Category Archives: Running

Jayton – Volume 10

October 9, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett

We’re almost to the end of Formal Portrait Sundays. This is the last collection of pictures of Jayton. Since I started Formal Portrait Sunday I’ve really only taken one other set of formal portraits (depending on how you count time) and I will share those on a Formal Portrait Sunday, but as just one post. Not spread over several posts. Then Sundays will go back to being kind of a random set of pictures. Or maybe I’ll start taking Sundays off. It will be a brave new world.

Next Formal Portrait Sunday, we will look at the Baugher Family Photo Shoot again.

Art, Pufferbilly Days, Running, Willy, WPC - Reminder

Pufferbilly Days Race

August 26, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett

I took a lot more pictures at Pufferbilly Days this year. At least I made the effort. This was for two reasons. One is because I’m going to use these images for the photo project I’m going to move onto after the completion of THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT. The second reason is simply that I was around. I’m usually not around much during Pufferbilly Days. It used to be in September and September Saturdays are for Iowa State football. However, it was extremely hot on the Saturday of Pufferbilly Days. So hot that at least one event got moved to Sunday and I believe one event didn’t happen at all.

One event that definitely did happen was the Pufferbilly Days 5K and 10K. Thankfully it was ran early in the morning, cause I can’t imagine how brutal it would have been for the athletes if the race had been run at like 5 PM like it was in 2021.

I went up there to photograph part of the race cause Willy was running in it. There are also usually plenty of other runners I know in the competition. But this year Avril and Tiffany didn’t run. Neither did Katelyn. But she is teaching in the Czech Republic for the next year. So the only runners I knew were Willy and Katelyn’s sister Erica. Them and a new friend from Carroll.

One thing that was a little dangerous about the Pufferbilly Days Race is that it ended in front of the Dutch Oven Bakery. That intersection is also where the vendors for the Craft Fair were entering Story Street to setup their wares.

I setup near this intersection because more than one driver just blasted through the barriers in attempt to go to prison for vehicular manslaughter. Hyperbole? Not by much. While standing there, a guy who was attempting to stop traffic struck up a conversation with me.

He admired my shirt. I was wearing a shirt that Sara had made for me for my birthday. It says something about how Life is like a camera. I can’t remember the exact wording. He wanted to know if he could use my camera to take a picture of me. I suddenly felt like Grant from YOUNG GUNS.

Don’t remember Grant from YOUNG GUNS? Grant was the guy that Billy the Kid strikes up a conversation with in a saloon that brags to Billy the Kid, without knowing he is talking to Billy Kid, that he is going to kill Billy the Kid.

Billy asks Grant to hold his gun because:

“I admire you, Sir. And if I can touch the gun that’s gonna kill Billy the Kid…”

Grant relents and hands the gun to Billy. After Billy admires the gun for a bit, Grant asks for it back:

“Pass her back. Son. You stroke another man’s gun like that you might as well be strokin’ his woman.”

I don’t “have a woman”, but I feel the same way about my camera. I told him that I was good, but I appreciated the offer.

After that though we had a good conversation. I learned he was from Carroll and he was there watching his wife run. He asked me for restaurant recommendations in the area and he told me about his experience with Belluci’s and the Thompson Special. He was told it had a white sauce, but was horrified when he got it and learned the white sauce is mayonnaise. It made me laugh.

The pictures of the man running next to a woman filming her with his cell phone is my new friend from Carroll.

Here are some pictures I took of the race. The first couple of pictures are of sidewalk art done by local artist (and family friend) Don Hughes. It was a tribute to the 1963 Boone High Marching Band that marched in the Rose Bowl Parade. There was exhibit at the Boone Historical Society Museum about them. The farthest the Boone High Marching Band ever traveled in my day was Pella. Which is where the infamous Chuggler Incident happened. We don’t talk about the Chuggler Incident.

Lots more Pufferbilly Days photos to come! Choo! Choo!

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This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is CIRCLE:

CIRCLE

CIRCLE! What a great theme for Year 9 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE.

But what is a CIRCLE image? It is simply a picture where a major compositional element of the picture is a CIRCLE. 360 degrees of fury! There are CIRCLE(s) literally everywhere! Once you starting looking for them, it is hard to not see them everywhere.

Happy photo harvesting!

Alexis, Animals, Brandon, Candid Portrait, Carla, Elainie, Formal Portrait, Holidays, Jason, Mom, Nader, Olympic Sports, Running, Teresa

2011-05-01, 2011-05-09, and 2011-05-14

February 19, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folders 2011-05-01, 2011-05-09, and 2011-05-14 are mostly from a Mother’s Day celebration we held at my house. But there are also pictures there from the RANDOM WEEKLY PHOTO EXPERIMENT (now known as THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE) and Logan running track.

WEEK 17 - MOTION - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT

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:

RWPE Y2 #17 – MOTION

RWPE Y2 #18 – ADVENTURE

RWPE Y2 #19 – COLORFUL

RUN LOGAN RUN

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve the greenhouse formerly known as the Northwest Greenhouse.

Pufferbilly Days, Running, Willy

Pufferbilly Days Race

August 17, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

On the Saturday of Pufferbilly Days I went up to watch Willy and some of his friends run in the 5K and/or 10K. I also took some photos, since it has been a long time since I photographed Willy running. I also saw quite a few other people I knew up there running.

Here are some of the pictures:

I also took some pictures of the Pufferbilly Days Pet Show (spoiler: no cats) that I will share at some point.

Animals, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Holidays, House, Running, Willy

2010-04-30

October 31, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Happy Halloween! At the time of my writing this, the CDC has recently announced that Beggars’ Night should be cancelled. I have a feeling Boone will still be handing out candy, because if we allowed Super Nationals to happen… well the bar has been set pretty low and the greatest worry is not tripping over it. Either way, I’ll be sitting on my couch watching scary movies tonight. Maybe with a table of candy on my driveway. Maybe not. I guess we’ll see.

Happy Halloween!

Which makes it time for me to reveal by 2020 Candy Bar Power Rankings. There are some changes from last year:

2020 Candy Bar Power Rankings
10. Baby Ruth
9. Rolo
8. Payday
7. Heath
6. Snickers
5. Twix Caramel
4. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
3. Take 5
2. Peanut M&M’s
1. Whatchamacallit

No interviews at this time. Please respect my decision.

Still, Three Musketeers and Milky Way are the most garbage candy that you will never see me handing out to trick-or-treaters.
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The pictures in the folder 2010-04-30 fall mostly into two categories. Pictures of Willy running. Pictures of frogs. Two pretty great subjects in my book!

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:

Vacation Day 2 – The Tub

Vacation Day 7 – Couch Time

PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT OF THE WEEK NO. 20

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve flowers, Alexis, and my Mom.

Black & White, Naima, Running, Willy, WPC - Alternate

Chewed Up and Spit Out and Booed Off Stage

April 7, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

This collection of images from the 2019 backlog are from December. The pictures of Naima I took out at her favorite stomping grounds, Dickcissel Park. The pictures of Willy are from track at Goeppinger Field. The Willy pictures are alternates for the THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme of SPORTS/GAMES.

Chewed Up and Spit Out and Booed Off Stage

Really making good time on this backlog thing now!

Animals, Boone County Fair, Calendar, Contests, Flowers, Macro, Running, Shannon

July/August Reveal

December 29, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Today we reveal the images that graced the 2020 Photography 139 Calendar for the months of July and August.

Here is the July image:

July

The July image was taken of the Pig Races held at the Boone County Fair in 2018. I took this image for THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT, Page 77. The theme for Page 77 was “Instill a powerful sense of narrative in your picture.” It was selected to be entered in the Boone County Fair Photo Contest by Shannon Bardole-Foley. It earned a Purple Ribbon. It was taken on July 22, 2018.

Details

Camera: Sony ILCA-77M2
Focal Length: 50mm
Aperture: f/5
Exposure: 1/2000
ISO: 250

The August image:

August

The August image is of a yellow lily that lives in the lily patch that surrounds the old clothesline pole in my backyard. I nominated this picture for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest in the Nature category, but it did not get enough votes to be entered. It was taken July 14, 2018.

Details

Camera: Sony ILCA-77M2
Focal Length: 60mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Exposure: 1/200
ISO: 100

Tomorrow I will reveal the imagees from September and October.

Andy, Angie, Becky, Candid Portrait, Jen, Jesse, Kim, Michelle, Micky, Nature, Running, Tamara, Willy, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 222 – SPORTS/GAMES

December 16, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Another healthy week of submissions. The 12th week in a row of double digit submissions!

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

Kim Barker

Christopher D. Bennett

Tamara Peterson

Micky Augustin

Andy Sharp

Michelle Haupt

Jen Ensley-Gorshe

Becky Parmelee

Angie DeWaard

Jesse Howard

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:

LANDSCAPE

LANDSCAPE! What a great theme! But what is a LANDSCAPE photo? Here is a good definition I took from the Wiki:

Landscape photography shows spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes.

You could also do a cityscape or a waterscape. Remember LANDSCAPE has more than one meaning.

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.

I now allow people to text me their submissions. In the past, I had made exceptions for a couple people that aren’t real computer savvy, even though it was an inconvenience for me and required at least 3 extra steps for me. I am now lifting that embargo because I have a streamline way of uploading photos. I’m not giving out my phone number, but if you have it, you can text me.

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 landscaped Monday!

Andree, Brandon, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Logan, Night, Running, Sara, Willy, Work

2009-07-15

November 23, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Sometimes these Saturday walks down memory lane that are part of a restoration project of old blog posts, takes a completely unexpected turn. The images in the folder 2009-07-15 contains a couple of those pictures.

In there are pictures of Sara and a sparkler. Then there are pictures of lilies. There is a picture of Andree in front of his house. Then there are pictures of Logan and Willy running in Midnight Madness.

But buried in those Midnight Madness photos are 2 pictures of people I haven’t thought about in years. One guy I liked and miss when I remember them and another person that was just the strangest briefest flash across the sky of my life. He was a person I had completely forgotten about.

The first picture is of a UPS guy named Blake that used to be the dedicated UPS guy at the Computer Mine my first 6 or 7 years I was swinging the pick. At a certain point Blake took a different route and I haven’t really seen him since then and it is too bad. I miss talking to that guy. He even once tried to pay me to pretend to be Santa for his kids. I declined the offer because, you know, kids smell, but in the history of people thinking I should portray Santa, Blake the UPS guy was the first. At least the first to offer me money.

The second is a more weird twisted, rocky memory lane. There is a picture of a guy named John in the collection. I can’t remember John’s last name at all, but at the very end of my tenure with the Evil Clown Empire I was stationed at the West Ames Outpost. John was my “boss”. He suffered from some mental illness, but I’m not entirely sure what flavor.

He spent an entire afternoon once counting paper clips and rubber bands in the lobby. Then he calculated which one was cheaper to bundle money with, paper clips or rubber bands. He spent hours on this project to try to save the store .0003 cents per bundle of bills.

I’m going to let you in on a secret. There are two ways to control your profit at a restaurant that matter. You control your labor costs. You control your food costs. Placing energy on anything is a complete waste of your resources. Control those 2 things and almost everything else will fall into place.

I only worked with John a few weeks. He was fired during the weeks I took off work after Olivia passed away. I can remember sitting in my Mom’s kitchen a couple days after Olivia’s funeral when John called me. He called to tell me that he had been fired. When I returned to work, they offered me John’s job. I told them where to stick their job in so many words. It was also when I put in my 1 month notice. In retrospect, I don’t know why I gave them a full one month notice, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.

As for John, it would be 3.5 years before I would see him again. He was running in Midnight Madness. He seemed to be doing well. I haven’t thought of him in years until I came across his picture in this collection.

I wonder what he is doing now, but I can’t even look him up. I don’t remember his last name.

Here are some pictures from that folder:

This is John

This is Blake

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:

DFDA54

New Digs

The Most Tolerable Third Party

Yet There is Method in It

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve another Ames on the Half Shell concert.

Candid Portrait, Dad, Formal Portrait, Jay, Running, Sara, Willy

11-23-08 & 11-25-08

March 30, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

The grand majority of the pictures from this blog are from the folder 11-23-08, but there is one picture from the folder 11-25-08.

The pictures in the folder 11-23-08 are from when Sara, Jay, and I went to see Willy and his friend Kristy run in the Turkey Trot at Living History Farms.

The Turkey Trot is a cross country race ran in November when conditions are often quite cold and muddy and snowy or rainy.

I don’t think Willy has ran this race since then, which kind of disappoints me.

An observant person might be able to pick out Annie Buchmiller in these pictures:

The cribbage board was made by my Dad. To this day, I still don’t actually know how to play cribbage, however, by posting this picture back in the day, I got one of my favorite comments on a blog post:

Well, that’s a pretty cool design, but REAL cribbage only goes to 121 points… your board there goes to 133. Not a standard cribbage board but lots of points for originality!

Cheers,
Joe – Cribbaholics Unanimous: http://www.cribblog.blogspot.com

Thanks Joe! from Cribbaholics. I hope you are doing well to this day.

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:

The Turkey Trot

The Real Real

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will be a bit complicated, but it will involve a fundraiser at the Roland American Legion, some United Way Stuff, and hats.