RWPE #8 - Self-Portrait

Final Reminder

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Last week's theme was SELF-PORTRAIT. Although there wasn't any new people to submit pictures, there were still several submissions. I would be lying if I didn't say that I was hoping that more men would submit pictures now and again, but we aren't very far into this project, so maybe a few more guys will ante up in the future.

This week's submissions:



Monica Henning (Fairweather Friend)



Julie Johnson



Dawn Krause



Becky Perkovich





Dawn's Weekly Poem includes an Artistic Adaptation.

Self Portrait


A rose
yearning to be a daisy
vulnerable and
open for the world to see

Glass
shattered into pieces
broken, mended
brought together in new form

Steel
smooth and resistant
with scars
damaged but still strong

Sunlight
full of hope
warming souls
joy with simple pleasure

The theme for this week is:

WET

That is a theme that would have probably been more fun to do in the summer, but what can you do? The Random Generator has spoken!

Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 6

Hearts Beat High with Joy


When I took this picture I went down quite the long journey of family history in family Bibles. One of the most important things I discovered was that I was born special.





The Bible in the picture belonged to my Grandma Bennett. My birth announcement was taped or glued to the front of her Bible. I wasn't the first grandchild born. I wasn't even close to being the first grandchild born. However, I am the only grandchild that had a birth considered worthy of having the birth announcement glued into the front of the Bible.








The Bible used for Hearts Beat High with Joy was my Grandma Bennett's Bible. The smaller Bible pictured in the last picture was my Dad's Bible. The Bible in the middle of the stack was my Grandpa Bennett's Bible.

RWPE #7 - Out of Focus

Daily Reminder

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Last week's theme was OUT OF FOCUS. I'm very excited to have Monica Henning as a first time contributor. Monica was so excited that she submitted four photos. She did violate the one and only rule of RWPE and that is that the picture has to be taken during the week of the theme, but I will let it slide.



Monica Henning A (Don't Take Me for a Loop)



Monica Henning B



Monica Henning C



Monica Henning D



Dawn Krause



Christopher D. Bennett

Dawn's Poem of the Week

Out of Focus

The future’s a blur
and rather hazy
Energy gone
and feeling lazy

The edge is gone
turned to soft gray
Watching the hours
pass away the day

Next week's theme is:

Self-Portrait

I hope there are plenty of first time contributors next Monday. After all, almost everybody owns a camera and everybody has a "self"!

Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 5

The Lovely Silhouette


I finally found a use for this window that I like. Sara agreed to pose for this picture before we went to the movies one snowy Monday night. This pose was not without some danger. The lights behind Sara are extremely hot, but she managed not to burn herself. This was a victory of some kind.

RWPE #6 - Adventure

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The theme for last week was ADVENTURE:



Jesse Howard



Michael Vest



Christopher D. Bennett


It is my custom not to explain much about my RWPE photos and I will not break with that tradition, but I will at least state that there is a small back story as to why I took a picture of me scrubbing the toilet for the theme ADVENTURE. This picture was not out of laziness it exists for a reason.

Dawn's Weekly Poem

Adventure

Let’s skip a stone on the pond
And run the forest wild
Have a sword fight in the woods
And fight the king so viled

Build a clubhouse in the tree
And mighty dragons slay
Lay in the meadow to watch the clouds
And pass away our day

Let’s push the limits of our minds
And spill our hearts desire
Play in the spirit of our youth
And pray we never tire

This week's theme is:

Out of Focus

Hopefully some fun can be had with that!

Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 4

Daily Reminder

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(500) Days of Winter


This picture is an homage to one of my favorite scenes from my favorite movie of 2009 - (500) Days of Summer.

Derrick posed for this picture when he was forced to vacate his abode for Girls Night on foggy Saturday night in January.

As it turns out, there wasn't a blog on Thursday, so here is the love letter from Thursday's Writer's Almanac.

There are many prevailing popular perceptions of Emperor Napoleon of France — most of which began as British propaganda. While his name doesn't often conjure images of a sweet hopeless romantic who pined for an older woman, the letters he wrote to his beloved Josephine reveal as much. In December 1795, he wrote to her:

"I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil. Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart! ... You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three hours. Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire."

Napoleon and Josephine were married in 1796; he was 26 and she was 32, a widow. He wrote to her from all across Europe, when he was out waging military campaigns. The year they married he wrote to her:

"I have not spent a day without loving you; I have not spent a night without embracing you; I have not so much as drunk one cup of tea without cursing the pride and ambition which force me to remain apart from the moving spirit of my life. In the midst of my duties, whether I am at the head of my army or inspecting the camps, my beloved Josephine stands alone in my heart, occupies my mind, fills my thoughts. If I am moving away from you with the speed of the Rhone torrent, it is only that I may see you again more quickly. If I rise to work in the middle of the night, it is because this may hasten by a matter of days the arrival of my sweet love. ... I ask of you neither eternal love, nor fidelity, but simply ... truth, unlimited honesty. The day you say 'I love you less,' will mark the end of my love and the last day of my life. If my heart were base enough to love without being loved in return I would tear it to pieces. Josephine! Josephine! Remember what I have sometimes said to you: Nature has endowed me with a virile and decisive character. It has built ours out of lace and gossamer. Have you ceased to love me? Forgive me, love of my life, my soul is racked by conflicting forces.

My heart, obsessed by you, is full of fears which prostrate me with misery ... I am distressed not to be calling you by name. I shall wait for you to write it. Farewell! Ah! If you love me less you can never have loved me. In that case I shall truly be pitiable.

Bonaparte

P.S. — The war this year has changed beyond recognition. I have had meat, bread, and fodder distributed; my armed cavalry will soon be on the march. My soldiers are showing inexpressible confidence in me; you alone are a source of chagrin to me; you alone are the joy and torment of my life."

And from Friday:

Zelda Fitzgerald, née Sayre, was F. Scott Fitzgerald's great muse and more. He modeled many of his characters after her, and he even included lines in his books that were from letters that Zelda had written him.

The two went on their first date on her 18th birthday. Her family was wary of him, and she wouldn't marry him until his first novel was actually published. Zelda was still 18 when she wrote this letter to Scott in the spring of 1919:

"Sweetheart,
Please, please don't be so depressed — We'll be married soon, and then these lonesome nights will be over forever — Maybe you won't understand this, but sometimes when I miss you most, it's hardest to write — and you always know when I make myself — Just the ache of it all — and I can't tell you.

How can you think deliberately of life without me — If you should die — O Darling — darling Scott — It'd be like going blind. I know I would, too, — I'd have no purpose in life — just a pretty — decoration. Don't you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered — and I was delivered to you — to be worn — I want you to wear me, like a watch-charm or a buttonhole bouquet — to the world. And then, when we're alone, I want to help — to know that you can't do anything without me.

One week after This Side of Paradise appeared in print, Zelda and Scott got married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. They became known as the quintessential Jazz Age couple: beautiful, flashy, with money, and often drunk in public. The year they married, Zelda wrote to Scott:

"I look down the tracks and see you coming — and out of every haze & mist your darling rumpled trouser are hurrying to me — Without you, dearest dearest, I couldn't see or hear or feel or think — or live — I love you so and I'm never in all our lives going to let us be apart another night. It's like begging for mercy of a storm or killing Beauty or growing old, without you.

Lover, Lover, Darling — Your Wife"

Amazing Weekend

Daily Reminder

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I did have a couple of late submissions for RWPE. Here are a couple of bonus FRAMING pictures.



Julie Johnson



Michael Vest


I had an amazing weekend. I would just like to share a few of the highlights. In no particular order, besides chronological:

• I ate supper on Friday night at Jeff's Pizza with Teresa and Jesse. I love their pepperoni rolls.
• I got to watch Jesus Christ Superstar at Stephens with Mom, Jesse and Teresa. It was an awesome production, with the exception of the geriatric Ted Neeley, who has continued to suck it up into his 60s. I firmly believe that the only acceptable definition of Hell is "separation from God". But if I were to believe in a personal punishment vision of Hell, it might be that I get up to what I think is Heaven because Jesus is there. But then he opens his mouth and sounds like Ted Neeley. I would have to pump my fist and scream, "You win this round vengeful God! You win this round!" Sorry Shannon, but that is the way it is.
  
• I got to chauffeur Jim out of the Cyclone State for only the 2nd time since 1987. It was the first time he has left the state for an "extended" period of time since 1987 when he took Nate to see a St. Louis Cardinals game. I think he might have enjoyed it as he is considering leaving the state again this Summer to see the Twins play the Braves on June 12 & 13.
• I got to see Bethany's new house. It is pretty sweet. They have managed to put down a new wood floor, new tile in the kitchen and new carpet in the rest of the house. Her new fridge is the coolest fridge I've ever seen. They painted all the rooms and they got the paint for free because they bought it on Christmas Eve and the Sherwin Williams employee just gave it to them as a Christmas Present because they were the only customers he had that day.
• I got to try my first (and won't be the last) Jucy Lucy. Yes, there is no "i" in Jucy. There are two restaurants that lay claim to having invented the Twin City curiosity. We went to Matt's Bar based on the recommendation of Becca's boyfriend Gelli. He insisted that they have the superior Jucy Lucy. A Jucy Lucy is a cheeseburger that has the cheese inside the meat patty rather than on top. A piece of cheese is surrounded by raw meat and cooked until it melts. The end result is a hamburger with a molten core of cheese. The sandwich is both incredibly tasty and slightly dangerous. You have to be careful with the first bite because if you bite into it too aggressively you are rewarded with an explosion of boiling cheese. This cheese explosion is both tasty and painful. A rare combination. The two restaurants that claim to have invented the burger are only a few blocks apart. Matt's Bar does not use the "i" in juicy. The 5-8 Club does use the "i". They both have used this spelling in their marketing. Matt's Bar boasts "if it's spelled correctly, you're at the wrong place." The 5-8 club boasts "if it's spelled right, it's done right". In a future trip to Minnesota, I will give the 5-8 Club a try. I might also venture into St. Paul to try the Cajun Lucy served at the Groveland Tap.
• Stopped at a quaint little store called Tom's Popcorn Shop. I picked up 4 types of popcorn. A chocolate popcorn that ended up being terrible. Jill compared it to Cocoa Puffs and that was a very accurate assessment. A double caramel and mixed nuts variety ended up being very tasty. A caramel and peanuts variety was tasty. The banana popcorn I am munching on right now isn't too bad.
• I got to see the bank where Bethany works and pick up two new pairs of shoes at a nearby Burlington Coat Factory. My injured foot is already starting to feel better since I switched shoes.
• I made Sara's dream come true by wandering around IKEA with Bethany and Jim. Okay, mostly with Bethany. I think Jim was ready to go 5 minutes after stepping in the door. I didn't get to see all of IKEA, but I did get to see a group of girls acting out the scene from (500) Days of Summer (have I told you lately how much I love that movie!) that is set in IKEA. That warmed my heart a bit. I also fell in love with their collection of butcher block tables and I have decided to get rid of my kitchen table and replace it with a small butcher block table. To create both some space and so I have a food prep area if I ever decide to cook. Or the more likely scenario, for the next time somebody comes over and cooks for me.
• I got to see Jill's apartment. It was disgustingly clean. Meaning if I spent now until my birthday party cleaning my house it still wouldn't be half as clean as Jill's apartment. But it is a well-known fact that the Gorshes are cleaners. Anybody that ever worked a closing shift at the Boone outpost of the Evil Clown Empire with Derrick can tell you stories about the cleanliness of the grill area when he was done. They can also tell you other stories, but I'm concentrating on how much that guy liked to clean for now. I got to meet her cat. I don't think it is a major surprise that her can't didn't like me, but the theory is that this was just laying the groundwork. The next time I visit, the cat will think I'm swell. It is similar to my theory that the next time Jupiter gets together with Jackson and Bailey they will get along swell because of the groundwork I did on Dog Playdate when I was borrowing Jupiter for Sara's trip to Florida. I also got to ride in Indy for the first time since I got to drive her several months back. We ate at this sweet restaurant called Jade 88 Chinese Cuisine. We were the only people in the restaurant. Literally. My favorite aspects of this restaurant were that they called crab rangoons - cream cheese powder puffs, they had a chair sitting in the women's bathroom stall (Jill reported this fact, I did not go into the women's bathroom) and they had the largest collection of cleaning supplies I've ever seen sitting on top of the toilet in the men's room. That isn't to say the food wasn't good, because it was great, but to know me is to know what type of weird things tickle my fancy. After the meal, Jill returned my copy of the 2 Disc Special Edition of A Clockwork Orange that she had borrowed a few weeks back. My Stanley Kubrick boxed set is complete once again! I was also able to loan her The Departed and give her the final piece of Halloween candy. A piece of candy that almost ended up in Willy's stomach.
  
• I had lunch with Jim, Becca and Nate at one of Becca's favorite restaurants Quang. It is a Vietnamese restaurant that reminds me of one of Sara's favorite restaurants, A Dong. (Yes, immature people, that is really the name of the restaurant. Stop giggling. I know who you are.) While we waited for a table, Becca and I checked out an Asian grocery store across the street. Now just going to a normal grocery store is kind of an adventure for me. (If you don't believe me, ask Jay) But going to this grocery store was a special kind of adventure for me. I actually didn't take my camera out of my backpack on the whole trip. Even though I thought about doing my FRAMING picture for RWPE up there, but in the end I admittedly just kind of phoned that project in. However, at the bottom of this list, you might just find a few low quality images I captured with my phone in this market. The food at Quang lived up to Becca's hype. We had some kind of fried yam things called Banh Tom Chien. They called crab rangoons cream cheese wontons. Tasty, but not as cute as cream cheese powder puffs.
• After Quang, I allowed Becca to drive my car (without a small amount of consternation on my part) to give us a tour of Uptown Minneapolis. I really liked Uptown. We got to drive by Gelli's parents' restaurant "It's All Greek to Me..." (a place I will no doubt try in the future) and hear Becca's sermonizing on how much she doesn't like hipsters. Nate liked to point out that Becca is a borderline hipster, but she doesn't see the similarities. Even though she does want to drive a Prius, she is not a hipster she insists. Mostly because she doesn't ride a bike. But perhaps the most exciting part of the Uptown tour was driving by the Uptown Theater. Although I had missed it, they clearly proclaimed on their marquee that they had a midnight showing of A Clockwork Orange. Jill is going to look into this phenomenon and hopefully a midnight showing of A Clockwork Orange is in our future.
• After the Uptown tour we stopped at a grocery store so Nate could buy the ingredients for gumbo. On the surface that doesn't sound particularly exciting, but in fact it is like watching Van Gogh buy paintbrushes or Eric Clapton buy a guitar.
  
• Becca made a Coastal Seafood Salad that included shrimp, squid and roughie. It was incredible. Nate made gumbo (no need to point out how phenomenal the gumbo was) and we settled down to watch the Super Bowl. I would have to say that my favorite Super Bowl commercial this year was the monster.com commercial with the beaver playing the violin. Like Jen, I'm partial to beavers. The team I was rooting for also won. That was a surprising bonus. Nate also tried to convince me that Metallica had redeemed themselves with their most recent album. I've never been much of a Metallica fan, but at some point I will be giving their new album a listen in order to make my own assessment.
• I pulled into my driveway at 1:30 in the morning. It had been a successful weekend on many levels.

Here are a few low quality pictures from my phone:



Mmmm... Pork brains. But you can't prepare that without edible beef blood!



Fresh clams!



Lobster. I wanted a picture of the crabs, but the water in their tank wasn't clear enough to get a good picture.





Of course I also wanted to share today's love letter from The Writer's Almanac:

Franz Kafka wrote stories about human beings transformed into vermin; unsettling legal battles over unspecified crimes; and a father who sentences his son to death by drowning. Kafka is often thought of as neurotic, and rarely as romantic, but he wrote a great many love letters — many of the anguished, helpless variety — to a Berlin woman to whom he was engaged for five years. Their relationship was carried out almost entirely by letters.

In the autumn of 1912, he wrote to Felice Bauer about how much she had become inseparable from his composition process, and also how anticipation of her writing kept him awake at night. He wrote:

"Lately I have found to my amazement how intimately you have now become associated with my writing, although until recently I believe that the only time I did not think about you at all was while I was writing.

In one short paragraph I had written, there were, among others, the following references to you and your letters: someone was give a bar of chocolate. There was talk of small diversions someone had during working hours. Then there was a telephone call. And finally somebody urged someone to go to bed, and threatened to take him straight to his room if he did not obey, which was certainly prompted by the recollection of your mother's annoyance when you stayed so late at the office. — Such passages are especially dear to me; in them I take hold of you, without your feeling it, and therefore without your having to resist.

... [It takes] every imaginable effort to get to sleep — i.e., to achieve the impossible, for one cannot sleep and at the same time be thinking about one's work and trying to solve with certainty the one question that certainly is insoluble, namely, whether there will be a letter from you the next day, and at what time. The night consists of two parts: one wakeful, the other sleepless, and if I were to tell you about it at length and you were prepared to listen, I should never finish.

Eleven days later, Kafka wrote to her:
"Fraulein Felice!
I am now going to ask you a favour which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well this is it:
Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them.
For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you.
I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don't want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that's why I don't want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?"

And a week after that, he wrote to her:

"Dearest, what have I done that makes you torment me so? No letter again today, neither by the first mail nor the second. You do make me suffer! While one written word from you could make me happy! ... If I am to go on living at all, I cannot go on vainly waiting for news of you, as I have done these last few interminable days ...

I think the thing I've liked about these letters is their common theme of thinking constantly about the woman they love and how that gets in the way of their work.

RWPE #5 - Framing

Basic housekeeping:

This page will be moving at the end of February. Don't forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS Feeds to the new URL: http://www.photography139.com/notebook/

Astute and technically savvy subscriber Angie did remind me that Blogger Dashboard is just an RSS Feed reader and anybody that follows An Artist's Notebook on Blogger Dashboard will still be able to follow it through Blogger Dashboard by simply updating the URL.

Dawn and Angie both raised concerns that they would not get email alerts when responses to their comments are left on the blog. I am currently looking into coming up with a fix for that and I will let you know when I come up with a solution.

This week's submissions for Random Weekly Photo Experiment:



Christopher D. Bennett



Dawn Krause


Shannon Bardole's Art Appreciation Picks of the Week:








Dawn Krause's Weekly Poetry Entry:

Dawn went for the "psychological concept of Framing" with her poem.

Framing

A social theory of interpretation
It helps us along in communication

Reference points making up our lives
Fitting together till every piece jives

Outline of who we believe we are
Continually makes us raise our bar

Compare our lives to what we know
Fitting our frames to friend and foe

This must have been a tougher concept to tackle as the fewest people contributed, but hopefully more people will be able to tackle this week's theme:

ADVENTURE

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of The Writer's Almanac. It is my favorite thing on the radio. I wanted to share a little tidbit from today's Writer's Almanac as it is rapidly approaching Valentine's Day. In fact, The Writer's Almanac is celebrating this week with love letters.

Poet John Keats (books by this author) lived to be just 25 years old, but in that time he wrote some of the most exquisite love letters in the English language. The letters were to Fanny Brawne to whom he became engaged.

He was 23 years old, recently back from a walking tour of Scotland, England, and Ireland (during which time he'd probably caught the tuberculosis that would soon kill him), and had moved back to a grassy area of London, where he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne. During this time, he composed a number of his great poems, including Ode to a Nightingale. And one Wednesday in the autumn, he wrote this letter, considered by many the most beautiful in the English language:

My dearest Girl,
This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my soul I can think of nothing else. The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you against the unpromising morning of my Life. My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again — my Life seems to stop there — I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving — I should exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love ... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have shudder'd at it. I shudder no more. I could be martyr'd for my religion — love is my religion — I could die for that. I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet. You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavored often "to reason against the reasons of my Love." I can do that no more — the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats

The following spring, Keats wrote: "My dear Girl, I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The more I have known you the more I have lov'd. ... You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was filled with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time."

Keats and Brawne became engaged. He wanted to earn some money for them before they got married. But then he began coughing up blood. When he saw it, he said: "I know the color of that blood; it is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that color. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die." He wrote to tell her that she was free to break off their engagement since he would likely not survive. But she would not, and he was hugely relieved. But he died before they married.

Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 3

Before I delve into this week's PPPW, I want to pass along some sad (not real sad) and fairly technical news.

The way I have always posted entries into this journal is through a blogging company known as Blogger. It is an awesome program and it allows me to write blogs on their website and publish them to my website via FTP.

Blogger is discontinuing their support for FTP publishing in about a month. That means that I am parting ways with Blogger at the end of February.

There are some positives to this change:

1. Now my Journal will have a consistent look and feel to it.
2. The blogging software I'm changing to (WordPress) is the same software I use to create, design and maintain my website. It does have a couple of features that Blogger does not.

There are some negatives to this change:

1. The URL of "An Artist's Notebook" will change from: http://www.photography139.com/index_files/artistsnotebook.htm to http://www.photography139.com/notebook/. That means that those of you that have links or bookmarks to the blog will have to update them to the new URL. Also, if you follow this blog via RSS Feed, you will have to update your RSS feed. I'm currently double posting, so it won't hurt to change those links and bookmarks before I stop posting via Blogger on March 1.
2. Some people follow me via Blogger Dashboard. Those people will stop getting updates on March 1. If this is troubling to you and you aren't comfortable with RSS Feeds, you can email me at bennett@photography139.com and I will add you to the email subscription list.
3. There are only a few people that actually leave comments on my blog, but I do treasure those comments. (This is in addition to the people that email me directly, I treasure those emails as well.) Most of those people follow via Blogger Dashboard. It is my hope that they continue to leave comments on the blog in its newest incarnation, but know that this will take an extra step for them.
   
4. Because the email subscription list will be distributed in a new way, it is possible that there will be hiccups along the way. I am in the process of "beta testing" this knew system, but it is possible that something could slip by the testing process. If you suddenly stop getting emails from me on March 1, then something bad has happened. Let me know and I'll look into the issue.
5. Perhaps the most annoying for my readers, I will be posting a reminder similar to this on the top of every journal entry I publish between now and March 1.

Enough housekeeping! Here is Personal Photo Project of the Week No. 3:



Open Mic Night


The sad part about this story is that this fish has already died. As Dennis so eloquently put it: "He lived on the stage. He died on the stage."

I did not kill this fish. Nor did I kill the second unpictured fish that I got for free because the Wal-Mart lady fished out two fish on accident and was too lazy to return the other fish to the aquarium.

They both died of completely natural causes, I believe that natural cause of death to have been "fish bought from Wal-Mart". Despite my best efforts to keep them alive, I fed them every now and again, they perished... from this Earth.

So let me share a couple of pictures from their brief existence.








I need to thank my favorite rock star, Derrick Gorshe for loaning me the mic and mic stand. I printed out a temporary copy of this picture that Derrick requested so he could hang it up at Rieman Music. If you don't count Shannon's apartment as the worldwide headquarters of Little White Lye Soap or Jesse's office at work, this is only the 2nd business to proudly display a Photography 139 image on one of its walls.

The first business was Salon 908.

I do know that the Photography 139 Calendar has graced office walls and cubicles of businesses like The Salon at Younker's, Loan Processing Services, Ortho Computer Systems and Principal Financial Group, but this is a little different.

I hope you enjoyed the comedic picture and the sad tale of how it ended.

The Digital Bouquet

As promised, here are some of the other pictures I took for RWPE #4 - Plants.
































I still need to tinker with a few of these, but I'm mostly pleased with the results.

Soothing Photo Shoot

This pictures were never in the running for RWPE #2 - Soothing, but I took them at the same time and keep forgetting to post them.

















I love fog.

RWPE #4 - Plants

Last week's Random Weekly Photo Experiment Theme was PLANTS. It is exciting to have Julie Johnson as a first time contributor! Here are the submissions:



Julie Johnson



Dawn Krause


Jesse Howard


Mike Vest



Mike Vest



Christopher D. Bennett


Shannon Bardole's Artistic Appreciation Selection of the Week:





Dawn Krause's Poem:

Plants

As bee and butterfly flit through the green
Amid a summer day
On a rose flying-beauty paused to preen
While bee begins to play

The garden sways gently to the breeze
It’s rustle fills the air
Aroma and beauty with aim to please
A sensual gift so rare


The theme for this week is FRAMING.

The best way to describe FRAMING is it a compositional technique where an object (usually in the foreground)surrounds the subject. Essentially creating a frame.

An example of this technique can be seen in the image below taken by my nephew Logan on Mother's Day.





However, don't feel obligated to stick to that definition. A picture of somebody framing a picture or framing a house would qualify just as easily.

I do actually have several other photos that from my PLANTS photo session that I will publish later this week. I took several more pictures than I usually do for RWPE and I don't want them all to sit on my hard drive collecting dust. Like the picture of the aftermath of me tripping over a fence, during the SOOTHING photo shoot, always will.