Category Archives: Andy

Andy, Angie, Black & White, Carla, Cathie, Kim, Pastor Sarah, Ruins, Shannon, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 137 – ARCHITECTURE

April 30, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

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

Angie DeWaard

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!

Andy, Animals, FNSC, Mom, Movies, Naima, Willy

No! Not Bird Defecation AND Excretion!

April 27, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

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!”

Andy, Photoshop, WPC - Reminder

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE REMINDER – ARCHITECTURE

April 27, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

A friendly reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is ARCHITECTURE:

ARCHITECTURE

An ARCHITECTURE photo is a photo of a building or a part of a building. That is basically all there is to it.

As many of you may know (and by many I mean very few) I am a big fan of photos of outhouses. One of my life goals is to make the hashtag #outhousesofinstagram a thing. The outhouse in the reveal is still under construction, but can be found at Andy’s homestead. It has a pink toilet set. Andy has a line on a two seat outhouse that I may photograph in the future. You may have a series of blogs call THE OUTHOUSE PROJECT in your future!

Get excited people!

Happy photo harvesting!

Andy, Animals, Kim, Micky, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 136 – GOVERNMENT

April 23, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

After a couple big weeks of participation, this week took a nosedive. Big time. Apparently not many people we open to the wide world of GOVERNMENT photography. That is okay, maybe better luck this week.

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

Andy Sharp

Kim Barker

Micky Augustin

Christopher D. Bennett

Tamara Peterson

ARCHITECTURE!

Architectural Photography is the photographing of buildings and similar structures that are both aesthetically pleasing and accurate representations of their subjects.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. Find a building you think is cool looking or at least part of it is cool looking. Take a picture. Done and done.

After all, the very first permanent photograph (most widely recognized) “View from the Window at Le Gras” was an ARCHITECTURE photograph.

Here endeth the lesson, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not excited to see your submissions, because I am!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

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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 architectural Monday!

Andy, Becky, Carla, Dawn, Jaxon, Kim, Linda, Michelle, Photoshop, Road Trip, Ruins, Shannon, Tamara, Teresa, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 135 – SIGNS

April 16, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

Another big week for the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. People didn’t let the weather stop them from harvesting all sorts of SIGNS pictures. This week the Photography 139 empire stretched as far north as downtown Boone, Iowa. As far south and east as Kentucky. As far west as Folsom, California. There are 2 special notes need to be made about the submissions this week:

SPECIAL NOTE #1

Jaxon made his first submission this week. I’m very excited and I expect big things in the future.

SPECIAL NOTE #2

Pay special attention to Linda Bennett’s submission. It is a very special submission. Many of you will be able to figure out why.

But you didn’t come here to listen to all that tommyrot, you came to see the submissions:

Becky Parmelee

Dawn Krause

Jaxon Schoff

Christopher D. Bennett

Kim Barker

Linda Bennett -I found this in a trunk filled with cards and letters from the last 70 years. Made me smile.

Kim Barker

Teresa Kahler

Shannon Bardole-Foley
“All license plates in California are made in Folsom Prison. So it seemed fitting for the closed sign for the museum to be a license plate. However, we were there when the museum was open, so it was partially hidden.”

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Michelle Haupt

Carla Stensland – Form of sign..?

A very solid week of submissions!

GOVERNMENT

GOVERNMENT! What a great theme! But what is a GOVERNMENT photo? A GOVERNMENT photo is any photo that shows the GOVERNMENT at work. There is the obvious, a picture of a court house. GOVERNMENT. City Hall. GOVERNMENT. Police Station. GOVERNMENT. Fire Station. GOVERNMENT. But there also many GOVERNMENT activities you might not think about. That road you drove to work on today. GOVERNMENT. That public school where you dropped your kid off (I’m talking to those of us in the lower and middle class here) at this morning. GOVERNMENT. City Park. GOVERNMENT. County Park. GOVERNMENT. State Park. GOVERNMENT. National Park. GOVERNMENT. Iowa State University. GOVERNMENT. Other public universities. GOVERNMENT. The military. GOVERNMENT. A county hospital. GOVERNMENT. The Post Office. GOVERNMENT. The clean water (assuming nobody from Flint, Michigan or a state that allows fracking is reading this) coming out of your tap. GOVERNMENT.

Even organizations that aren’t the GOVERNMENT, are GOVERNMENT. That youth sport organization that you allegedly resigned from the Board, but sit my basement have 30 minute conversations about who should mow the lawn and chalk the fields. (That got strangely specific.) That board is a GOVERNMENT.

As you can see, there are a plethora of options and there are a ton more.

As always, I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

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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 governed Monday!

Andy, Becky, Black & White, Carla, Cathie, Christianity, Kim, Michelle, Micky, Photoshop, Road Trip, Ruins, Shannon, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 134 – ROAD TRIP

April 9, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

A healthy amount of people hit the open road for a ROAD TRIP photo. I think this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE EMPIRE extends as far north as Randall, Iowa. As far south as Arkansas. As far west as West Wendover, Nevada. As far east as Virginia, I’m guessing.

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

Micky Augustin

Kim Barker

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Michelle Haupt

Andy Sharp

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Becky Parmelee

Carla Stensland

Christopher D. Bennett

Cathie Raley

SIGNS!

SIGNS! What a great theme! But what is a SIGNS photo? The obvious answer is any picture of a SIGN(S) is a SIGNS photo. But there are more than just the SIGNS that tell you to stop, yield, sit down, and shut up. If she hasn’t responded to your text message, but she has posted on Facebook twice, added to her Snapchat Story and tweeted 3 times… those are SIGNS that bro, she just isn’t in to you. If he doesn’t acknowledge your existence around his friends, but at 2 AM he is always sliding into your DMs, that is a SIGN(S) that grilfriend, you can do better!

As always, I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

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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 signed Monday!

Andy, Event, Youth Group

Thanks a Thousand And Some Change!

April 5, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

Thanks to everybody that came out to Pizza Ranch last night and supported the Boone First United Methodist Church Youth Group! The event was a smashing success and we broke the previous record (which we also held) for most scratch raised at a Boone Pizza Ranch Fundraiser!

My phone was almost dead, but I managed to take a few cruddy cell phone pictures of the night:

Thanks once again, to anybody that has helped support the Youth Group last night or in the past. I’ll even give a thank you as a down payment, to anybody that is willing to help again in the future.!

Andy, Pastor Sarah, Youth Group

Final Reminder: Pizza Ranch Fundraiser Tonight!

April 4, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

This is your last reminder. There is a fundraiser for First United Methodist Church Youth Group tonight at Pizza Ranch from 5-9. Bring a copy of this voucher:

And Pizza Ranch will give us $2. There will also be tip jars on the tables so that you can donate additional scratch!

I mean, check out these kids:

I can’t think of a better use of your Wednesday night than coming out and supporting these kids!

Andy, Angie, Animals, Baier, Becky, Bill, Black & White, Carla, Cathie, Jesse, Kim, Linda, Micky, Naima, Pastor Sarah, Russell, Vest, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 133 – BLACK & WHITE

April 2, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

BLACK & WHITE turned out to be a very popular theme. I am pleased. The geographical range that the submissions covered was pretty impressive this week. As far north as Minneapolis. As far west as Easton, Kansas. As far south as Arkansas. As far east as Washington D.C. and Virginia Beach. The empire is immense this week.

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

Andy Sharp

Angie DeWaard

Bill Wentworth

Becky Parmelee

Carla Stensland

Christopher D. Bennett

Carla Stensland

Micky Augustin

Kim Barker

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Sarah Karber

Tamara Peterson

Mike Vest

Cathie Raley

Linda Bennett

ROAD TRIP!

ROAD TRIP! What a great theme! But what is a ROAD TRIP photo?

A ROAD TRIP photo is any photo that has anything to do with going on a ROAD TRIP. From gas, to a car, to maps, to Funyuns, to the open road. A ROAD TRIP photo can be of the thing or person (for those of you social types) that you made the ROAD TRIP to see.

Personally, I already have a ROAD TRIP for Saturday to Marhsalltown (and most likely other places) planned for Saturday. If anybody wants the navigator seat, just let me know. ROAD TRIP!

As always, I look forward to seeing your interpretations of the theme.

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 COMMENTARY DIVISION

Speaking of Mr. Sharp, Andy has become the latest person to get a Photography 139 Avatar by leaving an actual comment on a blog on the website.

He joined select company:

Angie DeWaard
Jason Baier
Jesse Howard
Russell Kennerly
Shannon Bardole-Foley
Mike Vest

As people with an official Photography 139 Avatar for leaving comments on the Photography 139 blog AKA AN ARTIST’S NOTEBOOK.

You want your own Photography 139 Avatar? It is simple to get one. Just leave a comment on a blog.

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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 travelled Monday!

Andy, Black & White, Carla, Cathie, Kim, Macro, Photoshop, Shannon, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 132 – AGRICULTURE

March 26, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

The weather this weekend might have been a little tough on AGRICULTURE for this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. I know it damaged my plans. May have damaged others.

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

Cathie Raley

Kim Barker

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Christopher D. Bennett

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Carla Stensland

BLACK & WHITE

BLACK & WHTIE! What a great theme! Also my favorite theme. Also, one of the easiest theme. Take a BLACK & WHITE picture of literally anything and it qualifies! Or you can take a color picture of something that is BLACK & WHITE and that qualifies too!

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

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 monochromatic Monday!