Here is another collection of images from the photo shoot with Austin and Porter from the 2018 backlog:
Still plenty more pictures of Porter and Austin in the chute!
Flattenin’ the Hills
Category Archives: Scottie D.
Straightenin’ the Curves
Of all the folders left in the 2018 backlog, the biggest one by far is the photos from a photo shoot with Scottie D.’s two progeny, Austin and Porter. We went out to the McHose Park skate park and took a bunch of candid portaits.
Here is a collection of photos:
Still plenty more pictures of Austin & Porter in the chute.
Gratitudo
Happy Thanksgiving! Every year on Thanksgiving I like to think about my many, many blessings. I know, real original. You should feel free to try it sometime. But make sure you let everybody know that I invented gratitude.
I am thankful for my family, no matter how family is defined:
I am thankful for my friends:
I am blessed with an amazing church family:
I am blessed with a decent job and work friends that I don’t mind seeing more than 40 hours a week:
I’m blessed to share my house with Naima:
This is only a small sampling of my blessings, but I feel to go on much longer would sound like boasting. Thank all of you for choosing to be part of my life!
An Artist’s Notebook Post #3,500
Welcome to the 3,500th entry in “An Artist’s Notebook”. The blog portion of my Photography 139 website. It has been along time since I first took keyboard hand sitting in the old Computer Mine setup or possibly in my Mom’s basement, because that is where my life was at that time.
In fact, the first time I posted anything on “An Artist’s Notebook” was August 9, 2006. The very first word I wrote, “So”. Maybe not the best word. Maybe not the most forceful word. It is a word that almost feels like an apology.
I clearly didn’t know where this was going to take me and I’m not sure I even know where I’m at now. So.
I would go on in the first post to state that I had a few goals for this blog.
#1. To write in it.
I think I can say safely that 3,499 posts later, I have written in it. I often wonder if I were to print out every page of “An Artist’s Notebook”, how many pages it would be. While I know that most of those pages would just be pictures at not necessarily words, I’m still pretty sure that the entire thing would run several thousands of pages. While the things I write and the nature of what I write and post has changed over time and I’m sure it will continue to change, I will say for now, I’m still on track for Goal #1.
#2. To be as truthful as possible towards my true thoughts and feelings.
On this goal I’m going to give myself an incomplete. I feel that I am truthful to my loyal readers, but I don’t know that I necessarily share my feelings a lot. For example, I don’t know how many of you know how much I despise the open-faced sandwich. It is a pox upon mankind. Kind of like anti-vaxxers. When I think about it, I suppose I don’t hold back much. However, I’ll have to double down on my efforts to let you know about my true feelings. A 5,000 word piece on the worthlessness of the open-faced sandwich is coming your way on Sunday!
#3. Producing something that makes me worthy of having a pretentious sounding journal title like: “An Artist’s Notebook”.
The question here, is this: Is the blog any darn good? It would be arrogant of me to claim that it is. I have garnered a small amount of loyal subscribers. But I’m sure a better blog would garner more. My entries do occasionally gather comments. But I’m sure a better blog would gather more comments. I guess I’ll have to keep plugging away and let the sands of time figure out if this thing is any good.
On these mile marker posts, I like to look at what things and what people have most influenced this post.
On my 750th post, these were the Top 16 post categories and I’ll assume, the only categories I had for posts back then:
1. Photography – 295
2. Friends – 269
3. Life – 238
4. Family – 98
5. Religion – 63
6. ISU Football – 41
7. Jaycees – 40
8. Movies – 39
9. Blogging 33
10. Sports – 25
11. Work – 25
12. House – 24
13. Writing – 23
14. Comedy – 20
15. Politics – 17
16. History – 12
On post 1,000, these were the 10 people that I had tagged the most in posts:
1. Jay (144)
2. Jesse (143)
3. Shannon (140)
4. Derrick (117)
5. Jen (101)
6. Teresa (96)
7. Willy (93)
8. Sara (88)
9. Baier (65)
10. Dawn (64)
By post 1,447 these were the 10 most tagged people:
10. Dad – 117
9. Carla – 118
8. Sara – 122
7. Willy – 124
6. Jen – 143
5. Teresa – 144
4. Derrick – 157
3. Shannon – 160
2. Jay – 180
1. Jesse – 195
This picture of Evie was the most popular picture on my website:
By post 2500, these were the 5 most tagged people:
1. Jesse – 283 Posts
2. Teresa – 244 Posts
3. Shannon – 231 Posts
3. Jay – 231 Posts
5. Derrick – 220 Posts
By post 3,000 these were the most popular categories:
#10 – Jay – 262 Posts
#9 – Life – 274 Posts
#8 – Teresa – 282 Posts
#7 – Shannon – 289 Posts
#6 – Animals – 301 Posts
#5 – Portrait – 313 Posts
#4 – Jesse – 328 Posts
#3 – WPC (Formerly RWPE) – WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – 432 Posts
#2 – Flowers – 436 Posts
#1 – Photography – 440 Posts
And these were the most tagged people:
#10 – Vest 204 Posts
#9 – Jen – 205 Posts
#8 – Willy – 209 Posts
#7 – Derrick – 241 Posts
#6 – Mom – 247 Posts
#5 – Carla – 261 Posts
#4 – Jay – 262 Posts
#3 – Teresa – 282 Posts
#2 – Shannon – 289 Posts
#1 – Jesse – 328 Posts
Here we are, post 3,5000. I should point out before I reveal the current most popular categories on “An Artist’s Notebook”, I should point out that while I’ve been going back and fixing old broken entries via our Saturday night trips down memory lane, I have also been re-categorizing and breaking some categories into multiple categories. That is why some categories have actually lost posts. Hopefully some of those generic categories like “Photography” and “Life” will be down to zero some day.
Here are the most popular categories:
10. Photography – 311 Posts
9. Teresa – 312 Posts
8. Carla – 314 Posts
7. Shannon -351 Posts
6. Black & White – 390 Posts
5. Weekly Photo Challenge – 394 Posts
4. Jesse – 404 Posts
3. Animals – 477 Posts
2. Portrait – 516 Posts
1. Flowers – 537 Posts
10 Most Popular Not People Categories:
10. Art – 243 Posts
9. Nature – 260 Posts
8. Personal Photo Project – 261 Posts
7. Road Trip – 288 Posts
6. Photography – 311 Posts
5. Black & White – 390 Posts
4. Weekly Photo Challenge – 390 Posts
3. Animals – 477 Posts
2. Portrait – 516 Posts
1. Flowers – 537 Posts
10 Most Tagged Humans
10. Jen – 222 Posts
9. Vest – 234 Posts
8. Willy – 238 Posts
7. Derrick – 267 Posts
6. Jay – 294 Posts
5. Mom – 300 Posts
4. Teresa – 312 Posts
3. Carla – 314 Posts
2. Shannon – 351 Posts
1. Jesse – 403 Posts
You may be wondering, what does it take to improve my Photography 139 Score? How do I get on the big board by the time Post 3750 comes around next August-ish?
1. Submit pictures for the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE.
2. Assist or pose for photo projects.
3. Be related to me.
If you are wondering who is just outside of the top ten? The 3 people just outside of the Top Ten are Kim, Sara, and Logan.
Here are the current most popular pictures in the Photography 139 Gallery, by views in the last 365 days:
10. Iowa State Cyclones Football Varsity Marching Band – 514 Views
9. Howards 2017 – 571 Views
8. Michelle – Computer Mine Holiday Card – 2018 – 690 Views
7. Cy beating down Herky – 746 Views
6. Rapid City Mission Trip – 776 Views
5. Autumn Sharp – 935 Views
4. Selfie Project – January 1, 2019 – 1251 Views
3. Selfie Project – July 15, 2017 – 1511 Views
2. Metropolis, Illinois – 2724 Views
1. Selfie Project – January 14, 2019 – 3215 Views
And these are the Ten Most Popular Albums in the Photography 139 Gallery by views in the last 365 Days (You can go to the album by clicking on the picture):
10. Autumn Sharp – 2020 -11,036 Views
9. Misc. Portraits – 11,198 Views
8. 2018 Computer Mine Holiday Card Portrait – 11,409 Views
7. Iowa State Cyclones Football – 2008 – 12,024 Views
6. Iowa State Cyclones Football – 2018 – 12,715 Views
5. Naima – 14,770 Views
4. Photo Journal Rejects – 14,872 Views
3. Selfie Project – 2019 – 37,416 Views
2. Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 6 – 43,174 Views
1. 9 Emotions Project – 58,863 Views
Whew! Well, I’m spent. Thanks to everybody that subscribes to this here blog. You are a big part of whatever success that is does have!
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This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is FRAMED:
FRAMED!
Reminder that a FRAMED photo is a photo where your subjected is FRAMED by objects that aren’t the subject of the photo. Like a window. Or a door. Or literally anything that creates negative space.
Happy photo harvesting!
2009-05-29
There are a wide variety of pictures in the folder 2009-05-29. They range from pictures of socks that Shannon made to Ernie trimming trees to baby worst birds to invites to my housewarming party to pictures Sara took at my housewarming party.
The guy in the picture with me and Jesse was my neighbor across the street from me. He would sometimes drop by at all hours of the night. He was a good guy, but his struggles overcame him and he passed away a couple years after this picture was taken.
However, looking at these pictures, it does inspire me to bring back the birthday party in 2020. I’m about 95% sure that I will.
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:
The Fruit of the Mystery Trees
Mr. Bunyan
Memorial Day Backyard
Shindy
Housewarming Invites
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve flowers.
Baby Take State Fair
A couple Tuesdays back, Baby Got Rack took its award winning Meat Loaf Cupcakes to the Iowa State Fair to compete against the best the Cyclone State has to offer.
I believe there were 8 other combatants in the category of Combo/Specialty and 44 combatants altogether.
Here is a collection of photos from the day that started at 4:45 AM:
The unofficial roster for Baby Got Rack on this day was Scottie D., Hammer, Little Porter, and Humble Narrator. Of course Melissa contributed more than her fair share, but she doesn’t like to take any credit.
We once again won our category, but failed to win the Overall. I believe the beef winner won overall for the second year in a row. Tells me we might need to start hitting beef a little bit harder for next year.
Selfie Project – July
Usually I don’t like to get this late into a month before I publish my favorite photos from the previous months SELFIE PROJECT, but I guess I’ve been busy and I’ve really been trying to be diligent with hitting up that 2018 backlog.
I don’t know that I did anything that was as interesting as what I did in June, but it wasn’t the worst month of the year for me.
Here are my favorites from July:
July 3
July 5
July 6
July 8
July 9
July 11
July 12
July 13
July 14
July 15
July 18
July 19
July 20
July 21
July 24
July 26
July 27
July 28
July 31
I’d like to think that I’ve done some borderline interesting stuff in August so far, with a couple things left to go. A trip to Zeno’s. A trip to the Minnesota State Fair. The first Iowa State football game are all left to go!
A Photo Journal – Page 73
A week or so ago the largest steam engine in the world pulled into Boone and spent the night. I wasn’t able to get a lot of great pictures of it because of its location and my work schedule at the computer mine. However, I was able to get a picture for Page 73 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT.
Page 73 – Turn form into rhythm.
The idea of this photo page is to take a picture concentrating on the shapes that make up an object, rather than the object itself.
I can only physically adhere one picture into the physical THE PHOTO JOURNAL, but I did take a few other pictures:
These are the pages I still need to photograph:
Page 18 – Shoot the other half of this picture by Jason by Jason Evans. – This is a profoundly stupid page, but I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet and do it at some point.
PAGE 27- Create drama around the edge of your frame.
Page 28 – Recreate a famous photograph without looking it up.
PAGE 31 – Tell a joke with two pictures.
Page 64 – Head out with a fellow photographer and play a game of photography dare.
PAGE 66-67 – Make a sequence of four pictures inspired by the rise and fall of Britney Spears (or another celebrity).
PAGE 101 – Find an object, close your eyes and compose your shot using touch rather than vision.
Page 106-107 – Email one of your pictures to your photography hero and ask them what they hate about it.
PAGE 116 – Shoot an advert where the image says it all without need for any additional copy.
Page 117 – Freeze the frame exactly 57 minutes and 32 seconds in to your favourite film. Take a picture inspired by what you see.
PAGE 121 – Show us that photography is a form of magic.
Page 123 – Don’t take any more photographs -none- until you see something that emotionally moves you. Only then pick up your camera.
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Here is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is BLACK & WHITE:
BLACK & WHTIE
A BLACK & WHITE picture can be of any subject, as long as it is a BLACK & WHITE picture.
Happy photo harvesting!
Baby Got Rack Takes the Boone County Fair
Last Saturday was the annual Boone County Fair barbecue contest. Baby Got Rack decided to take a different tact this time. Rather than entering the pizza, we decided to enter something new. Meatloaf Cupcakes. This was a big risk just based on the fact that the pizza was a surefire winner.
However, Scottie D. had become bored with winning with the same item over and over and over and over again.
The other risk we decided was to enter pork ribs. Pork is easily the most popular category and hardest to win.
One last risk Baby Got Rack decided to take was to do little to no planning. Scottie D. thought that certain things would just take care of themselves. It turns out that Melissa does those things for Scottie D and she was in the horrible place known as Nebraska on Friday night. So things didn’t get taken care of.
Baby Got Rack stumbled out the starting blocks. We didn’t get our desired spot on the end. We didn’t have any of our stuff prepared. So Scottie D. dropped Hammer and I off at the fairgrounds to get everything setup and get the fire going. He went back home and worked on getting food prep done.
It all worked out because Baby Got Rack walked out of the Boone County Fair with 2 big victories. We won best Specialty AND more importantly Best Overall. Both for the Meatloaf Cupcakes.
This means that Baby Got Rack will be competing at the Iowa State Fair again. So if you go to the Fair on Tuesday, August 13 in the morning, look us up. We will be in the Grand Concourse.
Here are some pictures from what ended up being a humid, wet, and victorious day!
Last year we won the specialty category at the Iowa State Fair. Here is hoping for a repeat!
WPC – WEEK 201 – ANGER
I thought for sure that this week would not be a double digit week, but it was! The 4th straight week! That makes me happy that so many of you found your ANGER, which I consider to be one of the hardest them of this set of 52.
A note, if you have an idea for a theme for the next set of 52, leave it in the Comments section of this here blog.
But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates, you came to see the participation!
Andy Sharp
Andy Sharp
Andy Sharp
Monica Henning
Kim Barker
Kim Barker
Christopher D. Bennett
Micky Augustin
Michelle Haupt
Shannon Bardole-Foley
Stephanie Kim
Tamara Peterson
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:
BLACK & WHITE
BLACK & WHITE! What a great theme! This is the closest you get to a wild card theme. You can literally take a picture of anything, and as long as that picture is in BLACK & WHITE, it qualifies for this theme.
You may have to do some editing after you take the picture, but a lot of digital cameras have a BLACK & WHITE setting.
This is my favorite theme, so I definitely look forward to your interpretations!
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HOUSEKEEPING
A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION
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.
Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.
OR
I now allow people to text me their submissions. In the past, I had made exceptions for a couple people that aren’t real computer savvy, even though it was an inconvenience for me and required at least 3 extra steps for me. I am now lifting that embargo because I have a streamline way of uploading photos. I’m not giving out my phone number, but if you have it, you can text me.
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
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 monochrome Monday!