Category Archives: Art

Art, Basketball, Candid Portrait, Dae Hee, Event, Flowers, Road Trip

Part Ballroom, Part Baller

January 8, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

Last April I went up to Minneapolis to checkout all the hoopla that surrounds the Final Four. Dae Hee and I went downtown and checked everything out. I snapped a few pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

It appears to be a down season for the Cyclones this year. I can only imagine what this team would look like if THT would’ve come back instead of going to the NBA. That being said, there is still time for the current team to get it figured out, starting tonight against Kansas. Go Cyclones!

Animals, Art, Black & White, Brandon, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Night, Railroad, Sara

2009-07-24 & 2009-07-27

December 14, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

I decided to throw two folders into today’s walk down memory lane because one folder really only had two pictures of Brandon in it.

The other folder had a ton of pictures from a trip to Ledges and a trip to Des Moines with Sara. There has been a lot of pictures of Sara in these recent trips down memory lane. I think I’ve seen Sara exactly one time in 2019. I think I saw her twice in 2018. If things break just right, I might see her again in 2020.

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:

Future Road Trip Master

Lousy with People

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Jay and more sparklers.

Art, Flowers, Macro

2009-06-14

September 28, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folder 2009-06-14 are flowers from my Grandma’s house.

As near as I figure, these pictures have never been published before.

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will include more flower pictures.

Art, Candid Portrait, Derrick, Event, Football, Iowa State, Self-Portrait, WPC - Reminder

College Ames Day – Part III

September 27, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

This is final collection of pictures of College GameDay in Ames. It includes pictures of douche country “celebrity” Eric Church.

There are also a couple pictures from the Iowa State-Iowa game. I didn’t take many pictures because I have pretty much given up on taking pictures at Iowa State games. Plus, if you don’t remember, it poured down rain for about 5 hours of the 6+ hour game. It was a LONG day.

But it wasn’t an all bad day. Yes douche country “celebrity” pick Eric Church picked against the home team, but at the end of the day, all anything will remember is that Lee Corso put on Cy’s head.

Hopefully, the next time that College GameDay comes to Ames, they don’t poop the bed and bring us somebody that Iowa State fans aren’t booing every time he is even mentioned.

Hopefully, the next time College GameDay comes to Ames, Lee Corso is still around to put on Cy’s head.

Here are some pictures:

I don’t have much to say about the game. Obviously it hurts when you dominate a game and lose. Regardless of what you think about the phantom holding call that hurt Iowa State at the end of the day Iowa State didn’t make the plays they needed to win the game. There were about 5 plays in the game that were decided by an inch. Everyone of those plays went Iowa’s way. However, every goal Iowa State has for the season is still on the table.

As for the other stories swirling around still.

I don’t really have anything to say about Bandgate. Looks like there was lots of blame to go around and hopefully things are fixed in the future. I do fear for the Iowa State University Cyclone Varsity Marching Band when they go to Iowa City next year.

I don’t have anything to say about the Des Moines Register digging up tweets a person made 8 years ago when they were 16. In the end, Carson King is still going to raise a ton of money and Busch Beer still sucks!

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

RUINS

Remember a RUINS picture is a picture of something that has been abandoned or is in decay or has been destroyed.

Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Candid Portrait, Event, Football, Iowa State

College Ames Day Part II

September 26, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

One thing I can tell you about being at College GameDay is that it is almost impossible to actually watch the show when you are there. Lee, Kirk, Rece, and Desmond have their back to the crowd and there is so much equipment around them that you can’t really see them.

They broadcast the show on a couple giant screens, but there is such a mass of people there, that the sound from the speakers gets drowned out. That being said, it was magical being at College GameDay. It was an accomplishment that I didn’t think Iowa State would ever achieve. I think under the right circumstances, they will be back. Or at least they will be at another Cyclone game in the future.

Here are more pictures from College GameDay:

Still got more pictures from College GameDay’s first ever trip to Iowa State… for football!

Art, Candid Portrait, Derrick, Event, Football, Iowa State

College Ames Day – Part I

September 25, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

I was able to make it to College Game Day on Saturday morning. I left my car at Jen and Derrick’s and Derrick dropped me off at The Jack on his way to work.

The crowd was already a pretty good size by 7:45. I can say that College GameDay certainly lived up to the hype!

Plenty more College GameDay in the chute!

Art, Contests, Formal Portrait, Jesse, Nader, State Fair, Willy

Iowa State Fair 2018 – Misc.

August 18, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

This is final collection of Iowa State Fair pictures from 2018. Published just in time for the close of the 2019 Iowa State Fair.

I’ll be spending the day at the Iowa State Fair solo today as all 4 of the people that were going to go with me all gave me the shaft. C’est la vie!

These pictures are from the day I went to the last day of the Fair to pick up my pictures from the Photography Salon. Nader and Jesse went with me on that day.

I’m already looking forward to the 2020 Fair.

Art, Formal Portrait, Jay, Jesse, Photo Journal, Willy, WPC - Reminder

A Photo Journal – Page 31

August 16, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

Last Saturday night Jay, Willy, Jesse, and I piled into the Sir Pixalot-mobile and headed down to Des Moines for a dinner that had absolutely nothing to do with Jay’s dinner. Anybody that says that the very delicious dinner we took down had anything to do with Jay’s birthday is a terrible liar.

Jay had selected (totally unrelated to his birthday) BAH Brazilian Steakhouse for the dinner. When we got there, there was a 45 minute wait. I took this as an opportunity to take Willy across the river and take the two pictures that I needed for Page 31 for THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT.

Page 31

Tell a joke with two pictures.

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

Page 18 – Shoot the other half of this picture by Jason Evans. – This is a profoundly stupid page, but I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet and do it at some point.
Page 28 – Recreate a famous photograph without looking it up.
Page 64 – Head out with a fellow photographer and play a game of photography dare.
PAGE 66-67 – Make a sequence of four pictures inspired by the rise and fall of Britney Spears (or another celebrity).
PAGE 101 – Find an object, close your eyes and compose your shot using touch rather than vision.
Page 106-107 – Email one of your pictures to your photography hero and ask them what they hate about it.
Page 117 – Freeze the frame exactly 57 minutes and 32 seconds in to your favorite film. Take a picture inspired by what you see.
PAGE 121 – Show us that photography is a form of magic.
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 WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is FLOWER:

FLOWER

A FLOWER picture is pretty self-evident. Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Event, Olympic Sports

RAGBRAI – VOLUME 4

July 31, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

This is my final collection of RAGBRAI pictures from last year when RAGBRAI passed through Boone.

Now that I’ve published last year’s RAGBRAI photos it is time to hit the backlog and publish pictures from last year’s balloon festival.

Animals, Art, Baseball/Softball, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Logan, Naima, Photoshop, Self-Portrait, Still Life, Taylan, WPC - Alternate

Available as Another Possibility

July 30, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

It is well established that my favorite theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is BLACK & WHITE. Therefore I took several BLACK & WHITE pictures in the last week and not just the picture of Taylan that I used as my submission for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE.

Here are a few more of those BLACK & WHITE pictures: