Category Archives: Black & White

Art, Black & White, Jesse, Nature, Road Trip

Birthday Road Trip – Malanaphy Springs

February 9, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

After we left The Little Brown Church and the possible time travelers but probably LARPers, our next stop was the Malanaphy Springs Waterfall. It is the lesser known waterfall in/near Decorah. It isn’t as pretty as Dunning’s Springs. It definitely isn’t as accessible. It is a good 20-30 minute hike on a trail that isn’t well curated.

With that being said, it is definitely worth the extra work. It is a place out in the woods that is beautiful and private. A person can collect their thoughts there.

Here are some pictures:

I would like to return to this waterfall at some point this year. Looking ahead, I’ll probably take my birthday road trip on May 15 this year. But I have no clue where I will end up. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it is back in northeast Iowa again.

More pictures from this trip still to come.

Black & White, Candid Portrait, Flowers, Formal Portrait, House, Steph

2009-08-29

February 8, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures from the folder named 2009-08-29 are mostly from a photo session I did with Stephanie. If I recall correctly, these pictures were supposed to be a headshot for her music career. I decided to convert those to black and white and save them for posterity.

The other pictures in this folder are from my garden.

This is the first time that I’ve published any of these images.

Next week’s walk down memory lane will involve Ottumwa, Iowa and fire.

Black & White, Jason, Naima, Nature, Photoshop, Self-Portrait, Underwater

70% Playing with Stuff

February 6, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Today’s entry is a collection of random May images from last year. Some are from a trip to Dickcissel with Naima. One is a horrible green screen experiment. There is a picture of Jason from when we put my mom’s ceiling back together.

Last year my Mom’s ceiling fell on her in the middle of the night. Not the whole thing, but a good chunk of it. It definitely isn’t the way one wants to be woken up.

The weird thing is that there were no cracks in it beforehand. It just broke one night. Probably due to how close she lives to the Life Flight landing pad at the Boone County Hospital.

One big step closer to having the 2019 backlog cleared up.

Animals, Black & White, Nature, WPC - Alternate

There is No Blame, Only Shame

February 2, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 7 Comments

By the time this email flies through the tubes of the internet and gets flushed down into your computer, phone, web tv, or whatever device you use to upload Photography 139 content into your brain, the Super Bowl will probably be somewhere in the third quarter. You will probably be ready for a distraction.

However, I’m going to give you more than a distraction. I’m just going to go ahead and tell you that the final score of the Super Bowl is going to be 28-24. The San Francisco 49ers will win. Defense wins championships. Period.

I wish it wasn’t the case. I don’t have much rooting interest in the Super Bowl (or any NFL game) these days. I guess I’m slightly rooting for the Chiefs because I have family that are Chiefs fans. Frequent contributor to the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE, Michelle is also a Chiefs fan.

However, I have on friend that really stands out as a Chiefs fan. He is a former season ticket holder and he lives in Ballardville, Iowa. That is like a 3 hour drive to the Chiefs stadium. Whatever it’s called. When I asked him where he was going to watch the game, he replied:

“In a locked room, by myself.”

He would go on to talk about how he had been waiting 30 years for this moment.

I told him that I appreciated his passion. I pretty much always appreciate passion that isn’t derived from mental illness. Even though, you could certainly make the case that being an avid sports fan is a form of mental illness, I’m not going to make that argument. It strikes a little too close to home.

I told him that locked in a room by myself was exactly the same way that I watched the series finale of DOWNTON ABBEY.

Another friend on the same group text chimed in that it wasn’t fair to compare the Super Bowl to DOWNTON ABBEY. I reassured him that while American football is only popular in the United States and DOWNTON ABBEY was an international phenomenon, it is still fair. American football is still a pretty big deal. Not as a big of a deal as the Crawleys, but people still like it.

So, I’m rooting for the Chiefs right now. Despite the fact that their fans spit on America by blaspheming the national anthem. Despite the fact that many of the traditions that go on in that stadium crossed the “is that racist” border several miles back.

I hope I forgot to carry a one and the Chiefs don’t disappoint my friend that is locked in a room (hopefully not one with padded walls) right now. I don’t want him to go through the same disappointment I did when Tom Branson and Laura Edmunds didn’t hook up.

+++++++

Here are some pictures that didn’t make the cut for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme COUNTRY:

Hope you have gotten your WORK photo by now. Even if you haven’t, you probably have plenty of time to get a picture from where you WORK on Monday morning.

Black & White, Formal Portrait, Jill, Photoshop

2009-08-27

February 1, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folder 2009-08-27 are from a photo session I did with Jill. It was the beginning, I think, or near the beginning of a thing I did for a couple years I call THE PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT. It was something I did where at least once a week I took pictures entirely for me. Meaning, I had this list of ideas for pictures I wanted to take, but I would never take them because I always seemed to be working on somebody else’s project. At least that is how I felt. It might be something I need to get back to doing. We’ll see.

One of these pictures was turned into a piece of artwork where I placed it inside of a window and then hung it on my wall. It was on my wall for several years until it started to fall apart and I moved on to a different piece of art for that piece of wall. I think its remains are still in the basement somewhere. You don’t want to go to my basement, unless it is for Monthly Movie Night. Then you definitely want to go to my basement.

One of those pictures does still hang in my office. The office is filled with pictures that have been retired from the living room.

It has been 3, maybe 4 years, maybe 5 years since the last time I talked to Jill. I think one day she just woke up and thought, “Screw that guy.” Which raises a good question: Why haven’t more people had that thought? I mean besides Eric, who one day, woke up and thought “screw that guy” and then sent me a formal email ending our friendship. A few weeks after he lived with me for a week. If I still had that email, I would print it out, frame it, and put it on my wall. It was maybe the best rejection letter I’ve ever received.

Regardless, I hope she is doing well and I hope Eric is doing the best that he can. We weren’t meant to be in each other’s lives.

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following “An Artist’s Notebook” entry to its original glory:

No. 14

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve Stephanie and my green thumb. Not together though.

Animals, Black & White, Boone County Fair, Street Photography, Vest, WPC - Reminder

Sunday at the Fair

January 31, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Hitting up the 2019 backlog for a collection of pictures I took while wandering around the Boone County Fair on the last day of the Fair. I was mostly just still playing a bit with the RXO II as I looked to capture many of the animals that were being exhibited.

I recall buying the RXO II because we got a rando bonus at the Computer Mine. I should’ve done something smart with that money, but instead I bought a really, really small camera to photograph sleeping pigs with.

+++++++

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

WORK

A WORK photo is any image of a person engaged in WORK or tools that are used in WORK or anything that might remind you of WORK. Remember, WORK doesn’t just happen at your place of employment.

Happy photo harvesting!

9 Emotions Project, Anders, Animals, Art, Bill, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Christianity, Faust, Formal Portrait, Jay, Jesse, Movies, Photo Journal, Road Trip, Willy

Birthday Road Trip – Little Brown Church

January 26, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

For starters, happy birthday Anders! We celebrated Anders’ birthday last night at January birthday night with yellow cake, a DOLEMITE double feature, and a root beer tasting.

After all, DOLEMITE is my name and (expletive deleted) up mother (expletive deleted) is my game!

Here are some pictures of a man I consider to be at least the equal of Dolemite!

One of my secret (I guess) goals of 2020 is to be more proactive about putting information for Movie Night up on the website. Because if you are reading these words, you are invited to Movie Night.

But be warned, you may never be the same after you attend Movie Night. Exposure to great art tends to change a person. In fact, I think Movie Night broke Willy.

+++++++

Enough about Anders’ birthday. Let’s talk about my birthday. Last year Jesse and I took a road trip around my birthday. One of the stops we made was at The Little Brown Church. There were a bunch of LARPers there. Maybe they were time travelers. Either way, they were dressed up like it was the Civil War.

Here are some pictures from that stop:

Jesse had never heard of The Little Brown Church, but it is the church from that song. You know the song. The song about the little brown church.

There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood
No lovelier spot in the dale
No place is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale

Our church hosted a filmmaker who made a documentary about it once. It was interesting, but it didn’t feature one time traveler.

Animals, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Cousin Amy, Ernie, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Geri, Jay, Jesse, Mom, Photoshop, Sara, Self-Portrait, State Fair, Teresa

2009-08-24

January 25, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

There are a ton of photos in the folder 2009-08-24. Most of them are from my trips to the Iowa State Fair in 2009. However, there is also a good chunk of them that are pictures of Teresa and Ernie.

This is already going to be a long post, so I don’t want to overwhelm you with a ton of words up front. I want to overwhelm you with pictures on the backside:

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:

The State Fair

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve some Stephanie and some of my mad gardening skills.

Black & White, Flowers, Iowa State, Macro, WPC - Reminder

Behind Curtiss

January 24, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Last year I failed to make it to Pella to photograph tulips. In fact, I think it has been a couple of years since I’ve been to Pella. Which is sad, because I really enjoy photographing tulips. Even though, there are those that hate my flower photography, I persist.

While I didn’t make it to Pella last year, I did photograph a lovely patch of tulips behind Curtiss Hall on Iowa State’s campus while I was waiting for a Bernie Sanders event to start.

In many ways, that is better than Pella since it is known that Iowa State is superior to Central. While Central is filled with a bunch of wooden-shoe-humpers, Iowa State is filled with some of the best people on earth.

Here are my tulip photos:

Truth is that I will probably effort to make it to Pella this tulip season. If for no reason that I need to visit their bakeries. While dutch letters are straight trash, bokkepootjes are a little slice of heaven.

That is right, Photography 139, come for the high quality flower photography and stay for the straight fire pastry takes.

+++++++

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

COUNTRY

A COUNTRY photo is any photo that is taken outside of a city or town.

Happy photo harvesting!

Animals, Art, Black & White, Christianity, Street Photography

Argerich

January 21, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Back in May I went to see Evie perform during her piano recital. The recital was in Chocolaterie Stam in downtown Ames. I arrived early, so I wandered around downtown Ames and took a few photos that I’d like to share now:

I still really haven’t set 2020 photography goals for myself, besides make the blog more current. But one of them might be to do more street photography.