This is a tradition that I have gotten away from for awhile, but I do wish to start it up again.
This photo tribute is my way of saying Happy birthday to Shannon.
I believe Jen Gorshe is up next for the birthday photo tribute.
I took these pictures of turkeys at Micky’s dad’s place after our turkey “hunt”.
If you are interested in Micky’s world, I would urge you to visit his new re-designed website:
Next week’s Personal Photo Project deals with that most tricky of birds, the peacock.
I think some of these pictures might have processed funny, but oh well, they still look cool.
Elainie graduated a couple weeks back. Here are a couple of pictures from the day.
I didn’t take a camera to the Open House for some reason. I clearly now regret that.
Next Wednesday’s randomness will feature pictures of Evie.
These pictures come from the following folder: Backup/Old My Pictures/Jones Soda
These pictures might come as kind of shocking. So I better give a small bit of back story.
If there was ever a chance for me to be a cult leader it was when I was the closing assistant at the Boone Outpost of the Evil Clown Empire. It was the peak of my charisma. It was the peak of the power of my sideburns. I was practically a town/county celebrity and for all of the right reasons. People did and said what I told them to and everybody wanted to be in my company.
However, I didn’t use my power, charisma, and sideburns to form a cult. At least not a religious cult. I used them to introduce my love of Jones Soda to the people that surrounded me and to get them to love Jones Soda.
Jones Soda, I say.
You see, I’m not a boring and uninteresting person. I’ve never been a boring and uninteresting person. I don’t surround myself with boring and uninteresting people. Therefore alcohol has never been and never will be an important part of my life. Actually it is no longer a part of my life period.
Sure I know plenty of people that place a premium on alcohol in their value system. I’m sure if I were them I would probably need alcohol to put up with being them too. But I’m not them, I’m me, and I don’t need to medicate away the pain of being me, because I am “amazing”, “wonderful”, my talent “knows no bounds”, and “the bringer of awesome”.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like to get together with a few chums after a hard night of serving what is laughingly considered food to some of the finest white trash in all of Boone County and have a few frosty cold beverages. Only the frosty cold beverages I enjoy are Jones Soda’s Green Apple Soda or their Fufu Berry or their Grape. All divine creations.
So it was on a hot, humid night that the 4 of us clustered into Action’s basement and made these 2 pictures with a webcam.
These two pictures existed because we were sending them to two separate places.
The first picture we sent to Jones Soda to show our love for their superior product.
The 2nd picture we sent to Hy-Vee (at least I think we did or we might have just sent a strongly worded letter that pointed out the economic impact of their poor decision) to show them exactly how we felt about a stocking decision they had made.
Jones Soda makes an energy drink called Whoop Ass! The Boone Hy-Vee decided to stop stocking Whoop Ass! because some old battle axe complained about the name of the product.
The Edge actually sent our letter on to Jones Soda and they rewarded us with a case of Whoop Ass! It was a monumental victory for the little guy!
Hy-Vee never re-stocked Whoop Ass! I’m frankly amazed that they are still in business.
Next week’s pictures come from the following folder:
Backup/Old My Pictures/Labels
Looks like the Random Weekly Photo Experiment has run its course as submissions are starting to become few and far between. Looks like I need to start thinking about what it is I’m going to post on Mondays next year.
Here are the submissions for SHADOWS:
Christopher D. Bennett
The theme for next week:
A look back at last year’s DEPTH OF FIELD submissions:
Forgot what DEPTH OF FIELD is? Here is a refresher:
Depth of field (DOF) is the portion of a scene that appears acceptably sharp in the image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing conditions.
Depth of Field is controlled by the size of the aperture used to take a picture. The larger the aperture, the smaller the Depth of Field. The smaller the aperture, the larger the Depth of Field. If you want only one item in a picture to be in focus, then you use a large aperture. If you want almost the whole picture to be in focus, then you use a small aperture.
One thing to note about aperture sizes, the larger the number, the smaller the aperture. f/1.4 is much larger than f/32.
Perhaps you don’t know how to control the size of the aperture on your camera. You can still fake it. Almost all cameras have “Creative Control” settings. If you set your camera on “Portrait”, almost always symbolized by a sideways icon of a woman’s face, then the camera will use exposure settings with the largest aperture possible. If you set your camera to “Landscape” almost always symbolized by a mountain icon, the camera will use exposure settings with the smallest aperture possible.
DEPTH OF FIELD is usually meant to describe a picture taken with a large aperture to separate the subject of a picture from its background.
Remember: Submissions are due to bennett@photography139.com by noon on Monday.
I’d say good luck, but it would seem somewhat pointless.
Last week I removed and disassembled the Friend Wall. It is no longer in existence. No longer do I have friends on my wall.
I replaced the Friend Wall with the 9 Emotions Project Wall. The centerpiece of this new “exhibit” is a 24×36 print of the picture below. A picture that was the ultimate goal of the whole 9 Emotions Project.
I picked 1 person for each emotion. I like to think that there are reasons why each person was able to best represent each emotion.
Joy and Cousin Amy
Cousin Amy lives the joy of a life where she was told a diagnosis of her child by their doctor and told the doctor, “I don’t think so.” Then she went out and proved the doctor wrong.
Sadness and Willy
After the events of the last couple weeks, there isn’t a reason to cover this one.
Anger and Derrick
As hard as it is to believe, Derrick was the single angriest man I ever worked with when we were employed at the Boone Outpost of the Evil Clown Empire. I have numerous stories of him in my mind throwing searing tools across the room and punching things and telling the Store Manager to do unbecoming things to his anatomy that most people simply wouldn’t believe happened. Although once he was off the clock, he was the Derrick that everybody else knows.
Amusement and Shannon
When I think of Shannon I think of somebody that is amused by the simple things in life. Of course, that is the best way to be.
Fear and Jesse
Back in the days of Saturday morning basketball, I saw this look on Jesse’s face quite frequently. Pretty much any time he stood between me and the basket this look crept upon his face as he knew he was about to get embarrassed.
Jealousy and Jen
This one doesn’t really fit. Jen isn’t a jealous person and has very little to be jealous about. She has a great husband, a great kid, a great family and great friends. Basically she has all the right ingredients for the recipe to a happy life. I’m guessing that perhaps this is Jen showing off some long dormant acting skills. Perhaps she should pursue a role in one of the area community theaters. I know Jen LOVES community theater.
Surprise and Sara
While Sara is one of the most intelligent and best educated people I know, she lives life in a manner where whatever comes down the chute next is a gift and she seems genuinely surprised by it. While that might now seem like it is a compliment, I think that this is one of the best compliments I’ve ever given anybody. To live life with such unabandoned joy is a great life.
Sympathy and Jill
Jill fits sympathy so well as she has one of the best hearts of anybody I’ve ever known. She would tell you (yes we’ve had this conversation) that it isn’t that her heart is better than most people, but it is the fact that artists (Jill is an amazing flutist) are lead through life with their heart. While this is true, it doesn’t alter the fact that the first thing you notice about Jill when you meet her is her heart.
Boredom and Jay
I’ve always felt that people that are “bored” are boring people. Jay is a lot of things, but he is not a boring person. However, that doesn’t mean that I’ve never seen Jay bored. Being the closest of friends with Jesse, Willy, and I he has been subjected to more sporting events than many wives and girlfriends. Usually this is the look that glosses over his face right before he taps out and goes home to do things that interest Jay.
I also asked all of my models to pick out who they thought did the best job with each of the emotions. I gave extra credit to the people who were able to pick 9 different people for the 9 different emotions.
Here is the feedback I got fed back. In the order it came back to me.
Jill’s Pick
Sara’s Pick
Jen’s Pick
Jay’s Pick
Willy’s Pick
Jesse’s Pick
Derrick’s Pick
Amy’s Picks
Next week’s Personal Photo Project with involve that most magnificent of creatures… the turkey.
I think some of these pictures were taken inside Wilson’s. I am mostly curious who the guy is in one of the pictures. He doesn’t ring any bells for me.
A couple weeks back I went to watch Logan run track. Here are some pictures of that:
Next week’s random pictures will be of Elainie’s graduation.
This picture comes from the following folder: Backup/Old My Pictures/JCJanson
This is a photo technique that Jay and I should really revisit in the future. I don’t know if we have done this since Portrait of an Artist as a Middle-Aged Man.
Next week’s folder will be: Backup/Old My Pictures/Jones Soda