In the next few weeks I will be compiling a list of the next 52 themes. If you have ideas for me to consider, place it in the COMMMENTS section of this here journal entry. I might not use them, but I will definitely give them the consideration that they deserve. I like to swap out at least half the themes from year to year. For this year’s set of 52 themes, only Andy submitted submissions. Makes a guy kinda sad.
PASSION is a pretty abstract theme, so I wasn’t sure how good participation rates would be. However, there were several people that have a PASSION about their PASSION. And a couple people that texted me that they have no PASSION in their life and furthermore don’t even know anybody that has a PASSION in their life. I guess those people don’t know me and I’m not sure how they got my phone number. But don’t worry, they have been blocked and reported.
But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:
Kio Dettman
Kio Dettman
Shannon Bardole-Foley
Kio Dettman
Tamara Peterson
Bill Wentworth
Christopher D. Bennett
Micky Augustin
Carla Stensland
Carla Stensland
Kim Barker
Jesse Howard
Jesse Howard
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:
GREEN
GREEN! What a great theme! But what is a GREEN image? Simply enough, a GREEN image is any image where the color GREEN is an important part of the compositional elements. It can be the main subject, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. The word GREEN also has multiple meanings, if you want to explore that as well.
As you are considering your GREEN image, think on the following quote for inspiration:
Green in the prime color of the world, and that from which loveliness arises.
-Pedro Calderon de la Barca
RULES
The picture has to be taken between 12:01 PM today and 11 AM next Monday. This isn’t a curate your photos project. This is a get your butt off the couch (unless you are taking your picture from the couch) and take pictures challenge.
You can send your images to either bennett@photography139.com OR you may text them to my Pixel 5.
That is all I got, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will all be sharing our idea of GREEN in this place that tries to be as environmentally friendly as possible the next Monday.
I am curious what the white powder is in your image, Chris. Chalk?
Possible theme idea (mostly because I’m curious what sort of debate it will start): CAT
Possible theme ideas that I think won’t cause debate: HEXAGON, CREEK, SERVICE (possibly military or possibly not defined)
Angie,
I believe it was baby powder, but it was possibly also flour. I don’t know for certain.
Shannon,
CAT is obviously a hard no, but I’ll definitely consider the other ones. I particularly like SERVICE.
Some themes:
HAIR
THRONE
ROCK
Those are all good ideas. On one of my recent sojourns I spent a little bit of time in the town of Lone Rock, Iowa. While there is more than one rock in the town, there is definitely a rock that the town is named after and they moved it to their city park in the 1970s (I think) and I can’t even imagine how hard this must have been. It is the size of 6-7 freedom rocks. Although I do think they broke it when they moved it because now it is surrounded by cable to hold it together.
And if I were to use THRONE, I would be disappointed if I didn’t get at least 10 pictures of toilets.
Lone Rock is up near Jon’s hometown! I don’t think I’d seen the rock in a long time, so that’s sad. Man, I bet that even a huge crane would still have a hard job with a giant piece of earth like that.
I didn’t even consider the toilet aspect of Throne, but you’re right. I guess the upside could be if people scouted you out more outhouses…
I’m sorry, is there another kind of throne? And if people aren’t already out there scouting outhouses for me, are they even my friends? They should also be scouting interesting urinals.
As for the big rock in Lone Rock, I wonder where they moved it from? Maybe that is why it broke. Maybe it had to be broken to move it. I really liked Lone Rock. There isn’t much of a reason to ever visit again, but it was a nice little town with a few things of interest. I almost left a random “gift” I found in another town in their extremely bizarre park there, but in the end I left it in Garden Grove, Iowa. Looking at their little town library box, it made me really want to put one of those in my front yard.
I’m going to start taking books I’ve been going to donate to the Goodwill or elsewhere with me on these trips and scatter them across the state in various of these front yard libraries. Also, when my can bag gets full, I’m going to leave it in the first can drive for a good cause I see. Usually I donate my cans the Boone Area Humane Society, but I just like the idea of distributing these things across the state.
There’s not another GOOD kind of throne, no! I was thinking of thrones of lies, or the jack-o-lantern throne Charlie sat on at Reiman Gardens this weekend, or… I don’t have tangible other examples. Shannon’s less-evil cats probably use everything as their thrones! I am unable to scout as many interesting urinals as I would like, so sorry.
I love the idea of a little library box. We just love all of the ones in Ames. I don’t know if there is a registry of them or anything? It’d be pretty awesome if your house could be declared a protected property because it has a nationally-registered little town library box.
That’s a fantastic idea about books and cans. That’s really thoughtful, and it’s leaving something positive in the communities you visit.
Then clearly you aren’t trying hard enough. I mean you have a cell phone and a son. What more tools do you need?
I don’t know if there is a registry for those little library boxes, but it would make sense if there is. The street I live in on probably wouldn’t get much action, but on the other hand I do live close to the middle school. There are lots of these in Boone and at least one that actually isn’t a library but had canned food items for people that need it. I need to spend the winter looking at designs so that mine is unique. But there is also a good chance that I’m going to greatly expand my front yard flower garden. I have lots of projects for my yard next year, so this is one that could clearly get lost in the shuffle.
For the record, Shannon didn’t approve of my picking up the free gift in the weirdest town park in Iowa, but how could I not. It was FREE! I can’t remember the town off the top of my head, but the park was so weird. There was a Veteran’s Memorial but it was like the Grotto. A bunch of rocks cemented together to make a tower/obelisk looking thing. Then in several yards away was a collection of rocks (in a circle I think) that were “ugly” or had been taken from a farmer’s field.
Yeah, nothing says “call DHS” like sending a little boy into a public bathroom with a phone to take photos at urinals.
We’ve had a couple of the pantry boxes around here, too! It’s such a great idea – and your proximity to the middle school could really only help. I wonder if you’d need to keep it out of the right-of-way by the sidewalk? Ames has really strict rules about them. More flowers are always a good thing!
I’ve been purposely trying to not ask what the free gift was, or about the town park, just in hopes that Shannon would chime in and admonish you. But she hasn’t in the last bit, so I’ve got to ask – what’s the story? Was it, perhaps, Rockwell City? That is the only reason I could think of that you might build a grotto…
I don’t think Shannon either follows the comments on a blog or knows how to follow comments on the blog.
The free gift was copy of the New Testament:
It say in my car until I re-gifted it. If I had to guess, it was placed there by a Baptist Church nearby that had kind of a “fire and brimstone” kind of a vibe to it.
I think nothing says “parent of the year” like putting their child on the path to a lifetime appreciation of the urinal.
Plainfield is the name of the town. Had to look it up.
Here is a picture of the grotto-esque memorial thing.
I asked two people if I should take the free gift and both said no. Both were obviously wrong.
Shannon said I should throw it in the trash and she KNEW is was a copy of the New Testament!
They are growing an odd crop of Methodists in Summerset these days.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone need to confine the New Testament to a Ziploc bag before. I do like the part that looks like it’s saying that God’s son cleans Seth. I do not disagree with Shannon on a philosophical level… but I do like you sewing just a little bit of anarchy by re-free-gifting it elsewhere.
Charlie already relishes a urinal. He is an even bigger fan of peeing in the out-of-doors. The world is his urinal. And good for him – if you have got the ability, flaunt it.
Yeah, that’s weird. There are so many other types of memorials. And it looks to be sort of a non-descript location, as well.
I do know how to follow the comments, and I do. I’m just behind on email. I still think it’s weird. I’m not sure who the targeted audience was for that free gift. But I hope that it can find its way into the hands of someone that can use it. But it’s still weird.
Angie,
It is in the only park in the town. There must have been a guy or company that liked making things out out of rocks. The entry way to the park is also built out of rocks. I think what makes it weirder is the two guns ( I don’t think they are real, but I wouldn’t let Alec Baldwin touch them) and a flagpole coming out of the top. I think it used to light up at one point but I’m not sure about that.
Shannon,
Clearly the target audience is people that need Jesus in their life. The town I left it in was on the Mormon Trail. They love Jesus so much they have a South American Jesus.
I wonder if the guy was building some sort of underground arsenal, but there were all sorts of large rocks and small boulders all over the field, so he just really leaned into it to appear charitable. You know, for after he had an underground arsenal. It’s also the only explanation I can think of for the guns.
That was nicely pointed on Alec Baldwin. Much better pointed than the gun. Man, that whole thing is terrible.
I don’t think they were real guns and they make sense in context of a veterans memorial. I think it was specifically a Civil War memorial, but I’ll have to double-check my real camera photo of the plaque to refresh my memory. But it would be amazing if there was a cache of turn of the century guns buried under it.
Dug it up. It is a WWI Memorial constructed in 1929. Apparently the town sold “subscriptions” to finance it. Not sure what that means. Also, apparently some of the rocks came from France. Some from the Black Hills. And six states.
I ordered you one of the Alec Baldwin shirts that Traitor Tot is selling on his website. Should arrive in a couple of days.
But truthfully, that is a really sad situation. Sounds like the armorer for that movie was an incompetent moron. Cause there were at least 3 different types of safety fails that happened there. And that is just the ones I know.
Yes, “Veteran’s Memorial.” That’s what he said. A real trickster.
I only know what “subscriptions” are because Anne of Green Gables referenced it in the books about 15 years before. It’s just asking for money, from what I gathered from the context. I guess that’s accurate of magazine subscriptions these days, too, since you’re sort of just paying for content you can get online for free.
I hadn’t seen that Trump was hawking those, but that’s horrifically tacky and insensitive. Someone still has a real tough time taking a joke on SNL.
I hadn’t read many recent updates since the day it happened – was there a live round in there, or was there debris in the chamber? I had read rumors of both, but didn’t know if anything official had been released yet.
I thought it was weird that it wasn’t “bonds”, but then what kind of return would they hope to get on an investment.
I do feel kinda sad that I have zero magazine subscriptions right now. I used to subscribe to 3 or 4 at a time. A couple years ago, I tried to subscribe to a few photography magazines on the Computer Mine’s tab, but the ones that I really wanted are digital only now.
Maybe that will be my New Year’s “Resolution”. Add a couple magazine subscriptions. There are a couple I have been thinkin about.
I don’t really know that many details about the RUST shooting. But I do know that a real prop gun is set up so you can’t put real bullets in it, so there isn’t debris or anything like that. Also, even with a prop gun, there is never a point where anybody should be in the line of site of the gun. If you sweep the gun across a room, (like what apparently happened here) then nobody should be on that side of the room. If you point a gun at a camera, then there should be nobody behind the camera. Sounds like all these things went wrong.
I have had the other situation – someone or somehow I got subscribed to several magazine subscriptions (Cosmo and Town & Country?!), and so they arrive at my doorstep and get recycled unread. I’d much rather have a good magazine! I could reassign them to you.
Yes, in general it is my rule that we don’t even have toy guys in the house. Charlie is a safari lion hunter this year for Halloween, so now he has a toy rifle, and we have had some HUGE discussions about how it is not okay to point it at anyone or anything. I would assume most video cameras these days could be run remotely.