Back at the beginning of 2016, I had this dream of taking a selfie every day to document that growth of one awesome beard. Well. I made it a few days into April.
As I’m going to rekindle this project for 2017, thought I’d look back at my favorite photos from that failed project.
Hopefully I can make it later than April in 2017 before I shave the beard. But I am at the mercy of whether or not I have a birthday party in 2017 and what I do for the invitation. I guess it is a waiting game.
Pretend like I published this on January 1, just like I meant to do.
It is that day at Photography 139 Headquarters where we take down our old Photography 139 Calendar and put it in the trunk with many of the other remnants of our past.
We like to think that 2016 was a successful year for Photography 139 and I’d like to thank everybody that was responsible for making it appear so.
So to my list of email blog subscribers…
Jay Janson
Jason Baier
Shannon Bardole
Scott Degeneffe
Corey Faust
Susanna Funk
Jill Gorshe
Jesse Howard
Sara Lockner
Teresa Kahler
Nader Parsaei
Becky Perkovich
Bernice Verhoorn
Suzie Brannen
Eric Hiatt
Kim Barker
Cousin Amy
Russell Kennerly
Tim Tuck
Tim Tucker’s Lady Friend
Michelle Haupt
Geri Derner
Micky Augustin
Angie DeWaard
Mike Vest
DaeHee Yoon
Monica Henning
Sarah Karber
Carla Stensland
Laura Miller
Joseph Lynch
Jorge Rios
Anders Runestad
Laura Miller
Michael Houlihan
Dawn Krause
Joe Duff
Derrick Gorshe
Dustin Jackson
Bethany Miller
Logan Kahler
Elizabeth Nordeen
Nicole Nickens
Corinna
Jeff Daniel
Stephanie Kim
Bob Person
Melissa Degeneffe
Willy MacAlpine
Janice Peterson
Jessica Potts
Steve Junck
Shawn Lockner
Brooke Milligan
Cathie Raley
Paul Golden
Linda Toot
Jodie Bennett
Dan Pottratz
Alisa Baker
Cassandra Chadwick
Thanks for a great 2016! Of course, I’ll try to do better in 2017. Hopefully our little family will continue to grow in the new year!
It has been awhile since I did an Instagram post. This isn’t exactly one of those. This is just a look back at my most popular Instagram posts from 2016. Here they are:
Just for fun, these were the 9 most popular in 2015:
I don’t get what you would call a lot of likes on Instagram (I’m not in high school), even though it is by far my favorite social media medium. However, I got 2,000 more likes in 2016 than I did in 2015. Or put another way, the same amount of likes that my niece gets for 1 selfie.
If you don’t follow me on Instagram, you can follow me at @christopherdbennett.
I also run the Instagram account (with plenty of assistance from Amber and Sarah G.) for my church’s Youth Group. Here are the 9 most popular pictures from that account:
If you want to see what I do with my Wednesday nights or the occasional Mission Trip, you should follow that account at @boonefumcyg
There weren’t many, but here are the images that didn’t make the cut for LOVE when it was the theme for the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE:
Thanks for taking the time to mock this pathetic collection of losers!
A few photos here are from when I was experimenting with adding texture to photos organically.
Next Saturday’s folder will include a look at the work of a young artist.
This day up and kicked me in the face, but no excuses. No more waiting. Here are the pictures for FAMILY for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE:
Mike Vest
Christopher D. Bennett
Angie DeWaard
Sarah Karber
Bill Wentworth
Teresa Kahler 1
Teresa Kahler 2
Teresa Kahler 3
Teresa Kahler 4
Teresa Kahler 5
Shannon Bardole
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:
I don’t want to get into a long thing about MACRO. There is a technical definition, but for our purposes, a close up of something or somebody will count as Macro.
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. 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
Nothing new to report. I’ll try to do better next week.
Want your own Photography 139 email subscription? Call, email, or text me and I’ll get you the hook up.
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 close Monday.
Here is the April image for the 2017 Photography 139 Calendar:
This picture goes into a category (it is a fairly stacked category) of, “I really love this photo but I’m not sure many other people will.” Different strokes for different folks. I love pictures of deterioration. Plus the license plate proclaiming Kansas “Land of Beautiful Girls” just kills me. Fits right into my wheelhouse of humor.
This particular picture of deterioration was taken in Strong City, Kansas. I went to Wichita to see the Zac Brown Band with Nate. The next morning after breakfasting at the International House of Pancakes (I know. Fancy!) we made our way back to Manhattan. Stopping every once in awhile to take some photographs. On one of these stops, I found this truck. The rest is Photography 139 history.
Before I let you go, the Photography 139 Calendar is now in stock.
This is a limited run and there will not be a second run. So if you wish to purchase a calendar, let me know. The price is $10. American.
There wasn’t as much LOVE in the world this week as one would have hoped. I’ll just hope that when we get to HATE, it isn’t a more popular option. But it is the world that we live in.
But you don’t want to listen to me talk all tommyrot about LOVE and HATE. You want to see the LOVE submissions:
Shannon Bardole
Becky Perkovich
Christopher D. Bennett
Cathie Raley 1
Cathie Raley 2
Cathie Raley 3
Angie DeWaard
Dawn Krause
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:
But what is a TOWN? Here is one definition:
an urban area that has a name, defined boundaries, and local government, and that is generally larger than a village and smaller than a city.
But for our purposes here, a village or a city work perfectly fine. This theme is a slight derivation of last year’s theme of HOMETOWN. This theme is a little more expansive because it doesn’t suggest a picture of a HOMETOWN, but of any town. What is it about that town or city or village that is unique to that town. A picture of any old downtown would do. A cityscape would work. A Christmas parade would work. A town sign would work. Let your imagination go wild! Define the theme any way you see fit.
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. 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
Nothing new to report. I’ll try to do better next week.
Want your own Photography 139 email subscription? Call, email, or text me and I’ll get you the hook up.
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 townie Monday.
Mostly pictures of my niece playing softball in I think, maybe Gilbert.
Next week’s walk down memory lane seems to be flower oriented.
On Sunday, after church, I grabbed my camera to walk around the church to grab some STILL LIFE moments for the THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. It seemed like a beautiful day, so I thought I would walk around downtown Boone a little bit before meeting the family at the Chinese buffet for lunch. When I came around the corner of 7th Street onto Greene Street, I came across a gentleman doing sidewalk chalk art on the sidewalk in front of the Ericson Public Library.
Fascinated by his work I struck up a conversation with him. During the course of our conversation I learned many of his religious views and some of his art background. He was a Boone expatriate that had recently decided to come back home. He indicated that he wanted to do an Easter art project and he had contacted the local Baptist church and they told him, “No.” Then he contacted the church he was raised in and they also told him, “No.”
I offered him use of our church’s sidewalk because we’d love to have this kind of artwork at our church in Easter. We struck up a deal and hopefully everything falls into place and the Boone First United Methodist Church will have some sweet sidewalk art come Easter Sunday.
Here are some pictures of his Christmas artwork he was doing at the library:
After I joined my family for lunch and I relayed the story, Teresa actually knew the artist. His name is Don Hughes and apparently back in the day, they used to run in the same circles. He had even been to our house in my youth. So after our lunch Mom, Logan, and Teresa went up to talk to Don. Which resulted in a selfie that was sent to one of Teresa’s oldest and dearest friends.
