Category Archives: Religion

Christianity, Drone, Panorama, Road Trip

Rodan 139 – Small Church

May 29, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

When Jesse and I went on my pre-birthday road trip to Decorah I packed Rodan139 with me at the thought that I’d be able to crack it out someplace along the road trip.

While Decorah and two waterfalls were the ultimate purpose of the road trip, I also thought that if we were super efficient, we might even be able to hit Pike’s Peak before coming home.

No shocker, we weren’t super efficient. We spent a long time at a Civil War reenactment that we stumbled upon. To further complicate things, it rained almost the entire day and Rodan139 doesn’t leave the nest in rain.

On the way home, we stopped at The Small Church near Festina and Rodan139 got to spread its wings for a few minutes.

Here are a few of the pictures I took:

Andy, Angie, Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Carla, Drone, Holidays, Jodie Cue, Shannon, Steph, Still Life, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 193 – BLUE

May 27, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

First things first. Even though Photography 139 doesn’t take days off, it does acknowledge holidays. I hope you have had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend, but also take the time to remember why it is you got a 3 day weekend. To honor the people who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.

Happy Memorial Day!

As is usual when a holiday falls on Monday, participation rates for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE dip. While this happened again today, the people who did submit for BLUE were very passionate about BLUE.

There were pictures submitted that were taken in Rome, Philadelphia, Saylorville, and even Fraser!

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Andy Sharp

Carla Stensland

Kim Barker

Christopher D. Bennett

Kim Barker

Tamara Peterson

Angie DeWaard

Andy Sharp

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Stephanie Kim

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:

GROUP PORTRAIT

GROUP PORTRAIT! What a great theme! But what is a GROUP PORTRAIT? A GROUP PORTRAIT is simply any portrait that features more than one person. It doesn’t have to be a formal posed portrait. A candid portrait works just as well.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

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.

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date. 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

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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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 grouped Monday.

Christianity, Drone, Formal Portrait, Jesse, Photo Journal, Road Trip, Self-Portrait

A Photo Journal – Page 104

May 23, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Last Friday I took a birthday road trip with Jesse. It wasn’t my birthday, but it was the day before my birthday and I knew my actual birthday was going to be filled with working on my Mom’s bedroom ceiling and graduation open houses. So I took Friday off from work and Jesse and I hit the open road.

The ultimate goal of the road trip was to visit and photograph two waterfalls in the Decorah area. I had visited one of them a couple years back and I was never really satisfied with the photographs I took. The other waterfall I had never seen and it sounded very intriguing as it was described as a 1 mile hike to even get to it.

I have tons of photos of these two waterfalls coming in upcoming blog posts. Also pictures of a Civil War re-enactment with some of the “friendliest” folks you ever met in your life, plus a few new entries into THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT, pictures of The Little Brown Church, and The Smallest Church.

Plus there is a bunch of video I’m going to edit into a vlog at some point. On this trip I fully intended to take a picture for Page 104 of The Photo Journal. I knew exactly how I wanted to take this picture. I wanted to take it with Rodan139. Unfortunately it rained pretty much all of the day and I wasn’t risking Rodan139 in rain. It isn’t supposed to fly in rain and at this time, I’m not going to push the boundaries.

Luckily, when we were at The Smallest Church, the sky was precipitation free and it fit my definition of the theme for Page 104:

Page 104 – Keep walking until you are lost. Take a photograph the moment you realize you are lost.

Now we weren’t lost, not in the traditional sense. I knew where we were, but I didn’t know the fastest way to get back on the path home without pulling up the GPS. That is as lost as I get. We didn’t walk to The Smallest Church, but seriously, there is zero chance I’m ever going to get lost walking. My sense of direction is just too good.

The Littlest Church is sometimes billed as The World’s Smallest Church, but it isn’t. It isn’t even close. However it is very small. The church seats 8 people and measures 14′ x 20′.

Animals, Art, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Equipment, Jaxon, Naima, Self-Portrait, Underwater, Video, Youth Group

The New New

May 16, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

I have recently had a battle in my head and in my wallet. I knew I wanted to purchase a new camera that was something like an action cam, only so much more. It has the qualities of say a GoPro, but the image quality is vastly superior. The amount of control you have with the camera is like night and day.

The camera I’m talking about is the Sony RX0. I had it in my sights for several months. Then Sony went and released the Sony RX0 II. This put in something of a quandary. Three months ago, there was nothing wrong with the Sony RX0, but now there was a Sony RX0 II that was superior.

I had to make a decision. By the old and save a few bucks or pull the trigger on the new and lighten the wallet a bit.

Lucky for me, while I was wrestling with the decision, a bit of an unforeseen windfall landed in my lap and I decided to pull the trigger on the Sony RX0 II.

I’ve only had it since Tuesday, but I already love the little guy:

Happy birthday to me!

Here are a few of the first pictures I’ve taken with the RX0 II:

Here are some of the specifications of the camera:

Number of Pixels (Effective)Approx. 15.3 Megapixels
Lens Type ZEISS Tessar T Lens, 6 elements in 6 groups (6 aspheric elements)
F-Number (Maximum Aperture) F4.0
Focal Length 7.9mm
Focus Range (From the Front of the Lens)Approx. 0.66′ (20cm) to Infinity
Focus Area Wide (25 points [contrast-detection AF]), Center, Flexible Spot (S/M/L)Expanded Flexible Spot
ISO Sensitivity Auto (ISO125-12800, selectable with upper/lower limit)
125/160/200/250/320/400/500/640/800/1000/1250/1600/2000/2500/3200/4000/5000/6400/8000/10000/12800 (Extendable to ISO80/100)
White Balance Modes Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Incandescent
Fluor.: Warm White, Fluor.: Cool White, Fluor.: Day White, Fluor.: Daylight, Underwater Auto, C. Temp./Filter, Custom
Electronics Shutter 1/4″ – 1/32000
Continuous Shooting Speed Speed Priority Continuous Shooting: approx. 16fps, Continuous Shooting: approx. 3.5fps (Maximum) (With Max. Recording Pixels)
Waterproof Yes (IPX8 equivalent)
Dustproof Yes (IP6X equivalent)
Shockproo fYes (6.5′ (2.0m) (MIL-STD810G C1 Method516.7-Shock)
Crushproof Yes(200kgf/2000N/440lbf)

I made an unboxing video of it the RXO II for the YouTube Channel. It isn’t necessarily something I would recommend watching, unless you really like unboxing videos. It is in black & white, because I lazily didn’t check my camera settings before I started recording:

It isn’t the most watchable video in the world, but it allows me to practice my minimal video editing skills.

I’m going on a Birthday Road Trip on the morrow. I plan on using the RX0 II to do a vlog of the trip. I’m definitely not going to get in the habit of vlogging, but I wanted to test the RX0 II as a vlogging camera because some people say it is the greatest vlogging camera ever and some say it isn’t good for it at all.

One last thing, if you are a GAME OF THRONES fan, we will be watching the series finale at The Union Street Theater on Sunday night. You are invited! Jay might even be making cake. He also has a 20 year old surprise.

Andy, Angie, Art, Carla, Formal Portrait, Logan, Micky, Shannon, Tamara, Vest, WPC - Submissions, Youth Group

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 190 – GREEN

May 6, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

For what I think is the 4th week in a row double digit submissions were received for this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE them of GREEN. We are on quite a roll!

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came here to see the submissions:

Angie DeWaard

Andy Sharp

Kim Barker

Christopher D. Bennett

Tamara Peterson

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Carla Stensland

Mike Vest

Carla Stensland

Logan Kahler

Micky Augustin

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY! What a great theme! But what is a STREET PHOTOGRAPHY image? Here is a good definition I lifted from the Wiki:

Street photography, also sometimes called candid photography, is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents[1] within public places. Although there is a difference between street and candid photography, it is usually subtle with most street photography being candid in nature and some candid photography being classifiable as street photography. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic

As always, I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

I am pleased to announce that Lori Backous is the latest person to show taste, class, and sophistication by securing a Photography 139 email subscription. If you see Lori out and about, feel free to give her a knowing glance and show her the super-secret Photography 139 handshake!

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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 streetwise Monday.

Angie, Animals, Basketball, Bill, Boone FUMC, Drone, Frank, Geri, Iowa State, Jay, Mom, Naima, Nature, Night, Politics, Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait Project, Shannon

Selfie Project – March

April 24, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

It has been awhile since we checked in with THE SELFIE PROJECT. I figured today was as good of a day as any to check out March before April is over.

I’m not sure I did more interesting things in March than I did in February or January where it felt like I never left the house. I think I’ve continued that in April. I actually even left the state in April!

Here are my favorites from March:

March 1

March 2

March 3

March 4

March 6

March 7

March 8

March 9

March 10

March 12

March 14

March 16

March 17

March 19

March 21

March 22

March 23

March 24

March 26

March 28

March 29

March 31

No doubt you already excited to see my April “adventures”.

Andy, Angie, Carla, Formal Portrait, Jaxon, Jodie Cue, Kim, Self-Portrait, Shannon, Tamara, Youth Group

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 188 – RELIGION

April 22, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

A very solid week of submissions for RELIGION. We hit double digits and maybe if the weather stays nice, we can stay in that rarefied air!

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submssions:

Carla Stensland

Jodie Cue

Jaxon Schoff

Kim Barker

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Christopher D. Bennett

Angie DeWaard

DESSERT

DESSERT! What an incredibly tasty theme! It should also put to rest any of the chatter on conspiracy nutbag YouTube channels that I rig the themes in some way, shape or form. Because if I did, and since today is Earth Day, if I rigged themes, this week’s theme would be GREEN.

But what is a DESSERT photo? It is any photo of a DESSERT or somebody enjoying a DESSERT. Personally, I think I’ll be heading down to The Filling Station in Madrid this weekend for a little hardcore DESSERT action.

This theme was suggested by Andy Sharp. See, suggesting themes does bear fruit!

I look forward to your interpretations.

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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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 sweet Monday.

Black & White, Boone FUMC, Formal Portrait, Movies, Nader, Night, Self-Portrait, Teresa

2009-01-05 & 2009-01-25

April 20, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

There aren’t many pictures in the folders 2009-01-05 and 2009-01-25 so I decided to combine them into one post.

The pictures are mostly from a trip around Boone during a snowstorm and Nader and I’s last trip to the Varsity Theater.

Many people may not remember the Varsity. It was on Lincoln Way across the street from Lake Laverne. It showed foreign, independent, and arthouse movies. It still hasn’t been properly replaced. Now Ames have two multiplexes that devote almost all their screens to whatever mindless Marvel or Star Wars movie is being released that week.

Then if you want to see something original or thought provoking you have to take a ride down to Des Moines. Even Des Moines recently lost one its independent cinemas. Also, call The Varsity.

Here are some pictures to look at:

The sweet Iowa State scarf was a Christmas present from Teresa. She also took the pictures of Nader and I.

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

Denouement

Snowy Pictures

Sweet Christmas Present

By restoring these journal entries, I was able to finish completely restoring all the journal entries from January 2009.

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a Boone fire.

Andy, Becca, Boone FUMC, Formal Portrait, Nature, Pastor Sarah, Photoshop, Shawn Karber, Travel, WPC - Reminder

A Photo Journal – Henry Carroll – Page 90

April 19, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

A couple weekends back up I went to Minnesota to check out the Final Four festivities and check-in with a few people I hadn’t seen for a long time.

On Sunday morning I hit a donut shop with Becca and Shawn. Then I went to Minnehaha Falls to kill sometime before meeting Sarah, Shawn, and Addie at Revival. I figured that this trip was a great time to knock out Page 90 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. Even though it was absolutely just pouring down.

I made the walk to from the parking lot to Minnehaha Falls, protecting the camera as best as I could. I took a few pictures and then it really started pouring down. By the time I got to the car every inch of me was completely soaked.

I was so soaked that even after a 30 minute or so wait at Revival and about an hour eating and talking, my shirt only had a few dry spots on it.

Here is the picture that will be physically adhered to Page 90 of the physical PHOTO JOURNAL:

Page 90 – Create ambiguity with a blend of artificial and natural light

Pretty much every camera (even your cell phone) has white balance. This is where you set the kind of light that is dominant in your scene. It is set on Auto White Balance so that you don’t have to think about it. This is the type of thing that in the olden days you had to do with film. Film was balanced for different kinds of light. Pretty much all consumer film was balanced for daylight. Which is why when you took pictures inside, there was often a strange color cast to it.

The same thing happens when you take your color balance off of auto and set it for a type of light that isn’t in your picture. For example, in the picture of Minnehaha Falls, I set the white balance to tungsten. Since the lighting of this picture could be best described as shady, it the camera cast a blue hue on the image, thinking it was seeing tungsten light. Different kinds of lights have different color temperatures. You can make surreal images by setting your white balance against type.

One of the advantages of shooting in RAW is that you can change the white balance to whatever you want it to be. So I changed half the white balance from the image above to shady, so you can see what the image would have conventionally looked like:

Admittedly, I did play up the blue cast of the images a bit in post.

Here are a few other images I took at Minnehaha Falls:

I’m still on goal to knock out one page of the PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT a week. This week I’m looking at knocking out one of these pages:

Page 97 – Photograph a human as though it were an animal.
Page 84 – Photograph a lie.
Page 43 – Take a picture that only works in Black & White.
Page 37 – Use aperture to capture melancholy

You could be featured in just such a picture.

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Reminder that the theme for this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is RELIGION:

RELIGION

A RELIGION picture is any picture that involves the practice of a RELIGION. From a picture of a religious building, to a religious symbol, to a religious book, to a religious service.

Happy photo harvesting!

Andy, Angie, Animals, Boone FUMC, Carla, Formal Portrait, Jen, Jodie Cue, Kim, Logan, Micky, Naima, Photoshop, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 187 – FAVORITE COLOR

April 15, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

The weather last week was all over the place in Central Iowa. Beautiful one day. Windy enough to blow down one side of the Burger King garbage corral the next. Then beautiful again. Then a few snow flurries the next. Then beautiful again. While the weather was all over the place, it didn’t dampen participation rates for FAVORITE COLOR at all.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Jodie Cue

Kim Barker

Jodie Cue

Logan Kahler

Micky Augustin

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Christopher D. Bennett

Andy Sharp

Carla Stensland

Jodie Cue

Angie DeWaard

RELIGION

RELIGION! What a great theme! I can feel what you’re thinking. I can feel it from here. I see through you. All the way to your back button. You are thinking that it sure is super convenient that RELIGION is the theme the same week as Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter and Passover for that matter.

You’re thinking that I rigged it so that RELIGION would be the theme the same week that all the chreasters will be going to church.

There are two things you need to know:

#1. I don’t use the term chreaster. I don’t look down on chreasters. They obviously feel there is at least some need in their life for church, otherwise they wouldn’t show up twice a year. If they are only coming twice a year, the church needs to do a better job of making them want to come the other 52 weeks of the year.

There is a story for why they only show up twice. It could be that they tried to get active in the church and had a bad experience with an overbearing volunteer supervisor. It might be that they sat in somebody else’s pew and were told to move. It can be that they were made to feel unwelcome because of the way they dressed, wore their hair, their personal hygiene, or whatever. Maybe the time they came, the reverend’s sermon made them feel like they weren’t rich enough to belong because he mocked people that buy suits from JC Penney.

Time would be better spent figuring out why some people only show up twice a year rather than pointing out that they don’t reach your gold standard for church attendance

I don’t know their story. I don’t judge their story. Everybody is walking their faith journey and I won’t judge people for where they are on it. I hope people won’t judge me for where I am on mine.

#2. Themes are assigned randomly. I have no control over it.

But, what is a RELIGION photo? A RELIGION photo is any photo that deals with RELIGION. It doesn’t have to be Christianity. It could be Islam. It could be Judaism. There are 12 major religions. Christianity is the largest with 2.04 billion followers. The smallest is Judaism which as 14.5 million followers. Which is a startling number when you recall that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

That is the 12 major religions. Overall there are over 4,300 religions practiced worldwide. That is a tremendous amount of RELIGION photo opportunities.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Jen Ensley-Gorshe is the latest person to show taste, class, and sophistication by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. Jen, in fact was the first person to sign up using the tools on the website to sign herself up. You may not have heard that this was a possibility because I haven’t actually made them public knowledge yet, so I was super impressed with her diligence. Jen is married to longtime subscriber Derrick Gorshe. They have 4 amazing kids and recently moved to a new house. I have known Jen since we were wage slaves to the Evil Clown Empire. Both of us are now fabulously wealthy and only show up for work because we want to.

If you see Jen out and about, feel free to give her a knowing glance and teach her the super-secret Photography 139 handshake.

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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 religious Monday.