I am dedicated to this year is the Sony RX0. Therefore, when the change jar is full I will take it to the bank and then order up the Sony RX0.

This concludes your Tuesday camera equipment purchase updates.

Nature, Night

Bloody Wolf Lunar Eclipse

January 24, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

Last Sunday there was one of nature’s greatest shows. The lunar eclipse!

I decided to check it out and photograph it because there won’t be another total lunar eclipse visible in Iowa for several years.

Although I cut my photography session short because I was having severe tripod problems, I did get a few images. Put that on my list of things to purchase this year. A badass tripod!

Here are a few images:

I do have quite the list of photography related purchases I want to make. I more than torn on a few of them. Obviously the drone comes first. But what comes second is a bit of a mystery.

Maybe not a total mystery. I guess I have pre-ordered a photo toy that should arrive sometime in February. When it comes, you will definitely get some kind of review. You can bet your bottom dollar on that!

Animals, Art, Black & White, Calendar, Christianity, Flowers, Macro, Nature, Night, Photoshop, Road Trip, Ruins, State Fair, Willy

2019 Photography 139 Calendar

January 2, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

Yes Virginia, there was a Photography 139 Calendar this year. However, I didn’t sell them this year. I just made a small run and gave them out to a very few small group of select people.

Here are the pictures from the 2019 Photography 139 Calendar:

The front cover is a picture of William McAlpine peering through the hole in a brick. It was taken in the backyard of the Photography 139 Studio. It was taken for the FRAMED theme of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE.

This photo was entered into the 2018 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. It was accepted for display.

Willy is the first person to appear in a Photography 139 Calendar since the 2012 Calendar featured a final rendition of THE 9 EMOTIONS PROJECT that included images of AmyJunck-Wallendal, William McAlpine, Derrick Gorshe, Shannon Bardole, Jesse Howard, Jennifer Gorshe, Sara Junck, Jill Gorshe, and Jay Janson.

The January image was taken on a very foggy Christmas Eve morning. It was taken facing northeast from the road in upper Ledges State Park.

This image was entered in the 2018 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. It was selected for display.

The February image of a red hibiscus was taken in the Photography 139 Flower Garden in 2017.

Unfortunately, the hibiscus did not survive the winter and did not return to the Photography 139 Flower Garden in 2018.

The March image is of a lily is located in the Photography 139 Flower Garden. It is located in a designated lily patch near the birdbath.

While this macro photo might appear to be one image, it is actually the product of a technique called focus stacking. This image is actually 7 images with different focus ranges stacked one on top of the other.

This photo was nominated for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest, but it lost the popular vote and was not entered.

The April image was taken at The Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa. It was taken on a road trip with my Office Buddy Joe Lynch. It was taken with the in-camera black & white HDR setting.

This image was taken for THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. The theme of the image was to go some place “touristy” and take a “non-touristy” picture.

The picture of Mary holding a crucified Jesus was selected for April to coincide with the celebration of Easter.

This image was entered in the Photoshop category of the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. It won 1st Place.

The May image is of the sculputre Skallagrim by Peter Lundberg. Skallagrim is located in the Franconia Sculpture Park near Shafer, Minnesota.

I took this photo on a trip there with Bethany, Dae Hee, and Nora.

The image is HDR toned and is used as the base image for a Small World image.

The June image was taken on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. It was taken on the Liberty Bowl Road Trip I took with Russell Kennerly and Jesse Howard to watch the Iowa State Cyclones defeat the Memphis Tigers.

The image was originally taken in color and was transformed into black and white in post production.

The July image is of a hollyhock from the Photography 139 Studio Flowerbed. This pink hollyhock grew in the dedicated hollyhock patch along the north fenceline.

This macro image was taken while experimenting with a new set of extension tubes.

This image was nominated for the flower category for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest, but was not entered.

The August image was taken in the midway of the Iowa State Fair. It was taken for THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. The theme of the picture was to take a picture of something that is “nondescript during the day.”

The image was taken when I was able to sneak away during a break in the action of Baby Got Rack’s competitive barbecue competition.

The image was HDR toned in post-production.

The September image was taken of a grasshopper at Big Creek State Park near Polk City, Iowa. The image was taken for THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. The theme for this image was to create a playlist and listen to it while taking pictures. The playlist I selected was the BABY DRIVER SOUNDTRACK. I was listening to the song “Bongolia” by Incredible Bongo Band when I took this image.

The October image of a ram lounging was taken in Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The image I was taken on the way home on a road trip I took with my Mom to Mount Rushmore.

This image was voted to be entered in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest in the Nature Category.

The November image was taken at the Iowa State Fair in the Discovery Garden. It was originally taken in color and converted to black and white in post-production.

It was nominated for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest in the Nature Category, but it was not entered.

The December image of an abandoned dump truck was taken in Boone, Iowa near the south terminus of Division Street.

The image was color processed through the Color Efex Pro 4 plugin during post production.

The image was nominated for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest in the Hidden Treasures of Boone County category, but was not entered.

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There are a few calendars to handout, but for the most part delivery has finished. Almost on time this year.

Faust, Football, Iowa State, Jay, Night, Willy

09-07-08

December 15, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folder named 09-07-08 are from the 2008 Iowa State-Kent State football game.

Iowa State won the game to go 2-0 on the season.

Here are some pictures from the folder:

Looking at some of these old pictures from 2008 makes me really miss when Willy and Jay would come over and tailgate. Makes me miss tailgating with Faust too.

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” journal entries to their original glory:

Retribution (Part 1)

Retribution (Part 2)

One of those posts includes where I make a prediction that the 2-0 Iowa State team was going to a bowl game. They lost their last 10 games.

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane involves frogs, flowers, and a family reunion, amongst other things.

Faust, Football, Iowa State, Jesse, Night

08-29-08

December 8, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folder called 08-29-08 are from the Iowa State-South Dakota State game in 2008.

Unlike this year’s South Dakota State game, it didn’t get cancelled due to weather. It wouldn’t go on to cost us wins over Iowa and TCU. But that is another subject!

Here are some pictures from that day:

By adding these images to The Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

THE LONG ROAD BACK (PART 1)

THE LONG ROAD BACK (PART 2)

THE LONG ROAD BACK (PART 3)

Next week’s walk down memory lane will once again involve Iowa State football.

Boone FUMC, Holidays, Jodie Cue, Kio, Mom, Night, Street Photography, Teresa

That’s Life

December 5, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

If you’re not in the parade, you watch the parade. That’s life.
-Mike Ditka

Last Thursday was the annual lighted parade in Boone. I’m sure it has a proper name, but I don’t know what it is.

As a member of the Outreach Committee, I was part of the team that put together the “float” for the lighted parade. Unfortunately, we didn’t garner very many volunteers and I had to call a couple people last minuted just to borderline half fill our “people carrier”.

Although most people would not consider it a failure, I sorta do. That is okay. We learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. That means at the 2019 lighted parade, we will be back with a vengeance!

Here are some pictures from the event:

Santa was infatuated with my beard. He really wanted me to join the Santa union or something. Told me I could make $100 an hour as a “real beard Santa”. Maybe sometime, but I’m not ready for the Santa gig yet.

Black & White, Jesse, Nader, Night, Photo Journal, State Fair, Street Photography, WPC - Reminder

A Photo Journal – Henry Carroll – Page 79

October 26, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

I took Page 78 of the PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT on the morning of the Barbecue Contest of the Iowa State Fair.

I came back to the Iowa State Fair on the last day of the fair to take the companion picture.

Page 78 was to “Photograph a place that’s nondescript during the day…”

Page 79 – …but comes alive at night.

Only one picture can be physically adhered into the physical copy of THE PHOTO JOURNAL, but I did take several other pictures that night.

Nader and Jesse were photo assistants for this photo shoot.

Next time we check in with THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT, we will probably check in with Page 40.

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This is you weekly reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is COLORFUL.

COLORFUL

A COLORFUL picture is a picture of anything that is COLORFUL.

Happy photo harvesting!

Jesse, Music, Nader, Night, Russell, State Fair, Street Photography

I Want My Mummies

September 20, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Seemed like a good time to share some of my pictures from the Iowa State Fair this year.

I made two trips to the Fair. 1 with Baby Got Rack. The other on the last day of the Fair with Jesse and Nader to pick up my 2 photos that were displayed at the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. Russell even met up with us briefly.

Fortune smiled upon me with the scheduling of events at the Iowa State Fair. One of my favorite bands was playing on one of the free stages and the date happily coincided with the last day of the Fair, so I didn’t have to make a special trip to see Here Come the Mummies.

If you haven’t heard of Here Come the Mummies they are a funk group where everybody in the band dresses like a mummy. You can see how they appeal to my particular set of tastes.

Legend has it that the Nashville based band is filled with Grammy award winning artists that dress like mummies to conceal their identity; for fear of the band members violating their current record contracts.

I don’t know if this is true, but their high level of musicianship would make a pretty strong case for it being true. I don’t know too many other rock/funk concerts where you would see a badass flute duel and it would make 100% total sense.

Before I go on first dates, I like to send my date a copy of PANTS to listen to. It is the easiest way to insure that there is no second date. Also why my Tinder profile is so unpopular.*

Here are some pictures from an awesome (but one of the wettest I’ve ever experienced from the standpoint of water) rainy night with Here Come the Mummies:

We didn’t stick around for the concert as long as I had hoped. Hopefully Here Come the Mummies comes back to Iowa in 2019 so I can have the full experience.

*This is all a lie. I don’t go on dates. My Tinder profile is very popular.