Time to hit the backlog again. More pictures from my trip through the Badlands with my Mom:
More from this trip coming your way at some point in the near future!
Badlands Vol. 2
Category Archives: Family
05-03-08
The images in this blog are from the folder 05-03-08:
By adding these images to the Photography 139 Photo Gallery, I was able to restore the following historical An Artist’s Notebook entry to its original glory:
CARDINAL GYMNASTICS ACADEMY
The pictures of Alexis doing gymnastics was at her gymnastics recital, which is a lot less painful to sit through than a dance recital. Every day of the week and three times on a Sunday.
I don’t believe that those Little White Lye Soap pictures were ever published, but of course, I could be wrong.
Remember you can buy Little White Lye Soap here:
Little White Lye Soap Store
Little White Lye Soap is the only current Christopher D. Bennett endorsed product of any kind on the market. However, I have always meant to formally endorse Franklin Broomworks brooms and this book:
I Cannot, Yet I Must: The True Story of the Best Bad Monster Movie of All Time: Robot Monster
Consider this an endorsement, but not a formal endorsement of both. When I get back to the formal endorsement game, I will formally endorse both.
Next time we take a walk down the lane of memories it will involve worms, flowers, painting, and old cohorts from my time with the Evil Clown Empire.
Mr. 3000
So here is the first journal entry. I felt like having as pretentious sounding name as possible for my journal. I have a few goals about this journal. My main goal is just to actually write in it. My second goal is to be as truthful as possible towards my true thoughts and feelings. I have another journal on another website, but it is really just a collection of sarcastic statements and cheap jabs at open faced sandwiches. This journal is meant to be about what my achievements and failures are in the world of art. What projects I am working on and what I have accomplished and what I have failed to accomplish. What I am photographing and what I am thinking about entering in photo contests. What I am thinking about. It might not always make sense. It might just be things I need to write down because they strike me as poignant or inspirational. This is in a small way an online “idea box”.
I do also have a goal of producing something that makes me worthy of having a pretentious sounding journal title like: “An Artist’s Notebook”.
With those words on August 9, 2006 this blog burst into the world with the blog entry titled:
FIRST JOURNAL ENTRY
Now here we are 4294 days later and I’m posting journal entry number 3,000.
The blog has changed quite a bit over the years. It started out as a blog that I physically coded and added to a website that I physically coded back when my website was hosted on Frank’s basement server. Then, I moved it to a third party company called Blogger. If you visit this URL, you can still see its pathetic remains:
An Artist’s Notebook – Blogger Version
After that, I still used Blogger, but I published An Artist’s Notebook to the server that currently hosts my website. The content was the same, but the URL changed. If you click on the link below, you can still see it’s pathetic remains, that are identical to the Blogger URL remains:
An Artist’s Notebook – Photography 139 Hosted Version
Well before this, I had changed my website over to WordPress. Even though WordPress has very powerful blogging tools, it wasn’t until March of 2010 that I started using WordPress and An Artist’s Notebook moved to (hopefully) its final URL:
An Artist’s Notebook – Current Incarnation
Last time I posted that An Artist’s Notebook had reached a milestone number of posts, I received a bunch of congratulations. I was confused by this because I didn’t feel it was necessarily an accomplishment. After all, I basically was just too stupid to quit. Just plugging along in relative obscurity, with a few loyal subscribers that send me emails or leave comments on the blogs scattered across the globe earth. A smarter person would have just stopped by now.
But instead, other than a slight walking away from An Artist’s Notebook back in the spring of 2015, nevertheless he persisted.*
I don’t know if just persisting is an accomplishment, but looking at the earlier formats for An Artist’s Notebook, I see that I used to link to several other blogs, that have either stopped updating or are just simply gone with the wind.
- The original Little White Lye Soap website is gone, but it has been replaced by the Franklin Broomworks website.
- Act of Gravity – BrogFrog’s band at one time is gone. True I don’t think Act of Gravity every played a show, but you could pretend.
- Waxen Media – Vest’s website is still up, but hasn’t been updated since 2015. Although I’ve heard rumors that a comeback might be on the horizon.
- Lesser Known Saint – My friend Mike’s old band website is still up, but they broke up in 2012.
- Impassioned Versifier – Dawn’s poetry blog is still up, but she hasn’t versified, impassioned or otherwise since 2011. Get it together Dawn!
- Mayor Goldie’s Website – Jesse’s website is frozen. He must have done something bad. Like giving up his dream of being mayor of Hill Valley.
- LowellDavis.net – Still up, but the last post was in 2015.
- Carla’s Blog, Teresa’s Blog, and J- The Online Magazine are all victims to Windows Live Spaces no longer being a thing. I miss knowing what was in Jay’s fridge.
- Live Like A Champion Today – Mark’s blog on his Missionary Work is still up, but he no longer posts. He isn’t a missionary any longer, but he could make stuff up.
- Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century – Died on October 1, 2010. Sad. I think we all remember where we were when we heard the blog about 19th century mustaches stopped production. I was grooming my beard.
- True Wife Confessions – Died on October 28, 2012
- I Found Your Camera – Date of death, lost.
I have to give props to the other people who are also too dumb to quit:
- Horror Movie A Day – Sure he isn’t cranking them out like he used to, but he hasn’t given up the ghost.
- A Novel Blog – The writing blog of a person I actually knew in the real world once. A very talented writer named S.E. White.
I’m still here. Let’s not make a big deal of it.
Even though An Artist’s Notebook is meant to complement the rest of the Photography 139 website and universe, I actually didn’t post a photo in the blog until a good 3 months after I started it. On October 20, 2006 history was made with the blog post:
A GOOD DAY AT WORK
This was the first picture ever posted to An Artist’s Notebook:
A picture of a groundhog that lived behind the computer mine.
Although the seal was broken the floodgates didn’t exactly open. I didn’t post an image again until December 31, 2006. That picture was the back page of the the 2007 Photography 139 calendar.
Back from when I printed the calendars myself.
The picture flood gates really opened on January 5, 2007 with this post:
FAILED BEGINNING
And these 2 photos:
The rest, has been photographic history.
An observant reader of An Artist’s Notebook would have notice that my Saturday post walking down memory lane are partially done so that I can have a look at my old images and partially done so I can restore my old blog posts to their original glory. The reason why this is necessary is because in addition to having gone through several ways to post a blog, I also went through several hosting options for my photos.
The first one was a company known as Photobucket. Photobucket was a good free option. I used it from October 2006 up until October 2008.
I abandoned Photobucket because eventually I was going to outgrow their limits. Recently they stopped allowing people to embed images stored with them, so if you were to click on a journal entry from May 2008 to October 2008, you’d see something like this:
After Photobucket, I decided to host my pictures with a MySQL-PHP photo gallery called Coppermine. I ran with Coppermine from November 2008 until July 2011. I left those galleries up for several years, even though you couldn’t access them unless you had a direct URL. Also by leaving them up, pictures would still show up on the website. Unfortunately, those galleries were used to hack my website and take it down a few years back. As a result, I had to completely delete the galleries to close the security loophole in my website. So until I get the journal entries from November 2008 until July 2011 restored to their original glory, they will look something like this:
Then in April of 2011 I was hired to be the photographer for the American Red Cross Young Heroes event. They wanted to have a way that people could go to my website and buy pictures. I didn’t actually have a way to do that, so I needed to find one. I ended up with Smugmug. It was a service that a professional photographer I knew used and recommended. You can store unlimited photos there and people can buy them directly from your website.
It took me a few months to realize that the Smugmug was the future of my photo hosting. It has unlimited data storage and it stores full resolution images.
That unlimited full resolution pictures is a pretty big deal because I have currently uploaded 45,005 images/videos that take up 395.59 GB of hard drive space. Probably not going to be slowing down any time soon on that front, either.
Also, if anybody every wanted to buy a print or a coffee mug or a puzzle or a mouse pad or a ceramic tile or a mahogany desk organizer or playing cards or photo key tag or coasters or a phone case with one of my pictures on it, they can do it straight from the website. Don’t worry people who submit photos for the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. Those photos are not for sale on the website. Either are pictures from Graceland or of Iowa State athletic events. I can’t sell those for legal reasons.
While people can go to the gallery and leave comments on pictures and rate them up to 5 stars (hint: this will be how Pufferbilly Day Photo Contest and possibly Boone County Fair entries will be determined this year), the way I determine the most popular images is by views. Views statistics go back one year.
These are the 10 most popular Photography 139 Images (by views) of the last 10 Months:
#10 – Sidewalk Chalk – 1,223 Views – Picture taken for STILL LIFE in the WPC. Taken outside of the Ericson Public Library
#9 – Johnathan Stensland – 1,261 Views – Taken for THE 9 EMOTIONS PROJECT in the Photography 139 Studio
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#8 – Brett Meyer – 1,403 Views – Taken at the Iowa State vs. Kent State football game in 2007
#7 – Sioux Falls – 1,428 Views – Taken on my South Dakota Road Trip with my Mom
#6 – Nora – 1,493 Views – Taken at the Irish Fair in Saint Paul, Minnesota
#5 – Graffiti – 1,707 Views – Taken in downtown Ames for ART for the WPC
#4 – Reflection – 1,762 Views – Taken in Ledges for REFLECTION for the WPC
#3 – Angel Ornament – 3,197 Views – Willow Angel Ornament taken in my Mom’s house
#2 – Ground Squirrel – 3,732 Views – Ground squirrel on top of a shepherd’s hook at my Mom’s house
#1 – With Alisa – 9,541 Views – Taken at Winter Jam in 2017 for THE SELFIE PROJECT
The following are links to the 5 Most Popular Photography 139 Photo Galleries:
#5 – 9 Emotions Project – 23,417 Views
#4 – Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 5 – Alternates
#3 – Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 5 (34,203 Views)
I also use a category system to organize my posts so that a person could find all the posts on a certain topic or a certain person. This is far from a scientific system and it is a moving target as I am re-categorizing old entries as I restore them. I’m trying to get rid of some of the more generic categories like “Photography” or “Life” or “Family” or “Friends” or “Religion”. But this is an ongoing process.
These are the 10 most popular categories on “An Artist’s Notebook”:
#10 – Jay – 262 Posts
#3 – WPC (Formerly RWPE) – WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – 432 Posts
10 Most Popular Not People Categories
#10 – Slice of Life – 189 Posts
#7 – Personal Photo Project – 259 Posts
#3 – WPC (Formerly RWPE) – WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – 432 Posts
If you are relatively new and are wondering what the heck a “Personal Photo Project” is, it came about at a time where I seemed to be working on a ton of other photo projects (for various entities) and seemed to be getting pulled a way from the pure joy of photography. At that time I decided to work on a Personal Photo Project once a week to keep photography from becoming a grind.
10 Most Popular People Categories
#10 – Vest 204 Posts
You may be looking at the list and wondering, “what can I do to improve my Photography 139 Q Score?”
First, I should point out that these aren’t necessarily the people that have influenced by photography the most. That would be my Dad by having photography in the house. My Mom for buying me my first camera. Olivia for loving flower photography. The favicon on this website was her favorite flower picture. Carla and Teresa for doing photography with our Dad. The list could continue, but you get the idea.
However, these are the people that most influence this blog.
But about that Q-Score thing…
Obviously, the easiest way is to submit photos to the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. You could also volunteer to be a photo assistant on photo projects. Pose for THE 9 EMOTIONS PROJECT. Head out on the open road with me. Join an organization that I am in. Commission me to do work for you (i.e. photograph your baby, wedding, family, senior picture, work holiday card, church directory, soap, leather goods).
Follow those simple suggestions and someday, when we hit blog post number 3,500, you could see yourself in the Photography 139 Top 10. After all, Sara, you are knocking right on the door!
I also decided to update my profile pictures for Twitter and Instagram and Smugmug. Here is the new one below:
That should work for another year or so!
I think that more than covers where the Photography 139 community currently sits. Until next time!
*I hope Elizabeth Warren doesn’t mind my appropriating this phrase. I guess it was accidentally created by a half man-half turtle creature and I am at least half a man. No turtle. I’ve had a grudge against turtles since The Great Turtle Race was fixed back in 2016. Sorry Mitch.
Badlands Vol. 1
Time to hit up the backlog again. This time, to my quick trip through Badlands National Park with my Mom:
More pictures from Badlands are in the hopper. Same Photography 139 Channel. Possibly a different Photography 139 Time.
Tomorrow Belongs to the People Who Prepare for it Today
Every day is a good day to start a post with a quote from Malcolm X.
Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.
I start with this quote because yesterday, Logan graduated from the finest university in all the lands. On flat earth and on globe earth. Iowa State University. To celebrate Logan I’m releasing some photos from a head shot photo session that has been in the back log for almost a year.
This is probably exhibit 45 as to why I’ll never get heavily into the portrait business. I like to take 5 times more pictures than necessary. Half of them strange. Then half of the other half I like to edit in what I’ll call a non-standard style.
Now that Logan has a degree from the finest university, he will be looking for a job in his field. He has also started his own photography business called Third Generation Thumbnail. He is currently specializing in real estate photography and videography. Although, we are shooting a wedding together at some point in the near future.
These photos were taken for his professional pursuits.
If you have any real estate photography needs, I can hook you and him up!
Here are a few cruddy cell phone pictures from the Graduation Ceremony:
Maybe someday, you’ll be lucky enough to be related to somebody that graduated from Iowa State University!
04-30-08
The following images (and this collection is all over the place) came from the folder 04-30-08:
Karen
One of the bitter parts of this collection is that Karen has passed away since this picture was taken. Many of these pictures were taken during Olivia’s Stitching Time. A sewing circle that Teresa started and ran for a year or so.
I don’t believe I used the Little White Lye Soap pictures for anything, but I did take them. The tulips are in my Mom’s yard.
By adding these photos to the Photography 139 Photography Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic An Artist’s Notebook blog entries to their original glory:
Cheese Subscription
By restoring those entries I have now restored every blog entry from April of 2008:
APRIL – 2008
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve more Little White Lye Soap and gymnastics,
Birthday!!!
Several weeks back I headed up to Minnesota to celebrate Nora’s 2nd birthday. Took a few photos. Thought I’d share a few photos:
Nora is so impressed with my gift!
She is so cute! I can hardly wait until Christmas when I can giver her more books that don’t excite her.
WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 137 – ARCHITECTURE
A good week of submissions for ARCHITECTURE. I have no doubt that my outhouse picture inspired many a person to submit this week. This week, the Photography 139 Empire extended as far east as Chicago. As far north as Roland, Iowa. As far west as the Des Moines Airport. As far south as the Indianola area. There is some guesswork in these estimations.
The exciting development this week is that we have a first time contributor! Linda Clark submitted 2 photos. I’m expecting big things from her in the future!
But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:
Andy Sharp
Carla Stensland
Linda Clark
Kim Barker
Linda Clark
Sarah Karber
Tamara Peterson
Tamara Peterson
Angie DeWaard
Andy Sharp
Andy Sharp
Shannon Bardole
Christopher D. Bennett
Cathie Raley
A solid week of submissions!
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:
CITY!
CITY! What a great theme! But what does it mean? CITY photography would be a picture of a CITY or a picture that takes place uniquely in a CITY. But what is a CITY?
Here is a handy dandy breakdown of settlement hierarchy Wikipedia:
Ecumenopolis – a theoretical construction in which the entire area of Earth that is taken up by human settlements, or at least, that those are linked so that to create urban areas so big that they can shape an urban continuum through thousands of kilometers which cannot be considered as a megalopolis. As of the year 2009, the United Nations estimated that for the first time more than 50% of the world’s populations lived in cities, so if these were linked, the total population of this area would be about 3,400,000,000 people as of 2010.
Megalopolis – a group of conurbations, consisting of more than ten million people each.
Conurbation – a group of large cities and their suburbs, consisting of three to ten million people.
Metropolis – a large city and its suburbs consisting of multiple cities and towns. The population is usually one to three million.
Large city – a city with a large population and many services. The population is <1 million people but over 300,000 people.
City – a city would have abundant services, but not as many as a large city. The population of a city is between 100,000 and 300,000 people.
Large town – a large town has a population of 20,000 to 100,000.
Town – a town has a population of 1,000 to 20,000.
Village – a village is a human settlement or community that is larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town. A village generally does not have many services, most likely a church or only a small shop or post office. The population of a village varies; the average population can range from hundreds to thousands.
Hamlet – a hamlet has a tiny population (<100) and very few (if any) services, with only a few buildings.
Isolated dwelling – an isolated dwelling would only have 1 or 2 buildings or families. It would have negligible services, if any.
Quite frankly, I don’t care what you call a CITY. I mean, unless you call Beaver, Iowa a city. If any of you send me a picture of Beaver, Iowa… God help you! But on the other hand, go nuts in Story City or Albert City or Charles City or Dakota City or Decatur City or Prairie City or Promise City.
As always, I look forward to seeing your interpretations!
HOUSEKEEPING
A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION
1. 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.
2. Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date. 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
The latest person to show taste, class, and sophistication and sign on for a Photography 139 Email Subscription is Linda Clark. I honestly don’t know much about her, other than she is a relative of Andy Sharp and he says she has an interest in photography. Welcome aboard Linda! If you see her, feel free to give her a knowing glance and teach her the super-secret Photography 139 Handshake.
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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 urban Monday!
Graceland
Time to hit up the back log. These pictures are from Russell, Jesse, and I’s trip to Memphis to watch Iowa State stomp the Memphis Tigers in the Liberty Bowl.
I am a fan of Elvis. I get that from my Mom. From her I grew up listening to Elvis and Kenny Rogers. I love them both. I never quite inherited her love of The Beach Boys, but I do also enjoy them. From my Dad I got my love of old country. Johnny Paycheck and Tom T. Hall in particular. If you don’t love Tom T. Hall, you’re doing something wrong.
Before we left for Memphis I had done some research on places to visit. Graceland was number two on my list behind Beale Street. My research showed that an actual tour of Graceland can take over 3 hours. While I was willing to spend the small fortune it costs to tour Graceland, we just didn’t have that time.
However, I read that they open up the grounds of Graceland from 7:30 – 8:30 for people to pay their respects to Elvis’ grave, for free.
I convinced Jesse to wake up early and check this out with me. Russell wasn’t buying waking up early on his vacation. He stayed at his hotel.
Here are pictures from Graceland:
When I was trying to figure out where in the back log to hit up, I was considering the trip to Mount Rushmore, March for Our Lives, or the flowers of Donna Jones. However, recently HBO has been playing a 4 hour documentary on Elvis called ELVIS PRESLEY: THE SEARCHER. I knew it was time to reveal my photos from Graceland
If you are a fan of Elvis, music, or history and have access to HBO or HBO GO, I can’t recommend it enough. I’ve learned quite a bit about Elvis and his musical influence. I think it is unfortunate that because of the way he dressed, the antics, the way he died, and the horrible movies, I think sometimes it gets lost what an extremely talented musician he was. Also, what a completely unique voice he had as an artist. I don’t mean that in the way that his physical voice was unique. I mean the way he expressed himself as an artist.
Can you imagine an artist in modern times that would record entire gospel albums at the height of this popularity? Some Christian artists will crossover, but they certainly never come back. I don’t know of an artist in modern times that could weave so many musical influences in to their own unique sound.
Could you imagine going to a modern rock concert and then BOOM! here is one from the hymnals!
Elvis Presley is the only royalty that I will ever recognize!
Any other Elvis fans out there? Let me know what your favorite Elvis song is in the comments section of this here blog!
I’ve decided when I start working on the party soundtrack for my birthday party in 2019, there will be a full hour of Elvis music.
No! Not Bird Defecation AND Excretion!
Since the weather outside has been turning less frightful, I’ve been trying to take Naima on a walk or at least an adventure about every day.
At last week’s Friday Night Supper Club, I nearly nodded off after consume massive amounts of Casey’s Taco and Hot Sausage pizza, while watching the Academy Award winning documentary ICARUS. When Willy knocked off to call it a night, there was still enough time in the day to take Naima for a walk. Which she badly wanted to go on.
However, I needed to crash. The excitement of buying King Kong Cola at the area’s premiere craft soda proprietor earlier in the evening had wore me out. I made the following deal with Naima. On the morrow, we would go on TWO walks.
She doubted that I would follow through on this deal as sometimes I’ve been know to welch on our deals, but she reluctantly agreed.
Saturday morning at 6 AM I sprung out of bed, clapped my hands and said:
“This is going to be a great day!”
I looked at Naima and poked her in the heart and said:
“If this is empty.”
Then I smacked her on the head:
“This doesn’t matter.”
She doesn’t love Dicky Fox quotes as much as I do, but she was excited to load up in the car and we headed to Dickcissel Park for an adventure.
Once we got there, I was excited to to see that there were geese on the pond. Last time we had come out there with Willy, there were no geese. I wanted to see how Naima reacted to the geese. She was moderately interested in them. They were infatuated with her. They followed us all around the lake. Honking at us. Naima would occasionally stop and look at them. Sometimes getting in the pond, but they never held her interest for long.
As we were walking along the south shore of the pond, Naima came across a smell that intrigued her. Intrigued her enough that she decided to flip on her back and start rolling in it. I made her got up and realized quickly that what she was rolling in was some form of bird poo. It was all over her back. Great.
We finished our walk. Got loaded back up in the Camry. We stopped at my Mom’s house, so I had some help in getting her cleaned up.
I was pretty sure we got her cleaned up, but it was hard to tell because Mom also sprayed her down with Febreze, so that is all she smelled like.
While writing this blog I found out that the reason bird poo is booth white and black is because birds both defecate and excrete.
The defecation is the black part.
The white part is the excretion. Excretion is the getting rid of metabolic waste products.
Knowledge bomb coming your way:
Here’s the chain of events: an animal eats and the food is being digested. Whatever content can be used is absorbed from within the digestive tract into the blood in the form of molecules. Whatever food content cannot be used is thrown out through defecation. The molecules that were absorbed from the food travel through the body in the blood system and then enter the cells. Here they are used for all sorts of things, e. g. to generate energy, build proteins, whatever. And of course, this means the molecules will be split and changed in many ways. This creates molecular waste products, in particular nitrogenous wastes. And this waste needs to go, pronto. From the cell into the blood and through a filtering device (the kidneys in mammals, birds, and birders) to the outside world. That’s the clear, transparent pee in mammals. And the white mushy part in bird poop.
Thanks to the following website for this bird poop knowledge:
Source URL: http://www.10000birds.com/what-is-bird-poop.htm
Here are some cruddy cell phone images from our adventure:
Naima rolling around in bird poo was not how I wanted to start my day, but as Dicky Fox would say:
“Roll with the punches. Tomorrow is another day.”
BONUS NAIMA PHOTO
Sunday’s adventure was taking Naima to Andy’s farm. Naima met a goat! They weren’t exactly fans of each other, but they didn’t hate each other. I feel with time, they could become friends. Naima also met some peacocks, chickens, and horses. The peacocks and chickens were terrified of her. Naima was terrified of the horses. I don’t think they will be friends any time soon.
I’ll just close with wishing you “my kind of success!”