Category Archives: Art

Art, Flowers, Naima, Photoshop, Road Trip, Still Life, WPC - Alternate, WPC - Reminder

Such a Classic Waste of Cool

June 19, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Another week of working from home almost in the books. I don’t even know how long it has been now. I don’t that much has changed. I still listen to 96.1 in the morning. In the afternoons, there isn’t really anything designated any more. I’ve been listening to podcasts I suppose. But not exclusively.

One positive or one thing I’ll miss when I get called back to working in the office is this: I’ll missing sitting under my cherry trees with Naima and eating my lunch. Listening to the birds. Feeling a warm breeze. It is very peaceful, but also makes it hard to go back to work when my lunch is over.

I have been working on the basement, but the project has become more ambitious than expected. There will be pictures when it is done, but it is several weeks out, at least. I’d guess I’m about 35-40% done.

Logan helped me big time last Saturday with the interior of the project. The Citywide Cleanup was also a big help. Lots of stuff hit the curb and are now on the ash heap of history. Although I’m still finding plenty of stuff that needs to hit the dusty trail. Andy helped me get rid of some of that too.

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I took several YELLOW pictures for this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. I’d like to share the one’s that didn’t make the cut for Monday’s reveal at this point:

I always have fun playing with the “creative” settings on my camera.

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is ROAD TRIP:

ROAD TRIP

A ROAD TRIP is any photo that involves a ROAD TRIP. Doesn’t have to be a large ROAD TRIP. The reveal photo was taken when I went on a ROAD TRIP to get gas. A ROAD TRIP photo doesn’t even have to be taken on a ROAD TRIP. It can be taken showing planning for a ROAD TRIP or preparing for a ROAD TRIP.

Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Candid Portrait, Event, Kio, Politics, Still Life, WPC - Reminder

Black Lives Matter – Boone – One

June 12, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I will write more in depth about my experience at the Boone Black Lives Matter event on Monday. I stayed about 15-20 feet away from it with a mask on because of my deep virus concerns, but I was still able to get a fair amount of pictures.

My short version of the story is that it was a great event. There were a couple of right wing agitators there, but nothing came of them.

Here is my first collection of pictures from the event.

My best guess is that there were about 250 people there, but I’m really bad at making such estimates. However, the Boone New Republican article had a similar estimate.

I saw quite a few people I know, especially from my church, including Pastor Dave and his wife Shari. Kio, of course. Anna Olson, of course. Plus a few people who recognized me, but I didn’t recognize. The face mask thing does make it hard for people to recognize one another, but it is necessary, of course.

There are a couple more collections to come.

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A reminder that YELLOW is this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme:

YELLOW

A YELLOW picture is any picture where the subject is YELLOW or YELLOW is a major compositional element of the picture. I’ve already received a bunch of submissions, so I doubt I’ll have to send out any reminders on Monday morning.

Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Derrick, Evie, Formal Portrait, Jay, Jen, Jonah, Jorge, Layla, Michelle, Movies, Naima, Nature, Photoshop, Railroad, State Fair, WPC - Reminder

Suds, Dickcissel, and Lensbaby Redux

June 5, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Hey, I screwed up the schedule of posts and 2 posts accidentally posted at the same time yesterday. This one, that I took back down and re-posted and another one with daffodils. It is possible that you didn’t get the post about the daffodils yesterday. If that is the case, click on the link below:

My soul and pocketbook are glad to announce that I have finished THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT. 5 new canvases arrived on Monday and I was able to get them up that night. Here are the 5 final canvases:

Before the Swallow Dares – 2020

There is also an update on Naima and birthday wishes for Jorge in there.

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My soul and pocketbook are glad to announce that I have finished THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT. 5 new canvases arrived on Monday and I was able to get them up that night. Here are the 5 final canvases:

This is what the wall looks like:

Now, I realize that when there is furniture in place, not every picture is visible. That isn’t the important part. The important part is that they are there at all.

On to the next decorating project. Whatever that may be!
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I don’t consider pictures that were taken in the same calendar year in which we currently exist to be a backlog. However, if I did, this collection of images would be somewhat of a backlog. This clears out all images from January and February that had yet to be edited or curated.

Pictures from a trip to Dickcissel with Naima, some Lensbaby tests, and a picture of the Root Beer Symposium we had during movie night back in January.

We haven’t had Movie Night at The Union Street theater since February, so we haven’t been able to crown a root beer champion, but those pictures might give you the slightest indication of how messy my basement is right now. Although I would estimate that the big parts of the basement cleanup are about 30% done.

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

SIGNS

A SIGNS picture is just that, a picture of a SIGN or multiple SIGNS. Remember, there are more than one kind of SIGN(S).

Happy photo harvesting!

Andy, Animals, Art, Black & White, Derrick, Elainie, Flowers, Iowa State, Macro, Mission Trip, Naima, Photoshop, Politics, Sabas, Saydie, Shannon, Youth Group

#63

May 28, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I only have one image to share today. It might not seem like much of an image at first glance. It is just a wet gazania. But this is a focus stacked image. It took 63 pictures just to combine all of them into this one image.

I repeat, it isn’t that I took 63 images and this is the one I like the best, I took 63 images and combined them into one image.

I’m sure I’ll be doing more focus stacking in the future. The photo rail makes it way easier to focus stack. In addition to making it way easier to do super macro.

Now I have yet to do a super-macro photo stacked image, but that is coming. Very soon.

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Thought I would reveal the latest collection of images that have been added to the CANVAS WALL PROJECT.

12X16

12X8

8X10

There is one more order of canvases that are their way to my front stoop. Once those are up, the CANVAS WALL PROJECT will be finished!

At that time, I’ll publish a picture of it.

Anders, Andy, Angie, Art, Bill, Carla, Cathie, Dawn, Drone, Holidays, Jay, Jen, Jesse, Kim, Logan, Micky, Monica, Photoshop, Self-Portrait, Shannon, Willy, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 245 – SELF-PORTRAIT

May 25, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 6 Comments

I need to start by wishing everybody a happy Memorial Day!

Today is a unique Memorial Day, as we honor both our military personnel that have died in military service and the over 100,000 Americans that have died during the coronavirus pandemic. Hopefully, we will be in a better place in the world next year.

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Woooo! 34 straight weeks of double digit submissions. I got a lot of feedback from people saying that a SELF-PORTRAIT wasn’t easy for them like it is for me. They aren’t a combination of a young Brad Pitt and a middle-aged Robert Redford. While, I understand that my good looks can be intimidating, it is the fact that I am interesting looking that makes me so dang photogenic, not the fact that I’m so ruggedly handsome.

One person went so far as to send me the excuse that they can’t do a self-portrait, because they only do portraits with somebody holding their neck back. Ridiculous!

That being said, enough people showed the testicular fortitude to get on the other side of the camera for us to eek out double digits again!

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

Monica Henning

Kim Barker

Dawn Krause

Andy Sharp

Angie DeWaard

Jen Ensley-Gorshe

Micky Augustin

Jen Ensley-Gorshe

Jesse Howard

Carla Stensland

Cathie Raley

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Christopher D. Bennett

Logan Kahler

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:

FRIENDS

FRIENDS! What a great theme! I mean for most of you. Seeing how I have been scientifically documented to be the one True Lone Wolf, the man that is an island, this will be a difficult theme for me. I might have to play creepy photographer and find a couple of FRIENDS hanging out and clandestinely take their picture.

For the rest of you, this should be fairly simple. Grab a picture of a couple of your FRIENDS physically distancing, while remaining social.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

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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 friendly Monday!

Art, Becca, Cousin Amy, Flowers, Formal Portrait

2009-11-19 + 2009-11-21

May 23, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

There were only a couple of pictures in the folder 2009-11-19, so I decided to also post some pictures from the folder 2009-11-21.

The picture from the first album is of Becca and her beau at the time. There is one picture of a Window Project I made for Salon 908. I always meant to make a companion piece to go with it, but never did. amazingly, that window still hangs in Salon 908. I am amazed that is hasn’t fallen apart yet. I really didn’t know what I was doing when I made it.

The majority of the pictures in the second folder are from a photo shoot I did with Cousin Amy and her son Sam. That was fun photo shoot!

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:

Wednesday Surprise
Window Project #2

Next Saturday’s trip down memory lane will involve Kansas City.

Art, Iowa State, Road Trip, Town Sign Project, WPC - Reminder

Pandemic Birthday

May 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 5 Comments

Let me start by saying thanks to everybody that wished me a happy birthday on Monday via text or phone call or Instagram messenger or card in the mail or via haircut or Teams. I’m sure some people even wished me a happy birthday on Facebook. I guess I’ll find out if I ever go on Facebook again.

Even thanks to the people who wished me Happy birthday on the wrong day.

It was a unique birthday. I know that numerous people have celebrated a pandemic birthday this year and many of you will celebrate one in the future. Mine wasn’t necessarily all that bad.

To start with, I took my birthday off. I know I couldn’t do all that much, but I just didn’t want to sit in my office all day. Staring at the walls. The same 4 walls.

I got lucky that on Sunday the new SSD arrived for my work from home computer. I was able to upgrade my work from home computer with the SSD, plus more RAM, and a better processor. I was able to get that work done on Sunday, so I didn’t even step foot in my office all day on Monday.

I slept all the way until 7:30. I got up and ate a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and watched THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA on Amazon Prime. It wasn’t exactly the movie that I was expecting. It had a weird ending.

Then I took Naima for a car ride. We stopped at the Jay Carlson Wildlife Area and the Harrier Marsh. She got a good run in at both locations.

Then I went home and had a quick lunch. I had decided to go for a short road trip. I knew I couldn’t travel very far, but I wouldn’t to do something I would enjoy. I decided to make a trip to Rolfe, Iowa to see the greatest piece of art ever constructed my the hands of man.

I took several pictures, have a look:

Since I was on kind of a time crunch, I didn’t harvest many signs for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT, but I did get three bagged:

Bradgate

Callender

Gowrie

When I got back home, I loaded Naima up in the car again and we went over to my Mom’s for my birthday dinner. We had homemade pizza made with the “family sauce recipe”. It doesn’t really belong to the family, but came from a family friend.

On the pizza was sausage, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, and sauerkraut. Delicious!

My Mom also made me a birthday cake. My favorite kind of cake, Mayonnaise Cake! Delicious!

After dinner, we watched the remake of OVERBOARD. I’m not really quite sure how that happened, but maybe I was feeling some 80s nostalgia. Actually, I know I’ve been feeling some 80s nostalgia lately. I recently watched the entire series TEEN WOLF. Entirely based on my fondness for the original TEEN WOLF and my fascination with the absurdity of TEEN WOLF TOO.

After the movie I went back home and finished my day off responding to some text messages before calling it a night.

Pandemic birthday could have been worse, and parts of it were pretty great!

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is SELF-PORTRAIT:

SELF-PORTRAIT

A SELF-PORTRAIT image is simply a picture of yourself. Or a picture of somebody taking a picture of themselves.

Don’t forget that Monday is Memorial Day. While the banks take holidays, Photography 139 never takes a day off. The grind is real! Plan on getting your submissions in accordingly.

Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Jesse, Jorge, Road Trip, Self-Portrait

Camping World Bowl Road Trip Day 5 – Superman

May 5, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The last day of the Camping World Bowl Road Trip consisted of leaving our hotel in Kentucky and driving home. We only really made a couple stops. One stop was in Metropolis to visit Superman. The other stop was at the Hen House for lunch.

It concluded a great trip that covered many miles in very few days. 3 dudes and a pregnant lady carrying twins.

Yeah, I didn’t mention that Jorge’s woman Randi made the entire trip while pregnant. We left for Orlando the day after Christmas. They found out a day or two before Christmas.

They didn’t know it was twins, but the amount of time that I saw Randi throwing up in a Walmart bag on this trip might have been a good indicator that twins were on the way. But that just might be an urban legend.

Either way, I don’t know how she made the entire trip. What a trooper! Perhaps the real superhero on this trip. Sorry Superman.

Slurped down breakfast as fast as possible, to avoid listening to the banality of Fox & Friends.

Here are my official Superman Power Rankings:

1. Christopher Reeve

That is it. There is only one Superman. Nobody played Superman before and nobody has played him after. Christopher Reeve is Superman.

At this point, it is a fairly safe bet that there won’t be a bowl road trip this year. That is because Iowa State will be playing in a bowl game that is played in 2021!

Animals, Art, Jesse, Jorge, Road Trip, Self-Portrait, WPC - Reminder

Camping World Bowl Road Trip Day 4

May 1, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Day 4 of the road trip was a grind. We left Orlando and drove for like 15 hours to get back to Kuttawa, Kentucky.

The only real stop we made was a fancypants gas station in Georgia that sold pecans. I kinda thought the pecans down there would be cheaper and maybe they are, but they were still crazy expensive. But I’m not a pecan expert.

#wafflelife

The hotel we stayed at had a sweet aquarium.

Attached to their phones. Worse than traveling with teenagers.

Crane in the hotel parking lot.

Bikers?

I got so many yard decorating ideas from this place!

Damn right we hit another Zaxby’s!

Good night from Kentucky.

This wasn’t my style of road trip. I like to be able to stop at random things and meander and photograph. I hope this year’s bowl trip is either closer (I already know it will be in a better city) or I’m able to space it out over a longer time frame. Otherwise, flying might be the way to go.

I would love to go back to Memphis, but there are a lot of people laying down some pretty high expectations for Iowa State this season. I think it will depend on how well the offensive line comes together though.

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

TREE

A TREE image is any image that involves a TREE or a TREE byproduct.

Happy photo harvesting!

Animals, Art, Candid Portrait, Jesse, Jorge, Self-Portrait, Street Photography, Travel

Camping World Bowl Road Trip Day 3 – Alligators

April 30, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

After the game we went back to the hotel and took a nap. Well some of us took a nap. Some of us might have scrolled through Cyclone Twitter while everybody else napped.

Once the batteries were recharged, we went to a Brazilian Steakhouse that Jorge knew about. It was ridiculously cheap and made cheaper because Dre had found some coupons for it. It cost us like only $30 to eat there. Plus, I think it was the best Brazilian Steakhouse I’ve ever eaten at.

After the meal we parted ways with Andree and his brother and went out on my personal, very personal quest. We had been in Florida for about 24 hours and I still hadn’t seen an alligator.

There was a couple miniature golf courses that claimed to have alligators that we drove past on the way to supper. We drove back there, got some ice cream and checked them out.

The first miniature golf course alligators were kinda sad. They clearly weren’t well cared for and the water was filthy.

At the second miniature golf course we met Joshua and we got to hold an alligator. That place was awesome! It was clean and the gators were clearly loved. For a brief period of time I thought Orlando wasn’t so bad.

Just kidding! Orlando is the worst!