Category Archives: Taylan

The 2019 Howards – Subset Uno

We’ve reached a point in the backlog where most of what is left is portraits. Editing portraits is the hardest for me for a variety of reasons. At least group portraits. The solo portrait isn’t such a big deal. Couples is no big deal. But groups. Woof! There is a ton of group portrait curating in my future.

The first up is the first collection of pictures from the Howard Photo Shoot. As is tradition with the Howard Photo Shoot, the lighting was brutal.

Here is the first collection:


Howards - 2019

Howards - 2019

Howards - 2019

Howards - 2019

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Howards - 2019

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Howards - 2019

Howards - 2019

Howards - 2019

Little T was sans boyfriend for this year’s photo shoot. She has since caught the eye of a new beau. I hear that he is photo shoot worthy, but I guess we won’t find out until next fall.

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is NOSE:


WEEK 241 - NOSE
NOSE

A NOSE photo is any picture that involves a NOSE.

Happy photo harvesting!

2009-10-31

There is a diverse collection of images in the folder 2009-10-31. Some of the pictures are from when I went tenderloining with the Defeneffes to Goldie’s Ice Cream Shoppe in Prairie City. Some are from when I used to have people I actually know trick-or-treat at my house. The rest are from when I was dog sitting Sara’s pooch Jupiter.

Have a look:


Tenderloining at Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe

Tenderloining at Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe

Tenderloining at Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe

Tenderloining at Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe

Tenderloining at Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe

Tenderloining at Goldie's Ice Cream Shoppe

Halloween - 2009

Halloween - 2009

Halloween - 2009

Halloween - 2009

Halloween - 2009

Halloween - 2009

Halloween - 2009

The Jupiter Chronicles

The Jupiter Chronicles

The Jupiter Chronicles

The Jupiter Chronicles

The Jupiter Chronicles

The Jupiter Chronicles

The Jupiter Chronicles

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:

Samhain
Jupiter Chronicles
Tenderloining It! 2009

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Johnathan.

Senior Sunday – Taylan – Volume 2

I should start with wishing everybody a Happy Easter!


Happy Easter - 2020
Happy Easter!

It is definitely one of the weirdest Easters that most of us have ever experienced. I didn’t go to church on Easter Sunday since I don’t know when. Instead, I drove around and took a few pictures of church signs while listening to KWBG.

From 8-9 they played the Palm Sunday worship service of the local Baptist service. The Pastor of that church now helps with our Youth Group and she truly has been a godsend.

From 9-10 they played our worship service. Which was a live Easter service. I just want to share a couple of my favorite signs I saw this morning:


Easter 2020

Easter 2020

I would like to share an Easter Devotional from the Bishop of the Iowa Conference of the Methodist Church:

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb. Look, there was a great earthquake, for an angel from the Lord came down from heaven. Coming to the stone, he rolled it away and sat on it. Now his face was like lightning and his clothes as white as snow. The guards were so terrified of him that they shook with fear and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He isn’t here, because he’s been raised from the dead, just as he said. Come, see the place where they laid him. Now hurry, go and tell his disciples, ‘He’s been raised from the dead. He’s going on ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there.’ I’ve given the message to you.”

With great fear and excitement, they hurried away from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples. But Jesus met them and greeted them. They came and grabbed his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Go and tell my brothers that I am going into Galilee. They will see me there.”

—Matthew 28:1-10 (CEB)

Billy Sunday was the first great traveling evangelist of the twentieth century. He traveled the country with his flamboyant revival showmanship, which attracted enormous crowds. A consummate showman, Sunday he would invite his listeners at the end of the sermon to come forward by walking down the sawdust trail of the temporary wooden structure to give their lives to Christ. “Hitting the sawdust trail” became a synonym for repentance and conversion.

The first people to ever hit the sawdust trail, however, were the women, weren’t they? Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb, where they encountered an angel sitting on a stone who said, “Don’t be afraid. Jesus has been raised from the dead. Now, hurry and go, tell his disciples.”

The phrase, “hitting the sawdust trail,” actually predates Billy Sunday, originating in the forests of Oregon, where lumber jacks would get lost deep in the woods. Needing find their way out, they would lay a trail of sawdust along the way so they could follow it out to a place where they could get their bearings.

Like the lumberjacks, we, too, are totally lost and have to rely on God’s grace to lead us to and then along the sawdust trail. We cannot control resurrection because resurrection is God’s work of grace. Do you, too, want to hit the sawdust trail? Then practice resurrection by welcoming and walking beside all kinds of people traveling the way of spiritual formation.

In his poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, Wendell Berry captures the unpredictability of resurrection. He says, “So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it…. Practice resurrection.”

Prayer:

God of new birth, this is the day of resurrection, and we are ready to hit the sawdust trail, a trail that leads right back into everyday life where we commit ourselves to practice resurrection. With your grace leading the way, we will welcome all people to journey with us, so that one day the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah! Amen.

By: Bishop Laurie Haller, Resident Bishop, Iowa Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church

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Here is a second collection of pictures from Taylan’s Senior Picture Photo shoot:


Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

Taylan Howard

More senior pictures next Sunday!

Piebald

Another post hitting up the 2019 backlog. This post is a collection of a few different photo outings, but perhaps none of them had enough pictures to have their own post.

Some pictures are flowers from my Grandma’s house. Then there are some pictures from the Youth Group Pool Party. Plus, there are also pictures from the dog pool party, where Naima gave her worst performance yet.


Piebald

Piebald

Piebald

Piebald

Piebald

Piebald

Piebald

Piebald

Pool Party

Pool Party

Pool Party

Pool Party

Naima hates the dog pool party held at McHose Park every year. I thought that as she has grown to love going into the pond at Dickcissel Park, she would begin to enjoy the dog pool party more. The opposite has occurred. She hates it more and more every year. Last year, she literally last maybe 5 minutes. Then she turned and walked out of the pool and back to the car.

It happened to be the same time that my Mom was showing up to watch the dogs. She took Naima home in my car and I stayed to talk to Logan while he took pictures for the newspaper.

The Youth Group Pool Party is the kickoff of the Youth Group year. If you look closely, you can see that Taylan is one of the lifeguards.

2009-09-24

The pictures in the folder 2009-09-24 are from the annual Howard Family Photo Shoot in 2009.

Sometimes I look at old photos and think about how much I have improved as a photographer, but I think the area I’ve grown the most as a photographer is as a family photographer. That isn’t my forte by any stretch of the imagination and definitely isn’t a passion, but it has definitely been a source of growth.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from this photo shoot:


Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

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Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Howards - 2009

Although I may have been pretty harsh on myself at the beginning of this post, there are many a picture in this post I absolutely love!

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 Howards

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a regatta and several black knights.

Howards 2018 – Volume 3

Here is the final collection of images from the 2018 Howards Photo Shoot that took place at some golf course that is like 3 blocks from my house.


Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

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Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Sorry David, your character from the Howard Family Sitcom got written off. You will not be appearing in the 2019 Howard Family Photo Shoot.

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This is your reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is SHADOW:


WEEK 219 - SHADOW
SHADOW

A SHADOW picture is a picture where a SHADOW is an important composition element of the picture.

Happy photo harvesting!

Howards 2018 – Volume 2

Another dip into the cool refreshing waters of the 2018 backlog. This time, a second collection of pictures from the 2018 Howard Family Shoot.

Here are a few more of my favorites:


Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

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Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

There is one more batch of 2018 Howard pictures still in the hopper! Stay pumped!

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This is your reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is PURPLE.


WEEK 218 - PURPLE
PURPLE

Remember that a PURPLE image is any image that deals with the color PURPLE in its composition in a meaningful way.

Happy photo harvesting!

Howards 2018 – Volume 1

Last year I had the great pleasure of taking the Howard family portrait. This time, we took the photos at the Boone golf course. I’m sure it has a name, but it is lost on me. It is a couple blocks from my house, but while I am aged, I haven’t descended into a state of decay where golf is an activity that would appeal to me. At least not yet. Maybe in a couple more years.

Here are is a first look at some of my favorites from the first collection of images:


Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

Howards - 2018

It has been over a year since we took those pictures. In the time that has passed, Taylan’s boyfriend has been dumped. Given his walking papers. Kicked to the curb. Dropped. Discarded. Thrown out. Chucked.

There are still plenty of Howard pictures in the hopper!

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:


Iowa State vs. Northern Iowa
10. Iowa State Cyclones Football Varsity Marching Band – 514 Views

Howard Family Photo Shoot - 2017
9. Howards 2017 – 571 Views

Ortho 2 Holiday Card Portrait
8. Michelle – Computer Mine Holiday Card – 2018 – 690 Views

Iowa State vs. Iowa 2005
7. Cy beating down Herky – 746 Views

Rapid City Mission Trip - 2019
6. Rapid City Mission Trip – 776 Views


5. Autumn Sharp – 935 Views

January 1, 2019
4. Selfie Project – January 1, 2019 – 1251 Views

July 15, 2017
3. Selfie Project – July 15, 2017 – 1511 Views

Kentucky Vacation - 2008
2. Metropolis, Illinois – 2724 Views

January 14, 2019
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

SELF-PORTRAIT
9. Misc. Portraits – 11,198 Views

Ortho 2 Holiday Card Portrait
8. 2018 Computer Mine Holiday Card Portrait – 11,409 Views

Iowa State vs. Nebraska
7. Iowa State Cyclones Football – 2008 – 12,024 Views

Iowa State vs. Oklahoma = 2018
6. Iowa State Cyclones Football – 2018 – 12,715 Views

Naima at Dickcissel
5. Naima – 14,770 Views

Page 49 - Reject
4. Photo Journal Rejects – 14,872 Views

June 25, 2019
3. Selfie Project – 2019 – 37,416 Views

WEEK 180 - TRANSPORTATION - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT
2. Weekly Photo Challenge – Year 6 – 43,174 Views

9 Emotions Project - Anders Runestad
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:


WEEK 212 - 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!