Aaron, Angie, Carla, Elizabeth, Michelle, Micky, Monica, Shannon, Tamara, Underwater, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 235 – WATER

March 16, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I was worried that the global pandemic might squash participation this week with WATER. It would have been a minor price to pay for people hunkering down and being safe. Although, there are few better activities when social distancing than a little photography.

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

Angie DeWaard

Aaron Barnett

Tamara Peterson

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Micky Augustin

Christopher D. Bennett

Elizabeth Nordeen

Monica Henning

Michelle Haupt

Carla Stensland

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:

ENTERTAINMENT

ENTERTAINMENT! What a great theme! Now, I understand, that some might think that ENTERTAINMENT might be a difficult theme when pretty much every concert and sporting event is being cancelled. With the CDC recommending that events with more than 50 people should be cancelled or postponed for the next 8 weeks. But ENTERTAINMENT doesn’t have to be on a grand scale. Many of us will be finding ways to ENTERTAIN(MENT) ourselves in the coming weeks. You hobby is ENTERTAINMENT. Playing games is ENTERTAINMENT. For some sick, sad people, cleaning is ENTERTAINMENT. Photograph the way that your are having ENTERTAINMENT while you are being safe and being cautious.

I look forward to your interpretations! I have a feeling I will find ENTERTAINMENT in them!

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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 entertaining Monday!

Alexis, Birthdays, Black & White, Brandon, Carla, Derrick, Elainie, Event, Grandma, Jason, Jay, Jen, Johnathan, Mom, Monica, Movies, Photoshop, Robert, Sara, Teresa

Fly Iowa: The Final Chapter

March 15, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Buckle up Nancy, this is going to be a long one!

I need to start this post by wishing a very happy birthday to the middle child of the Bennett Sibling Triumvirate. Happy birthday Carla!

Here are some pictures of Carla:

I hope your birthday had the exact amounts of joy that you wanted!

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It is also Monica’s birthday. I think it has been a couple of years since I last saw Monica in person. But I know that she would still take a bullet for me. Small caliber. In the arm. Maybe the leg.

Happy birthday Monica! Here are some Monica pics:

I hope your birthday was absolutely wonderful!

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The Union Street Theater is pleased to announce that a date has been chosen for March Movie Night. March movie night will be Sunday, March 29. March Movie Night will be a tribute to one of my favorite actors, Kirk Douglas. Kirk was the start of a few of my favorite movies of all-time. PATHS OF GLORY, LUST FOR LIFE, and SPARTACUS. Kirk Douglas was instrumental in elevating the greatest filmmaker in history, Stanley Kubrick, to prominence. If he had done nothing else, that would have been enough.

Kirk Douglas passed away in February at the age of 103. The Union Street Theater is pleased to pay tribute to the iconic Kirk Douglas with our March Movie Night. He is only the second actor to receive such a tribute. Burt Reynolds got a similar tribute in 2018.

These are the movies that will play for the Kirk Douglas Tribute. First, the B Movie is:

SATURN 3

Here is a synopsis of SATURN 3 from IMDB.com:

Two lovers stationed at a remote base in the asteroid fields of Saturn are intruded upon by a retentive technocrat from Earth and his charge: a malevolent eight foot robot.

The feature film will be:

LONELY ARE THE BRAVE

Here is a synopsis of LONELY ARE THE BRAVE from IMDB.com:

A fiercely independent cowboy gets himself locked up in prison to escape with an old friend.

Anders is also providing a short film that is very intriguing. This will also be the 3rd, but hopefully not the last round of Jay’s Root Beer Symposium.

To Recap:

What: Union Street Theater Movie Night
Movies: SATURN 3 & LONELY ARE THE BRAVE
Date: Sunday, March 29, 2020
Time: 6 PM
Where: UNION STREET THEATER
TOILET PAPER SITUATION: As of right now, I still have plenty of toilet paper.

Hope to see you there!

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Might as well just get to it. This is the 4th collection of images from Fly Iowa:

Only about 800 more images to curate!

Candid Portrait, Football, Iowa State

2009-09-12

March 14, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures from the folder 2009-09-12 are from the Iowa State-Iowa football game in 2009. I don’t recall who won the game, but I just hope everybody had fun!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

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 Iowa Hawkeyes

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve the Howards.

Black & White, History, Naima, Ruins, WPC - Alternate, WPC - Reminder

Hurting My Head from Things that I Said

March 13, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Happy Friday the 13th everybody! Considered to be a very unlucky day, but considering how bad of a shape our country is in right now, I don’t want to invite any more bad luck. So I am going to celebrate by watching a Friday the 13th movie tonight. Not sure which one yet, but maybe the 3-D one or maybe the one with Corey Feldman or maybe my favorite one, which involves a soundtrack littered with one “great” Alice Cooper song after another.

I’ve always believed that Friday the 13th was an unlucky day because those camp counselors decided to sneak off and “get it on” instead of watching that little special needs boy. I hope it was good for them, because he drowned and now we all have to suffer on this day… forever.

Turns out, that isn’t why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky. Turns out, maybe we don’t even know why it is considered unlucky. There are just theories on it, but nobody really knows.

One theory is that there were 13 guests at the Last Supper. Jesus and his 12 apostles. Judas betrayed him and on the next day, a Friday, Jesus was crucified.

This created a longstanding superstition that I’ve never heard of that having 13 guests at a table is a bad omen. This is why the Methodist Men always seat tables for 8 people. Not really, but it would be cool if we did.

But do bad things happen on Friday the 13th, besides the bad things that happen to camp counselors?

In 1964, the infamous Kitty Geovese murder.
In 1970, 300,000 people were killed in Bagladesh by a cyclone.
In 1996, Tupac was murdered.

Seems like a pretty terrible track record to me. So let me just celebrate this Friday the 13th with some of my favorite Tupac lyrics:

With all this extra stressing
The question I wonder is after death, after my last breath
When will I finally get to rest through this suppression?
They punish the people that’s asking questions
And those that possess, steal from the ones without possessions
The message I stress: to make it stop study your lessons
Don’t settle for less – even the genius asks his questions
Be grateful for blessings
Don’t ever change, keep your essence
The power is in the people and politics we address
Always do your best, don’t let the pressure make you panic
And when you get stranded, and things don’t go the way you planned it
Dreaming of riches, in a position of making a difference
Politicians and hypocrites, they don’t wanna listen
If I’m insane, it’s the fame made a brother change
It wasn’t nothing like the game
It’s just me against the world

Happy Friday the 13th. I hope you enjoy your favorite Friday the 13th movie tonight!

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Last Saturday morning I spent some time at McHose Park photographing the junk pile that is on the backside of the park for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme JUNK. Why there is a small junkyard on the backside of probably the most beautiful city park in the Cyclone State is a bit of a mystery. This is what I believe happened:

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how, the city dump used to be on South Division Street. Eventually Boone decided that maybe the dump shouldn’t be in town and built a landfill outside of town a few miles. They needed to do something with the junk that was in the city dump and rather than move it or recycle it, they just shoved it all down the ravine on the backside of McHose Park. Problem solved. Given a choice between doing something smart and something lazy, people will usually take the lazy option. Over the years, rain and snow and wind and mud has slowly moved all that junk deeper and deeper into McHose Park. The beautiful part of it is that there is a lot of water run off that goes through those rusted out fridges, washing machines, barrels, tires, and cars through an abandoned old train bridge and right into the water of Honey Creek.

Here are some pictures of some beautiful old JUNK that didn’t make the cut for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE on Monday:

What looks like was an old milk crate is something that I could see my sister Carla using in decorating somehow. I thought about grabbing it for her, but I’m not sure what the legality is of just taking junk from a city park is. But I did put it in a place where I can find it if I decide to push the limits.

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This is your reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is WATER:

WATER

A WATER image is any image where WATER is an important part of the composition of the picture.

Happy photo harvesting!

Animals, Flowers, Macro

You Might Not Miss This

March 12, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

On a day back in July I spend a decent amount of time in my yard photographing my flowers and the cutest little new green friend. I’m not sure where my little green friend is right now, but I hope they are doing well.

Here are some of those pictures:

A little more of the backlog gone. I think my little green friend will show up one more time in the future.

9 Emotions Project, Andree, Animals, Baier, Birthdays, Black & White, Dawn, Flowers, Macro, Nader, Russell, Teresa, Weddings, Willy

Ledges

March 11, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I need to start today’s post by wishing a happy birthday to Dawn. Happy birthday Dawn!

Here are a few pictures of Dawn:

I hope your birthday is as happy as you want it to be!

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I also need to wish a happy birthday to Jason Baier. Happy birthday Mr. Baier. Here are a few pictures of Jason:

I hope your birthday is also jam packed with happiness!

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I also wanted to share some pictures from the 2019 backlog. Here are some images from a trip I took to Ledges back in August:

Just gotta keep plugging away on that backlog!

Animals, Bethany, Black & White, Dae Hee, Macro, Nader, Nora, State Fair

Baby Animals and Cows

March 10, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I need to start today’s post by wishing my niece Nora a very happy birthday! Nora is like 4 years old now. How did she get so old! Here are some Nora pictures:

I hope Nora has a very happy birthday!

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I still have quite a few pictures to share from my day at the Iowa State Fair with Nader and Logan:

I still have plenty more pictures left from my Iowa State Fair day and I haven’t even started the flower pictures yet!

Andy, Angie, Becky, Carla, Cathie, Dawn, Micky, Naima, Ruins, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 234 – JUNK

March 9, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

23 weeks! 23 straight weeks of double digit submission! Now JUNK wasn’t a super popular theme. I think it is mostly a Bennett thing to like to hang out surrounded by JUNK. Not garbage but JUNK. I went and wandered around my favorite local JUNK pile, even though I thought about just taking a picture of my 401(k) this morning. Just watching that thing circle the drain.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about the fact that I’ll never be able to retire. You came to see the submissions (include a first time submission from Aaron Barnett.. woohoo!):

Dawn Krause

Aaron Barnett

Becky Parmelee

Angie DeWaard

Cathie Raley

Carla Stensland

Christopher D. Bennett

Carla Stensland

Tamara Peterson

Micky Augustin

Andy Sharp

WATER

WATER! What a great theme! But what is a WATER picture? A WATER picture is simply any image that involves WATER. A picture of a lake, a pond, a stream, a river. All qualifies. But people also drink water. At least they should drink lots of water. People are also baptized in water. They clean with water. They give water to pets and to plants. Sometimes, water even falls from the sky. So many water options, I can’t wait to see your interpretations!

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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 watery Monday!