Aaron, Andy, Art, Black & White, Cathie, Kim, Kio, Michelle, Micky, Monica, Nature, Tamara, Vest, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 269 – TREE

November 9, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 6 Comments

First, I want to give thanks to Andy for giving suggestions for the next 52 weeks of themes. He was the only person to make a suggestion, but he made some good suggestions:

Music
Water
Wind(tough it would kill streak)
Hero
Sports
Hobby
Charity
Love
Funny
Celebrating
Teaching
Family
Sunrise
Sunset
Dream job
Landscaping
Rock
Red green(duct tape)

At least a few of these will definitely be included in the next set of 52 themes. Thanks Andy!

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We did it! Despite it getting dark at like 5 PM now and the chaos of the election last week, for the 58th week in a row, we had double digit submissions! Well done America!

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

Kio Dettman

Andy Sharp

Aaron Barnett

Tamara Peterson

Aaron Barnett

Christopher D. Bennett

Monica Henning

Kim Barker

Michelle Haupt

Cathie Raley

Micky Augustin

Mike Vest

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:

ART

ART! What a great theme! But what is an ART picture? An ART picture is a picture of any piece of ART or supplies that are used in making ART or a picture of somebody creating ART. A truly confident person could argue that any picture they make is ART. It doesn’t have to be professional or great ART. It can be that thing your kid drew that you hung on the fridge.

Here is a look back at all the times in the past that ART has been a theme:

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 46 – ART

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 70 – ART

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 108 – ART

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 174 – ART

WPC – WEEK 239 – ART

I look forward to seeing your new interpretations!

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 artistic Monday!

Animals, Flowers, Macro, Politics

Spread the Faith

November 8, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I just want to start by congratulating Joe Biden on winning the election to become the next President of the United States of America!

Back when I was on President Quest 2020, my search for who would be the next President of the United States, I did go see Joe Biden at the Boone County Fairgrounds. I did get my picture taken with him. Joe took the picture with my phone:

If you are interested on revisiting my post on when I saw Joe Biden speak, you can click on the link below:

PRESIDENT QUEST 2020 – JOE BIDEN

I spent my election day on Tuesday as a Mail-In Ballot Poll Watcher at the Boone County Courthouse. It was 12 hours that were very educational, very interesting, and very boring. I plan on writing a whole thing on that day (because I have much to say), but the short version is, I was very impressed with the people who do what is an incredibly tedious and incredibly thankless job. They do it very well and they do it very fair. These people are saints!

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Thought I would share a small collection of flower photos I took in early October:

I think I’m actually starting to run low on flower pictures, but there are still a ton of them out there to be curated as well. It is a conundrum.

Animals, Flowers, Grandma, Macro, Mom

2010-05-02

November 7, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures from the folder 2010-05-02 are from the day that Alexis and my Mom came over and planted some flowers at my house. Mostly around my light post. A flowerbed that I am going to expand, maybe considerably, in 2021.

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

Vacation Day 9A – Some Color

RWPE #17 – FEET

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Mother’s Day.

Black & White, History, Postcard

Postcard Recreation Project – Boone Biblical College

November 6, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 5 Comments

I would understand if people were somewhat disappointed with these POSTCARD RECREATION PROJECT images. Because, spoiler, the building in these postcards that I recreated doesn’t exist any longer. It was demolished a long time ago. This won’t be the last time this happens. I mean, just wait until we get to the Holst Hotel images…

This time I decided to recreate two pictures of the Boone Biblical College. I wanted to find out lots of fascinating history about the Boone Biblical College. It still sorta exists. What is left of the Boone Biblical College church is now shared with Stonebridge Church. There is still a church building there that Stonebridge and Boone Biblical congregations share. There is an old building to the south of it. I’m not really sure what is in it any longer, but it used to be a men’s homeless shelter.

Crawford Hall, the other remaining building from the Boone Biblical College’s heyday was sold recently. I think that somebody is turning that into apartments, but that is at least 35% conjecture.

There is also a Boone Biblical College Cemetery, but it isn’t accessible by road and is on private land, therefore I have never seen it.

The only other things I can really tell you about the Boone Biblical College is that they used to have a good sized orphanage, they were given the old courthouse when Boone County decided to replace the courthouse, and they used to run a local radio station with the call letters KFGQ, which is where I used to listen to the radio show “Unshackled”.

I struggled with this postcard because the building in it doesn’t exist any longer. It took me longer than I care to admit to figure that out. There is a building that still stands that looks similar and I thought that was it for a period of time. Obviously modified over the years, but the same building. However after examining some maps and pictures from a series Boone News Republican articles by Ed Mondt, I figured out first, that this building no longer exists and then after further examination, where it once sat.

Postcard No. 4

Original

Redux

I sepia toned my image to give it an older look to it.

Postcard No. 5

Original

Redux

The original Boone Biblical College Building was on the southeast corner of West 2nd Street and State Street. I’m not sure when these postcards were made, but it was definitely before 1915, because some of those Ed Mondt photos I found were dated 1915 and the building that still exists are in those photos.

Here are some of those images:

From 1915. You can see the existing building in the picture.

A picture of the Children’s Home, which I gather was an orphanage. This building also no longer exists. Seems to be an empty lot now.

This map of the Boone Biblical College complex is from 1916. You can see where the orphanage was located. Where they put the old courthouse and where their church was located. There is still a church there, but it is not the same building.

The Boone News Republican article isn’t clear whether or not this map is from 1925 or 1950. But you can see the orphanage is now a Boy’s Home. There is an Infant’s Home and a new Girl’s home. The building that would become Crawford Hall and is still standing.

I include this picture because you can see the old courthouse in the background.

In this picture, you can see the original building and the original Tabernacle

I feel like this project is going to cause me to join the Boone Historical Society. Which is okay, now that their reputation has been restored, it seems.

Alexis, Birthdays, Brandon, Carla, Elainie, Flowers, Grandma, Jason, Johnathan, Logan, Mom, Sabas, Teresa

In the Cold October Snow

November 4, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I need to begin today by wishing Elainie a happy birthday. Happy birthday Elainie!

I hope your birthday is as amazing as you want it to be.

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Back in late October, we got a bit of unexpected snow. I took a few flower pictures afterwards.

Fortunately, fall weather wasn’t done with us yet. But that snow pretty much did in all of my flowers.

Drone, Photoshop

Sky Replacement

November 3, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Remember to go out and vote today. If voting wasn’t important, Republicans wouldn’t be trying so hard to take voting away from so many people.

Photoshop has recently released a few new set of tools that are somewhat controversial in photography circles. They are controversial because many photographers don’t like the fact that they can completely manipulate an image so that is no longer real. While I agree with that in some context, it is my belief that (like Picasso said) it is the job of the photographer is to create a lie that makes people see the truth.

Now, I would never use this tool often, it is fun to play with. My picture from ANIMAL a week ago used this controversial tool. Here is a look at it at work:

The original image.

This image of one of Boone’s water towers was taken one Sunday morning. That is the original sky as the picture was taken.

Now have a look at the many preset skies you can swap out:

That set was the “Blue Sky” preset skies. This is the “Spectacular” preset skies:

Then the final set of preset sky images is “Sunset”:

Sky Replacement also allows you to important your own sky picture. So I did that:

Then I wondered what it would look like with a black and white sky:

Then finally I thought, what if we did use a sky picture in Sky Replacement:

There is another AI tool that is designed to be used with portraits what is even more controversial, but we will get into that at a later date.

Carla, Cathie, Fisheye, Jesse, Kim, Michelle, Micky, Shannon, Vest, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 268 – FRAMED

November 2, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

A reminder to start of this post. This is the last day to suggest a theme for the next 52 weeks of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. There is only one way to suggest a theme for the next 52 weeks in THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. Don’t email me a suggestion. Don’t text me a suggestion. Don’t call me with a suggestion. Leave your suggestion(s) in the Comments section of this here journal entry.

All suggestions will be considered, but might not necessarily make the cut. For example, if you suggested CATS, that would be dismissed out of hand. Save your key strokes.

The last time we didn’t hit double digit submissions was September 23, 2019. The theme was STREET PHOTOGRAPHY. If I don’t get a couple of suggestions, I might just make every week STREET PHOTOGRAPHY. Not just out of spite, but also because I do legitimately love STREET PHOTOGRAPHY. Even though, a pandemic that is completely out of control in Iowa, is not a good time for STREET PHOTOGRAPHY.

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57 straight weeks of double digit submissions!! WooHoo! I was worried about FRAMED, but I didn’t even have to send any reminder messages to people.

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

Carla Stensland

Micky Augustin

Michelle Haupt

Tamara Peterson

Christopher D. Bennett

Kim Barker

Cathie Raley

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Mike Vest

TREE

TREE! What a great theme! But what is a TREE image? It is any image of a TREE or anything that deals with trees, like a leaf, or mulch, or a stump, or lumber or, you get the idea.

Here is a look back at all the times that TREE has been a theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE:

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 27 – TREE

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 84 – TREE

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 151 – TREE

WPC – WEEK 196 – TREE

WPC – WEEK 242 – TREE

I look forward to seeing your new interpretations!

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 woody Monday!

Flowers, Macro, Still Life

Macrolicious

November 1, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Back in September, I took some supermacro images while I was expereminting with bellows. I need to get back to that. Macro photography is a good winter photo subject. Not that I’m ready to give up the out of doors yet, or at all, but you know what I’m saying.

In a couple weeks, I might be able to start taking Sundays off. Heck, in a month or so, this might become a need to know type blog. We’ll see if I ever get that caught up.