Shimmer

September 19, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

It was a sad day in the Bennett Family. Carla and Jason had to say goodbye to their dog Shimmer.

Shimmer lived with me for about 6 months when Carla and Jason were building there current house, so I had a tight bond with Shimmer.

Today I had earmarked for a post on College GameDay being in Ames. However, with today’s passing of Shimmer, I felt it was more apropos to share pictures from the Boone Area Humane Society’s Pet Memorial Day Ceremony.

Pet Memorial Day was actually the Sunday of Pufferbilly Days, but because of Pufferbilly Days the ceremony was moved to last Sunday. Kio had me show up to take pictures.

When a pet dies, it is common for somebody to bring up the poem “The Rainbow Bridge”, but most people (probably me included) think it is just too damn depressing. Instead, let me share a depressing poem by Rudyard Kipling:

Four Feet by Rudyard Kipling

I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through —
Wherever my road inclined —
Four-feet said, “I am coming with you!”
And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round, —
Which I shall never find —
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind

Farewell Shimmer. You will be missed!

Animals, Event, Kio, Logan, Mom, Pufferbilly Days, Teresa

Pufferbilly Westminster

September 18, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

On the Sunday of Pufferbilly Days I was once again tapped to do photography for the Pufferbilly Days Pet Show by Kio.

There was a lot of Bennett to the Pet Show as Logan and Mom were both judges. Teresa also showed Mocha. I’d like to say that the show was a smashing success, but as the 11 AM start time approached, there was only one entry, a cat.

Fortunately, a couple were walking a couple dogs past the Pet Show and I was able to wrangle them into entering the Pet Show. I mean, I couldn’t have a cat win Best Overall. Not that I hate cats. A completely false reputation.

I also was able to talk Teresa into entering and I almost got Carla to enter, but she couldn’t get Chloe there in time.

Here are some pictures from the event:

So next year, YOU should bring your pet down to the pet show. A good chance that afterwards, you will be able to claim that your dog is award winning!

Animals, Fisheye, Naima, Self-Portrait

See Myself Looking Back

September 17, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Hitting up the 2018 backlog again. This is a miscellaneous set of pictures that I took on the same day as the Pet Memorial Day in 2018. Some of these I think were taken for a theme reveal for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE and I think others were taken for the theme that week.

Just have to keep hammering away at that backlog.

Andy, Black & White, Carla, Cathie, Dawn, Elizabeth, Iowa State, Kim, Logan, Micky, Steph, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 209 – ARCHITECTURE

September 16, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Welcome to Year 7 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!!! THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE was born under the name THE RANDOM WEEKLY PHOTO EXPERIMENT. It was actually originally the idea of Mike Vest. Back in the day we used to collaborate on the project with both our websites. Then, after a couple of years it had seemed to run its course, as I was lucky to get maybe 3 or 4 submissions on a good week. I decided to drop it because if people weren’t interested, I wasn’t going to put forth the effort. I got better things I can do with my Monday lunch hour. Like eating lunch. Or not being at my Computer Mine Cubicle.

After a several month hiatus, I got a few people start sending me emails or text messages about how they really missed THE RANDOM WEEKLY PHOTO EXPERIMENT. They wished I would bring it back. I remember Carla (who regularly participates) and Dawn (who regularly gives me excuses) being at the forefront of wanting it back.

So here it is. Back. I have no doubt that it is currently at its apex. I don’t even know how many weeks in a row that we have had double digit submissions. Even this week, where I have found ARCHITECTURE to usually be one of the least popular themes, we have double digit submissions.

I have my doubts that next week we will hit double digit submissions because it is a theme that takes most people out of their comfort zone, but I defy you people to prove me wrong!

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

Elizabeth Nordeen

Logan Kahler

Andy Sharp

Cathie Raley

Christopher D. Bennett

Carla Stensland

Kim Barker

Micky Augustin

Stephanie Kim

Kim Barker

Tamara Peterson

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:

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

STREET PHOTOGRAPHY! What a great theme! But what is a STREET PHOTOGRAPHY image? STREET PHOTOGRAPHY isn’t a picture of a STREET. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY is “conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places.”

The 2 most important things. RANDOM and PUBLIC. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY is often mistaken for CANDID PORTRAITS. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY has to be done in a public place. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a portrait. It can be a piece of art. It can be a building. It can be a sign. It doesn’t have to be on a street. It can be at a football game. It can be at an art festival. A political event. It only has to meet those 2 criteria: public and random.

THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE themes were randomly selected, but I think that there is a chance that this week being STREET PHOTOGRAPHY might have been destined. Something that might have fallen through the cracks in last week’s news was that Robert Frank passed away.

Robert Frank was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th Century. His book “The Americans” was one of the most influential photography books every published and it practically redefined STREET PHOTOGRAPHY.

Here is an excerpt from an NPR story on Robert Frank:

Influential photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank has died at the age of 94. He died of natural causes on Monday night in Nova Scotia, Canada. His death was confirmed by his longtime friend and gallerist Peter MacGill.

He was best known for his 1959 book The Americans, a collection of black-and-white photographs he took while road-tripping across the country starting in 1955. Frank’s images were dark, grainy and free from nostalgia; they showed a country at odds with the optimistic views of prosperity that characterized so much American photography at the time.

His Leica camera captured gay men in New York, factory workers in Detroit and a segregated trolley in New Orleans — sour and defiant white faces in front and the anguished face of a black man in back.

The book was savaged — mainstream critics called Frank sloppy and joyless. And Frank remembered the slights.

“The Museum of Modern Art wouldn’t even sell the book,” he told NPR for a story in 1994. “I mean, certain things, one doesn’t forget so easy. But the younger people caught on.”

Eventually, the photographs in The Americans became canon, inspiring legions. Photographer Joel Meyerowitz remembered watching Frank at work early on.

“And it was such an unbelievable and powerful experience watching him twisting, turning, bobbing, weaving,” Meyerowitz said in 1994. “And every time I heard his Leica go ‘click,’ I would see the moment freeze in front of Robert.”

I do not make this a commandment for STREET PHOTOGRAPHY, however let me suggest that when you do your STREET PHOTOGRAPHY image, you consider doing it in black & white to honor the late, great Robert Frank.

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 public and random Monday!

Becky, Candid Portrait, Commercial, Event, Formal Portrait, Geri, Jaycees, Music

2009-06-06

September 14, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures from the folder 2009-06-06 are from the first Ames on the Half Shell concert of the 2009 season. The band that played was Vivace. I’m not sure if they are still around, but they were just a real solid classic rock cover band. Classic rock cover band pretty much describes the local music scene in central Iowa and pretty much describes almost every band to ever play Ames on the Half Shell.

Here are some pictures:

I drastically upgraded the Ames on the Half Shell website before this season. It looks like they still use the same platform that I built, but they have upgraded the look considerably. What is interesting is that they added a “History” page that lists every band that has played Ames on the Half Shell, except they don’t have anything listed for 2009.

That same year they Ames on the Half Shell logo was completely redesigned. It looks like the logo has been updated since then, but still plays on the same theme.

If you want to see more pictures from Vivace’s 2009 performance at Ames on the Half Shell, click on the picture below:

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<p>By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic ” an=”” artist’s=”” notebook”=”” entry=”” to=”” its=”” original=”” glory:<=

Ames on the Half Shell

Next week’s walk down memory lane will involve even more Ames on the Half Shell.

Candid Portrait, Event, Photo Journal, Politics, WPC - Reminder

A Photo Journal – Page 106

September 13, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Page 106 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT was a difficult one for me to process at first. The idea is to send one of your photos to your “photography hero” and ask them what they had about it.

When you really break it down, my photography hero is my Dad. For obvious reasons, I can’t send him one of my pictures. Once you leave the family, most of my favorite photographers are also dead.

From Ansel Adams to Vivian Maier to Henri Cartier-Besson to Robert Frank to Margaret Bourke-White. They are all gone. In fact, Robert Frank just passed away on Tuesday.

So I thought about it and there are a couple of living photographers that I do admire and came up with a couple. Richard Bernabe. He is an amazing nature photographer and outspoken environmentalist. If you are looking for a great photography book, I highly recommend his book “Wildlife Photography”. You can look at my copy next time you make it to the Photography 139 Studio.

However, I chose to go a different direction. I decided to go with Pete Souza. Pete Souza was the White House Photographer for both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

If the election was held today, Joe Biden would be the next President of the United States. Frankly, the election wouldn’t even be all that close. I don’t think that Joe Biden will end up being the next President, but since he is the overwhelming favorite right now, when Joe Biden came to Boone, I knew instantly that I needed to send a picture to Pete Souza.

Below is the picture I sent to Pete Souza:

Page 106 – Email one of your pictures to your photography hero and ask them what they hate about it.

In the end, I never heard back from Pete Souza. To be honest, I didn’t expect to hear back from him. If I ever do hear from him, I’ll post that here.

Here are a couple other pictures I considered sending Pete Souza:

This leaves only the following images left to capture before finally closing the book on THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT:

Page 28 – Recreate a famous photograph without looking it up.
PAGE 66-67 – Make a sequence of four pictures inspired by the rise and fall of Britney Spears (or another celebrity).
Page 123 – Don’t take any more photographs -none- until you see something that emotionally moves you. Only then pick up your camera.

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This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is ARCHITECTURE.

ARCHITECTURE

An ARCHITECTURE picture is any picture that involves a building or a structure.

Happy photo harvesting!

Anders, Formal Portrait, Night, Photo Journal

A Photo Journal – Page 121

September 12, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

The Union Street Theater Movie Club had our September Movie Night last Saturday. The B Movie was ACTION JACKSON. The Feature was BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA. Jay made us ribs. It was a good night.

It was also a good night to knock off Page 121 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. Anders gamely volunteered to put himself in danger to be the subject of Page 121.

Page 121 – Show us photograhy is a form of magic.

This type of image was all the rage at Iowa State Fair Photography Salon this year. I expect there will be many copycats next year. I don’t think I will be one of them, even though it is a fun image to take.

I took a couple more images, but the one above is one that will be physically adhered into the physical A PHOTO JOURNAL.

By knocking off Page 121 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT, I am down to just the following pages left:

Page 28 – Recreate a famous photograph without looking it up.
PAGE 66-67 – Make a sequence of four pictures inspired by the rise and fall of Britney Spears (or another celebrity).
Page 106-107 – Email one of your pictures to your photography hero and ask them what they hate about it.
Page 123 – Don’t take any more photographs -none- until you see something that emotionally moves you. Only then pick up your camera.

I still have to shoot two of the pages, but hopefully this project will be finished next week!

Animals, History, Macro

Just Put Down “Cause Unknown”

September 11, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

I would be remiss if I didn’t start by pointing out today is the anniversary of 9/11. It has been 18 years since terrorists hijacked 4 airplanes and murdered over 3,000 people in senseless acts of violence.

The United States went to war shortly thereafter, and we have been at war in one country or another constantly since then. On that day an unsuccessful real estate magnate and trust fund baby went on television and incorrectly bragged that his building was “now the tallest building in New York City”.

I’m not a trust fund baby, a serial liar, or a sociopath so I spent most of that day working at the Campustown Outpost of the Evil Clown Empire. I wasn’t the store manager yet. I would call myself the virtual store manager. I had pretty much all the responsibilities of a store manager, but none of the pay. The store manager was technically a guy named Mike Booth. He only worked part-time.

I was the 8-4 manager on that day. That meant that I spent the morning balancing all the books from the previous day and putting out whatever fires had happened in the morning. The fires I was putting out that morning were inventory related. We were short a ton of product and I spent my morning calling around to the other Evil Clown Empire outposts trying to find products to get us through until the truck arrived.

Driving around and getting stock from other stores was one of the few parts of the job I enjoyed. It got me out of the store. Sometimes, that was more than enough.

Back then, I listened to Lazer 103.3. This was a radio station that played a brand of music I would describe as “I’m-So-Angry-I’m-A-White-Male-So-I-Was-Born-with-a-Certain-Amount-of-Privilege-But-I’m-Still-So-Angry-Because-I-Have-No-Understanding-of-Systematic-Oppression”. Sometimes it is called hard rock. The bands that were putting out Angry White Male Music back then were particularly dreadful, but I listened to plenty of them back then I suppose. I was a White Male, with certain pockets of suppressed anger, I’m sure. I’m not a psychiatrist. I just can’t think of another excuse for why I owned a Godsmack CD.

On 103.3 in the mornings was a show called Mancow’s Morning Madhouse. When I reflect upon it, it was incredibly inane. I once remember hearing that people want irreverence on the radio in the morning. I’m sure Mancow offered plenty of irreverence and on the rare occasions, just enough clever to keep me tuning in.

When the first plane hit I was driving around Ames with a car full of McDonald’s products. On the radio they reported that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. They joked about it. They had no clue about the seriousness of what happened. None of us did.

The image that called up was of a small one engine plane where the pilot had mistakenly slammed into the World Trade Center. A plane had done that recently to the Empire State Building.

Mancow and his cast of characters described the visual as similar to a cartoon, where a cartoon runs through a wall and their body leaves an outline in the wall. I’ll never forget that comparison.

When I got back to Campus, almost everybody was in the lobby staring at the televisions. We had 3 televisions in the lobby. When I saw the visual, I realized that the Mancow characterization wasn’t accurate. Whatever hit the World Trade Center wasn’t a single engine plane. It was something considerably larger.

I still had no real conception at what was happening. I dropped off the products. While I was doing that, the second plane hit the second tower. I remember people freaking out that watched it live on our lobby televisions.

Things had changed now. Now I knew that this wasn’t some freak accident. This was on purpose. However, I still had a job to do. I got back in my car and went to the next store to collect more products to bring back.

It was about the time I returned to Campus that the second tower collapsed. I was still listening to Mancow. I honestly wasn’t sure if it was a joke. Mancow was known for their pranks, and their pranks were often truly tasteless. They screamed when the tower fell. Their reactions seemed genuine, but I turned to a different radio station to confirm. I didn’t really believe it was happening. Unfortunately, the other radio station confirmed that it was true.

We were living in a new world now.

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One of the few things that can bring my spirits up is looking at cute animals. I reached into the 2018 backlog and found some macros of the cutest little guy.

It always feel good to knock another piece of the backlog off.

Animals, Baby Got Rack, Becca, Bethany, Brandon, Carla, Cathie, Flat Earth Joe, Flowers, Iowa State, Jay, Jesse, Jonah, Kanoa, Logan, Michelle, Micky, Mom, Naima, Nature, Politics, Self-Portrait, Self-Portrait Project, State Fair, Teresa, Willy

Selfie Project – August

September 10, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Now seems like a good time to check-in with my favorite pictures from my August SELFIE PROJECT pictures.

It would seem that I had a successful month of August. I met Vice-President Joe Biden. I competed in a barbecue contest at the Iowa State Fair. I also competed in a photography contest at the Iowa State Fair. I dine at a Brazilian Steakhouse totally not for Jay’s birthday. I went to an air show. I met my great nephew. I went to the Minnesota State Fair. I dined at Zeno’s. I went to an Iowa State football game.

Here are my favorites:

August 1

August 2

August 3

August 4

August 5

August 9

August 10

August 11

August 13

August 15

August 17

August 18

August 23

August 24

August 25

August 26

August 29

August 30

August 31

I’m not sure I’ve had as busy of a September, but I guess we’ll find out in October when I get a chance to look back at it.

Andy, Angie, Carla, Cathie, Drone, Elizabeth, Kim, Micky, Monica, Railroad, Shannon, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 208 – SKY

September 9, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

SKY wasn’t a super popular theme, but it was still popular enough to hit double digits and keep the streak alive!

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

Andy Sharp

Elizabeth Nordeen

Monica Henning

Kim Barker

Micky Augustin

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Tamara Peterson

Angie DeWaard

Christopher D. Bennett

Cathie Raley

Carla Stensland

ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURE! What a great theme! But what is an ARCHITECTURE photo? Basically it is a photo of a building or similar structure. That is it!

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

This is the first week in the next 52, which means I am starting a new Smugmug gallery.

If you want to review all the images from the last 52 weeks, click on the link below:

Year 6 WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE

There were 548 submissions for 52 themes! Solid work!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

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 achitectural Monday!