It is Sunday, which means time for Formal Portraits! This time checking back in with the Howard family photo shoot we did back in September at some park in Cedar Falls.
Here are some of my favorites:
Next Sunday’s formal portraits will check back in with Kyle’s fall photo shoot.
Time to share a second collection of photos from the Howard Family Photo Shoot from a few months back. The sun was super harsh that day. As it absolutely always seems to be. But I still think we managed to do some good work.
Next Formal Portrait Sunday will be another collection of senior pictures from Kyle.
I lost the Howard account in 2020, but they did come back to me in 2021. We took a road trip up to Cedar Falls and did their annual family photo shoot on in a park which name now escapes me.
Here is the first collection of images from the day:
Next Sunday’s formal portraits will once again involve Kyle’s senior pictures.
The majority of the pictures in the folder 2010-11-01 are from when the Iowa State Cyclones bested the Kansas Jayhawks on the gridiron. I believe that was like 7 Kansas football coaches ago. Back then there coach was a guy who used to coach at Buffalo. Their current coach is a guy who used to coach at Buffalo.
The last Kansas coach was fired because he “tried to sexualize the staff of student workers in the football program by, for instance, allegedly demanding that he wanted blondes with big breasts, and ‘pretty girls.’” So that’s fun.
There are also pictures of a few trick-or-treaters I got on Halloween in 2010:
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:
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve more Iowa State football.
The pictures in the folder 2010-10-17 is a collection of images from the fairly annual Howard Family Photo Shoot from 2010.
By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entry to its original glory:
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a road trip to Kalona I took with my Mom.
Recently I’ve been working on an organizational project as I prepare to get rid of a bunch of things in Boone’s annual Citywide Cleanup in a couple of weeks. Part of this has been organizing every (almost) picture that I have entered in a photo contest, both physically in a trunk and digitally in my website photo gallery.
Almost every photo I’ve ever entered in in that trunk. Except for a few that I gave away. I thought I would share some of the highs and lows of my photo contest career. To start with, I have only entered 4 photo contests ever:
+ Iowa State Fair Photography Salon
+ Boone County Fair
+ Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest
+ Ogden Fun Days Photo Contest (this contest only existed one year – 2005)
I’ve entered 153 pictures in these 4 photo contests.
I’ve entered pictures of the following people in these photo contests:
+ Olivia
+ Jay
+ Willy
+ Humble Narrator
+ Derrick
+ Rebecca
+ Shannon
+ Alexis
+ Wedding Couple I don’t remember
+ Jill
+ Saydie
+ Kayelee
+ Jesse
+ Shorty
+ Mike Toot
+ Freedom Flight Participants
Plus I have entered pictures of both Karma and Naima.
My very first photo contest was the 2002 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. It was before they had standardized that pictures had to be matted on 11×14 foamboard. It was long enough ago that one of the pictures I entered was printed from a slide. I entered it because it was somewhat of a legacy contest. My Dad won a category in 1984.
At the time I didn’t realize what a tough contest it was and how hard it was to get even a single picture in. It was dumb luck (which in many ways all photo contests are luck because who knows what the judge likes) that I got one picture accepted for exhibition:
In some ways, this is maybe the most important photo contest entry I ever made. It is possible that 2002 me would have been so distraught that I might not have even entered another photo contest, ever.
This is the picture I entered that was printed from a slide:
I still kinda dig this picture. My other 2 entries weren’t even really in focus.
Then I didn’t enter another contest until the 2004 Boone County Fair, where this picture of Karma got a blue ribbon:
I did enter the Iowa State Fair, but didn’t get any pictures exhibited. But in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest, I got two Honorable Mentions in the Black and White Division:
Shapes
Then 2005 came and I “cleaned up” at the Ogden Fun Days Photo Contest:
3rd Place Black and White
2nd Place Color
Best in Show and 1st Place Black and White
But my triumph was very short lived. Immediately afterwards, I had my biggest failures ever. I entered two pictures in the Boone County Fair Photography Contest and got no ribbons. This is hard to do. EVERYTHING at the Boone County Fair gets a ribbon. Well everything except me and a jar of moldy jam. My photography was the culinary equivalent of moldy jam.
The equivalent of moldy jam.
I did rebound to get one picture in at the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon and that picture did get an Honorable Mention:
But that was bittersweet. It was my first ribbon at the Iowa State Fair, but it was a picture that I had already won a photo contest with, so that was the seeds of my rule of never entering a picture in more than one photo contest.
Also, this picture is still one of my all-time favorites and it has never gotten any love from a photo contest:
I get why, but I don’t like it.
Then in 2006, I tried my luck at the Boone County Fair and this time, I got 2 Blue Ribbons, take that moldy jam!
Blue Ribbon
I would also get 2 pictures exhibited at the Iowa State Fair:
Portrait of Self-Portrait
I would also have a good run at Pufferbilly Days:
1st Place Black and White
Honorable Mention Color
2007 wasn’t a great year for me and Photo Contests. I got shutout at the Iowa State Fair. I didn’t enter the Boone County Fair. I did enter Pufferbilly Days and believe a picture of a train wheel got a ribbon, but I’m struggling to find the documentation for that
2008 also wasn’t a great year. I did get a couple blue ribbons at the Boone County Fair:
But once again I got shut out at the Iowa State Fair. But I did rebound to get a ribbon at Pufferbilly Days:
2009 was also not a stellar year. I did get 2 ribbons at the Boone County Fair:
Purple Ribbon
But got no other love at any other photo contest.
2010, I once again got two Blue Ribbons at the Boone County Fair:
Blue Ribbon
But once again, I was shut out at the Iowa State Fair. If you are counting, that is four straight years. The Iowa State Fair really hated me.
However, Pufferbilly Days started to show some love:
1st Place Black and White
Then 2011 happened. But we’ll get into that story in the conclusion of My (Sad) Photo Contest History.
There aren’t many images in the folders 2010-08-13 and 2010-08-14 so I decided to combine them with the folder 2010-08-16 that contains many pictures from a trip I took to the Iowa State Fair.
There are also pictures of Jesse and two of his progeny and of a moonflower.
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:
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve more Iowa State Fair.
I need to start today by wishing Jesse a happy birthday. Happy birthday Jesse!
I could post a thousand pictures of Jesse from thousands of adventures we shared. But you only get 5 and have to imagine the rest.
Jesse, I hope your birthday is as amazing as you want it to be!
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Today’s collection of recreated old-timey postcards are of buildings that were built to house white collar criminals. Banks. Some of my best friends are bankers. One of my closest blood relatives is a banker. But you know my commitment to the truth. They are all white collar criminals.
One of the buildings still holds bankers. The other one houses local Klan meetings, I would guess. I’m not going to go into much history of these buildings. The building that currently houses U.S. Bank, replaced a building that was destroyed by fire in 1914. Construction on it was finished in 1916. You will notice in the original postcard, that there is no brown beltcourse on the building. That was added in the late 1970s when the addition was added to the east side of the original building.
I can literally tell you nothing about the other building. It has never made its way to the National Register of Historic Places. It is the second tallest building in Boone, if you don’t count the grain elevator. If you do, I’m not sure which is taller.
The postcards for the Boone National Building:
13597 Boone National Bank Bldg. Boone, Ia – Redux
Boone National Building – Modern Interpretation
The postcards for the building I will always call Citizen’s National Bank:
First National Bank Building – Boone, Ia – Redux
U.S. Bank – Modern Interpretation
Something I’ve noticed in the old-timey postcards is that they they like to throw a flagpole with a big American flag on top of these buildings. I don’t know if these flagpoles ever existed. But the current U.S. Bank Building is the only one that still has a flagpole on top of it.
There are a couple of old-timey bank postcards out there to recreate. I’m sitting on the fence on those. One is because I’m still trying to convince myself of the location of one of those buildings. More research!
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
12X16
12X16
12X16
12X16
12X8
12X8
12X8
12X8
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.
I should start by saying Happy birthday to Kalista. So, happy birthday Kalista!
I hope it is a very happy birthday indeed!
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It is time for the 9th and nearly last installment of pictures that were triggered by Elainie’s homecoming!
I do believe that when you are from Iowa and you marry somebody from California, you are legally obligated to have your picture taken in front of corn.
One final collection of Elainie Homecoming pictures left to go!
