Andy, Angie, Black & White, Carla, Cathie, Kim, Pastor Sarah, Ruins, Shannon, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 137 – ARCHITECTURE

April 30, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

A good week of submissions for ARCHITECTURE. I have no doubt that my outhouse picture inspired many a person to submit this week. This week, the Photography 139 Empire extended as far east as Chicago. As far north as Roland, Iowa. As far west as the Des Moines Airport. As far south as the Indianola area. There is some guesswork in these estimations.

The exciting development this week is that we have a first time contributor! Linda Clark submitted 2 photos. I’m expecting big things from her in the future!

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

Linda Clark

Kim Barker

Linda Clark

Sarah Karber

Tamara Peterson

Angie DeWaard

Andy Sharp

Shannon Bardole

Christopher D. Bennett

Cathie Raley

A solid week of submissions!

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:

CITY!

CITY! What a great theme! But what does it mean? CITY photography would be a picture of a CITY or a picture that takes place uniquely in a CITY. But what is a CITY?

Here is a handy dandy breakdown of settlement hierarchy Wikipedia:

Ecumenopolis – a theoretical construction in which the entire area of Earth that is taken up by human settlements, or at least, that those are linked so that to create urban areas so big that they can shape an urban continuum through thousands of kilometers which cannot be considered as a megalopolis. As of the year 2009, the United Nations estimated that for the first time more than 50% of the world’s populations lived in cities, so if these were linked, the total population of this area would be about 3,400,000,000 people as of 2010.
Megalopolis – a group of conurbations, consisting of more than ten million people each.
Conurbation – a group of large cities and their suburbs, consisting of three to ten million people.
Metropolis – a large city and its suburbs consisting of multiple cities and towns. The population is usually one to three million.
Large city – a city with a large population and many services. The population is <1 million people but over 300,000 people.

City – a city would have abundant services, but not as many as a large city. The population of a city is between 100,000 and 300,000 people.
Large town – a large town has a population of 20,000 to 100,000.
Town – a town has a population of 1,000 to 20,000.
Village – a village is a human settlement or community that is larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town. A village generally does not have many services, most likely a church or only a small shop or post office. The population of a village varies; the average population can range from hundreds to thousands.
Hamlet – a hamlet has a tiny population (<100) and very few (if any) services, with only a few buildings.
Isolated dwelling – an isolated dwelling would only have 1 or 2 buildings or families. It would have negligible services, if any.

Quite frankly, I don’t care what you call a CITY. I mean, unless you call Beaver, Iowa a city. If any of you send me a picture of Beaver, Iowa… God help you! But on the other hand, go nuts in Story City or Albert City or Charles City or Dakota City or Decatur City or Prairie City or Promise City.

As always, I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

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

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

The latest person to show taste, class, and sophistication and sign on for a Photography 139 Email Subscription is Linda Clark. I honestly don’t know much about her, other than she is a relative of Andy Sharp and he says she has an interest in photography. Welcome aboard Linda! If you see her, feel free to give her a knowing glance and teach her the super-secret Photography 139 Handshake.

**************************************

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 urban Monday!

Art, Christianity, Dad, History, Jesse, Mom, Music, Russell, Travel

Graceland

April 29, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

Time to hit up the back log. These pictures are from Russell, Jesse, and I’s trip to Memphis to watch Iowa State stomp the Memphis Tigers in the Liberty Bowl.

I am a fan of Elvis. I get that from my Mom. From her I grew up listening to Elvis and Kenny Rogers. I love them both. I never quite inherited her love of The Beach Boys, but I do also enjoy them. From my Dad I got my love of old country. Johnny Paycheck and Tom T. Hall in particular. If you don’t love Tom T. Hall, you’re doing something wrong.

Before we left for Memphis I had done some research on places to visit. Graceland was number two on my list behind Beale Street. My research showed that an actual tour of Graceland can take over 3 hours. While I was willing to spend the small fortune it costs to tour Graceland, we just didn’t have that time.

However, I read that they open up the grounds of Graceland from 7:30 – 8:30 for people to pay their respects to Elvis’ grave, for free.

I convinced Jesse to wake up early and check this out with me. Russell wasn’t buying waking up early on his vacation. He stayed at his hotel.

Here are pictures from Graceland:

When I was trying to figure out where in the back log to hit up, I was considering the trip to Mount Rushmore, March for Our Lives, or the flowers of Donna Jones. However, recently HBO has been playing a 4 hour documentary on Elvis called ELVIS PRESLEY: THE SEARCHER. I knew it was time to reveal my photos from Graceland

If you are a fan of Elvis, music, or history and have access to HBO or HBO GO, I can’t recommend it enough. I’ve learned quite a bit about Elvis and his musical influence. I think it is unfortunate that because of the way he dressed, the antics, the way he died, and the horrible movies, I think sometimes it gets lost what an extremely talented musician he was. Also, what a completely unique voice he had as an artist. I don’t mean that in the way that his physical voice was unique. I mean the way he expressed himself as an artist.

Can you imagine an artist in modern times that would record entire gospel albums at the height of this popularity? Some Christian artists will crossover, but they certainly never come back. I don’t know of an artist in modern times that could weave so many musical influences in to their own unique sound.

Could you imagine going to a modern rock concert and then BOOM! here is one from the hymnals!

Elvis Presley is the only royalty that I will ever recognize!

Any other Elvis fans out there? Let me know what your favorite Elvis song is in the comments section of this here blog!

I’ve decided when I start working on the party soundtrack for my birthday party in 2019, there will be a full hour of Elvis music.

Commercial, Event, History, Jay, Jaycees, Photoshop, Shannon

04-22-08, 04-25-08, 04-26-08

April 28, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

The following images are from the folders 04-22-08, 04-25-08, and 04-26-08:

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

LITTLE WHITE LYE PRODUCT ENDORSEMENT PART 3

AMES JAYCEES SANDBOX FILL

The soap pictures were taken for Little White Lye Soap. If you wish to buy yourself some Little White Lye Soap (a product I endorse), click on the link below:

LITTLE WHITE LYE SOAP

It appears, she no longer makes laundry soap, but you can also buy a high quality broom while you are there, but if Shannon ever shows up at your domicile, she lectures you on the proper way to store a broom. It is a trade-off.

If you want to see more pictures from the Sandbox Fill, click on the link below:

Jaycees’ Sandbox Fill – 2008

The shirt I was wearing was made by Lone Wolf Gear. It is clothing line designed and marketed by Jay. MDH stands for Modern Day Hero, a now defunct local rock band. Neither the band or Lone Wolf Gear have a website.

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve more Little White Lye Soap, a stitching group, and some random other stuff. Get excited!

Andy, Animals, FNSC, Mom, Movies, Naima, Willy

No! Not Bird Defecation AND Excretion!

April 27, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

Since the weather outside has been turning less frightful, I’ve been trying to take Naima on a walk or at least an adventure about every day.

At last week’s Friday Night Supper Club, I nearly nodded off after consume massive amounts of Casey’s Taco and Hot Sausage pizza, while watching the Academy Award winning documentary ICARUS. When Willy knocked off to call it a night, there was still enough time in the day to take Naima for a walk. Which she badly wanted to go on.

However, I needed to crash. The excitement of buying King Kong Cola at the area’s premiere craft soda proprietor earlier in the evening had wore me out. I made the following deal with Naima. On the morrow, we would go on TWO walks.

She doubted that I would follow through on this deal as sometimes I’ve been know to welch on our deals, but she reluctantly agreed.

Saturday morning at 6 AM I sprung out of bed, clapped my hands and said:

“This is going to be a great day!”

I looked at Naima and poked her in the heart and said:

“If this is empty.”

Then I smacked her on the head:

“This doesn’t matter.”

She doesn’t love Dicky Fox quotes as much as I do, but she was excited to load up in the car and we headed to Dickcissel Park for an adventure.

Once we got there, I was excited to to see that there were geese on the pond. Last time we had come out there with Willy, there were no geese. I wanted to see how Naima reacted to the geese. She was moderately interested in them. They were infatuated with her. They followed us all around the lake. Honking at us. Naima would occasionally stop and look at them. Sometimes getting in the pond, but they never held her interest for long.

As we were walking along the south shore of the pond, Naima came across a smell that intrigued her. Intrigued her enough that she decided to flip on her back and start rolling in it. I made her got up and realized quickly that what she was rolling in was some form of bird poo. It was all over her back. Great.

We finished our walk. Got loaded back up in the Camry. We stopped at my Mom’s house, so I had some help in getting her cleaned up.

I was pretty sure we got her cleaned up, but it was hard to tell because Mom also sprayed her down with Febreze, so that is all she smelled like.

While writing this blog I found out that the reason bird poo is booth white and black is because birds both defecate and excrete.

The defecation is the black part.

The white part is the excretion. Excretion is the getting rid of metabolic waste products.

Knowledge bomb coming your way:

Here’s the chain of events: an animal eats and the food is being digested. Whatever content can be used is absorbed from within the digestive tract into the blood in the form of molecules. Whatever food content cannot be used is thrown out through defecation. The molecules that were absorbed from the food travel through the body in the blood system and then enter the cells. Here they are used for all sorts of things, e. g. to generate energy, build proteins, whatever. And of course, this means the molecules will be split and changed in many ways. This creates molecular waste products, in particular nitrogenous wastes. And this waste needs to go, pronto. From the cell into the blood and through a filtering device (the kidneys in mammals, birds, and birders) to the outside world. That’s the clear, transparent pee in mammals. And the white mushy part in bird poop.

Thanks to the following website for this bird poop knowledge:

Source URL: http://www.10000birds.com/what-is-bird-poop.htm

Here are some cruddy cell phone images from our adventure:

Naima rolling around in bird poo was not how I wanted to start my day, but as Dicky Fox would say:

“Roll with the punches. Tomorrow is another day.”

BONUS NAIMA PHOTO

Sunday’s adventure was taking Naima to Andy’s farm. Naima met a goat! They weren’t exactly fans of each other, but they didn’t hate each other. I feel with time, they could become friends. Naima also met some peacocks, chickens, and horses. The peacocks and chickens were terrified of her. Naima was terrified of the horses. I don’t think they will be friends any time soon.

I’ll just close with wishing you “my kind of success!”

Andy, Photoshop, WPC - Reminder

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE REMINDER – ARCHITECTURE

April 27, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

A friendly reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is ARCHITECTURE:

ARCHITECTURE

An ARCHITECTURE photo is a photo of a building or a part of a building. That is basically all there is to it.

As many of you may know (and by many I mean very few) I am a big fan of photos of outhouses. One of my life goals is to make the hashtag #outhousesofinstagram a thing. The outhouse in the reveal is still under construction, but can be found at Andy’s homestead. It has a pink toilet set. Andy has a line on a two seat outhouse that I may photograph in the future. You may have a series of blogs call THE OUTHOUSE PROJECT in your future!

Get excited people!

Happy photo harvesting!

Bethany, Black & White, Carla, Mom, Naima, Nate, Ruins, Still Life, Street Photography

Miller Estate Auction

April 26, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

This is one of probably 2 entries for An Artist’s Notebook about my Saturday morning last. This is about the later part of my morning, but you must know a little bit about the early morning to understand how this strange turn of events happened.

The earliest part of my morning was spent at Dickcissel Park with Naima. Things there went slightly sideways and I ended up having to be late for my normal Saturday morning breakfast with my Mom. We normally breakfast at The Whistle Stop Cafe because they have tasty pancakes (and I’m what you would call an expert on tasty pancakes #pancakelife), good service, and they are literally the only breakfast game in town since The Legal Limit shuttered their doors.

I mean, a person could lower themselves to eating at The Avenue of the Saints Cafe, but it is the answer to the age old question:

Is it possible to make something worse than Golden Corral?

Answer: Yes, The Avenue of the Saints Cafe.

The main drawback to The Whistle Stop Cafe is that it is tiny. There are maybe 4 booths, a couple of tables thrown up on the side, and maybe 10 or so counter stools. When we drove by the Whistle Stop Cafe, we were saddened to see that it was overflowing with customers. We needed a new plan.

We decided to head out to the Don Williams Clubhouse. It is about a 15 mile drive from Boone, but it served breakfast and it is under new management. We wanted to see if the new management has game.

The easiest way to get from the Whistle Stop to Don Williams is to head by Water Works and on past Fraser. However, on Wednesday night, Carla contacted me to let me know that there was a flock of swans (possibly) at the J. Carlson Wildlife area, between Boone and Ogden.

On Wednesday night I went out there and had a peek. It turned out that it wasn’t a bevy. It was a brief or a pod or a pouch or a scoop or a squadron. It was a group of pelicans is what I was getting at. On Wednesday I efforted to get a photo of them, but I couldn’t get a good angle on them.

On Thursday, I went back. They were gone. However, I did get a photo of an egret, so not all was lost.

On Saturday morning, I decided to take Old 30 to Ogden and then up County Road P70 to Don Williams to see if those pelicans had returned. They were, but none of that is important to the story.

Due to the chosen route, we picked up Carla and made our way towards breakfast.

On our way through Ogden, at the intersection of Old 30 and P70, we stumbled across a sizable auction. My people have auction in their blood from way back*. Possibly why I had a cousin once state:

I’m impressed how well you and your siblings turned out, considering the white trash you come from. #neverforget

But you know that he has the complete and utter moral ground to make statements like that. It isn’t like he ever ended up in prison or anything like that. I can’t hate.

While my tummy made the decision that we didn’t have time to stop at this auction at this time, there was little doubt that we would hit this auction on our way back to drop Carla off at her home.

Breakfast went fine. The new management serves a tasty breakfast. My one critique would be that portion sizes are somewhat small. However, the small portion sizes are reflected in the prices. The 3 of us ate breakfast for something like 18 dollars, American.

On the way back we stopped at the auction and this is where things got a little bit strange.

As I was walking around the auction, I noticed that some of the stuff seemed a little familiar. There was a Patio Pros (represent!) car in the driveway. There was a ton of plumbing and heating and cooling type stuff in the auction.

I began to suspect that this was an estate auction for Olivia’s Grandpa Dean. He passed away a few months back and I was a pallbearer at his funeral.

I saw Olivia’s cousin Jim there and approached him and he confirmed, this was indeed Grandpa Dean’s Estate Auction.

I took a few photos while I was there:

I never would’ve stumbled upon this auction IF:

+There weren’t pelicans at the J. Carlson Wildlife Area on Wednesday.
+If the pelicans would’ve been there on Thursday.
+If Naima hadn’t decided to do something stupid on Saturday morning.
+If the Whistle Stop Cafe wasn’t super packed.
+If Carla didn’t move out between Boone and Ogden.
+If the Don Williams Clubhouse hadn’t just re-opened for the season.

It was not the Saturday morning I envisioned when I closed my eyes and went off to slumberland on Friday night.

I didn’t buy anything, but Carla purchased a few nuggets. Grandpa Dean had his own plumbing business. Carla purchased a whole package of his business calendars from 1975 and 1976. Never opened. I’ll be giving some of those to Nate and Bethany next time I see them.

*I was almost born at the Hillbilly Auction after all.

Baier, Mom, Road Trip, Teresa, Town Sign Project

The Town Sign Project: Vol 5

April 25, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

On Friday and Saturday of last week I did a little bit of Town Sign harvesting. The full story will follow the new signs, but I’ll just say that I on both trips I made some (by my standards) pretty cool discoveries.

Elkhart, Iowa

Huxley, Iowa

Cooper, Iowa

Jamaica, Iowa

Dawson, Iowa

Angus, Iowa

Rippey, Iowa

Berkley, Iowa

On Friday after I clocked out and put down my axe at the Computer Mine I traveled down to Rocket Fizz in Ankeny. I have been in Elizabeth’s debt for something like 4 months. I have owed her 2 Pepsi’s in glass bottles. My usual source in Boone has dried up lately, so decided it was best I get to Ankeny’s leading proprietor of craft sodas to end this problem.

On my way back to Boone, I swung through Elkhart to harvest their town sign. Until Friday, the only thing I knew about Elkhart was it was the home of this gross dude I knew from my ill-fated time in the Jaycees. After my trip on Friday, now I know that and that some person has a working pop machine in their front yard:

Based on its (ahem) rustic appearance I didn’t throw any money into it, but I believe it works because the sign attached to the front reads:

If you have any problems with this (unintelligible word) please call (redacted) or come to the door. Money or pop will be refunded.

Some day, I will save up my quarters and give this machine a shot.

I have nothing really to say about going through Huxley. It is a speed trap masquerading as a town. The only reason I acknowledge its existence is because the Baier fam lives there.

I had an eventful Saturday morning, but I’ll leave those events for a future entry in An Artist’s Notebook. It will be sufficient to say that I met Teresa and Mom in Jefferson at A&W for lunch. After we parted way, I headed south to see what I could see.

The first town I came across was Cooper. Cooper doesn’t have what I would call a conventional town sign, so I snapped a picture of the sign that welcomes people to Cooper on the bike trail that cuts through town. I really enjoyed cooper, mainly because of this sign:

Cooper really seems to have a sense of humor. According to the census, they are down to more like 30 citizens now.

The other town I really want to point out is Angus. Angus is a ghost town now. Only, as near as I can tell, the only thing left of it is a cemetery a sign and marker that reads:

Whiskey Row in Angus

In the 1860s, when Angus had a population of about 7800, sixteen saloons were on this road which is the Greene-Boone County line. Several of the bar rooms were centered on the county line, hence in case of trouble patrons could move from one side of the barrom to the other side and avoid arrest by the officers of the first county.

Although Angus once had almost 8,000 citizens, within 100 years it was completely gone.

Reminder, you can look at all the THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT pictures by clicking on the link below:

THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT

I hope to be on the prowl for more signs this weekend!

Animals, Basketball, Black & White, History, Nature, Photoshop, Road Trip, Ruins, WPC - Alternate

You Ain’t Never Been in My Book and I Got a Problem with It, Why? ‘Cause You Acting Like You Read My Pages!

April 24, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

The world wasn’t ready for these GOVERNMENT pictures on Monday. I’m not sure the world is ready for them now, but I can’t hold them back any longer. Here are GOVERNMENT alternates:

If you are wondering why the bird photos are considered GOVERNMENT, it is because those pictures were taken on Boone County Wildlife Conservation Areas.

The last picture should not be seen as an endorsement of the lottery. It is the stated position of Photography 139 and all of its employees and subsidiaries, that the lottery is a scam. It is a self-imposed tax that is designed to move the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and poorly educated.

You’re welcome world!

Andy, Animals, Kim, Micky, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 136 – GOVERNMENT

April 23, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

After a couple big weeks of participation, this week took a nosedive. Big time. Apparently not many people we open to the wide world of GOVERNMENT photography. That is okay, maybe better luck this week.

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

Andy Sharp

Kim Barker

Micky Augustin

Christopher D. Bennett

Tamara Peterson

ARCHITECTURE!

Architectural Photography is the photographing of buildings and similar structures that are both aesthetically pleasing and accurate representations of their subjects.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. Find a building you think is cool looking or at least part of it is cool looking. Take a picture. Done and done.

After all, the very first permanent photograph (most widely recognized) “View from the Window at Le Gras” was an ARCHITECTURE photograph.

Here endeth the lesson, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not excited to see your submissions, because I am!

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

**************************************

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 architectural Monday!

Boone FUMC, Event, Kio, Mom

Cluck Cluck Noodles

April 22, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

Last Sunday the Methodist Men had our annual Chicken Noodles Brunch. I took a few photos of the event:

You may recall that the weather last Sunday was less than idyllic. Loads of snow dropped on the metropolitan Boone area and the temperatures were cold as well. The turnout for worship service was very low. However, almost everybody stuck around for our brunch. What I thought was going to be a disaster turned out to be a great success.

The Chicken Noodles Brunch is by far the most ambitious Methodist Men project. Everything is made from scratch*. On Thursday the noodles are made and cut. The chicken is picked. On Saturday, the potatoes are peeled. On Sunday, starting at 7 AM, everything is put together.

I’m glad so much effort was rewarded!

*If you don’t count our trademark red applesauce.