Category Archives: Art

9 Emotions Project, Anders, Animals, Art, Bill, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Christianity, Faust, Formal Portrait, Jay, Jesse, Movies, Photo Journal, Road Trip, Willy

Birthday Road Trip – Little Brown Church

January 26, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

For starters, happy birthday Anders! We celebrated Anders’ birthday last night at January birthday night with yellow cake, a DOLEMITE double feature, and a root beer tasting.

After all, DOLEMITE is my name and (expletive deleted) up mother (expletive deleted) is my game!

Here are some pictures of a man I consider to be at least the equal of Dolemite!

One of my secret (I guess) goals of 2020 is to be more proactive about putting information for Movie Night up on the website. Because if you are reading these words, you are invited to Movie Night.

But be warned, you may never be the same after you attend Movie Night. Exposure to great art tends to change a person. In fact, I think Movie Night broke Willy.

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Enough about Anders’ birthday. Let’s talk about my birthday. Last year Jesse and I took a road trip around my birthday. One of the stops we made was at The Little Brown Church. There were a bunch of LARPers there. Maybe they were time travelers. Either way, they were dressed up like it was the Civil War.

Here are some pictures from that stop:

Jesse had never heard of The Little Brown Church, but it is the church from that song. You know the song. The song about the little brown church.

There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood
No lovelier spot in the dale
No place is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale

Our church hosted a filmmaker who made a documentary about it once. It was interesting, but it didn’t feature one time traveler.

Art, Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Flowers, Holidays, Jason, Johnathan, Logan, Macro

The Ultimate Triumph

January 23, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I took a few pictures on Easter of last year that seems like a good time to share.

I think the pictures of the Easter Egg Hunt were taken by Jaxon. In fact I’m positive they were taken by Jaxon.

We are a little more than a month away from Lent now and I’ve been thinking on what I’m going to do for Lent. I would say that traditionally Methodists don’t really give up something for Lent. Instead they add something for Lent.

I’ve been playing with the idea of going pescatarian for Lent.

Why pescatarian?

#1. Eating less meat is the best thing you can do to help the planet:

Industrialized agriculture and the onset of the worst species extinction crisis since the demise of the dinosaurs means that livestock and humans now make up 96% of all mammals. But despite consuming the vast majority of farmland, meat and dairy accounts for just 18% of all food calories and around a third of protein.

The mighty hoofprint of farmed meat isn’t just inefficient. Deforestation to make way for livestock, along with methane emissions from cows and fertilizer use, creates as much greenhouse gas emissions as all the world’s cars, trucks and airplanes. Meat rearing practices risk mass extinctions of other animals, as well as spawn significant pollution of streams, rivers and, ultimately, the ocean.

#2. Goals should be realistic and attainable. While going pescatarian will vastly reduce the amount of meat I eat, it is a realistic goal, because I know there is no way I could pull off going full vegetarian and let’s not talk about going vegan.

#3. A pescatarian diet is healthier. It is healthy for the heart, reduces the risks of some cancer, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

#4. The prophet Kurt Cobain taught us that “it’s okay to eat fish, ’cause they don’t have any feelings.”

This means that I need to get that road trip to Corning with Shannon to tenderloin it up on the books before February 26.

Animals, Art, Black & White, Christianity, Street Photography

Argerich

January 21, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Back in May I went to see Evie perform during her piano recital. The recital was in Chocolaterie Stam in downtown Ames. I arrived early, so I wandered around downtown Ames and took a few photos that I’d like to share now:

I still really haven’t set 2020 photography goals for myself, besides make the blog more current. But one of them might be to do more street photography.

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

Part Ballroom, Part Baller

January 8, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

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, Football, Iowa State, Self-Portrait, Street Photography, 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, Football, Iowa State, Street Photography

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, Football, Iowa State, Street Photography

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, Street Photography, 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.