Category Archives: Black & White

03-25-08

These are the pictures from the folder 03-25-08:


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By restoring these photos to the Photography 139 Photo Gallery, I was able to restore the following classic blog entries to their former glory:

MY HAPPY EASTER
THURSDAY NIGHT WITH KOUNTERTOP (PT.1)
A NEW GIG
RELAY FOR LIFE

The picture of me dunking is not a photo trick or a lowered hoop, I’m sure.

I’m not quite sure why I took the religious photos. But I like them.

The Easter photos are interesting because this year we won’t be celebrating Easter on Easter for the first time that I can ever remember. Mom is heading to Virginia with her favorite child that weekend. I might have my own private Air Fryer Easter that day.

The pictures of Shannon are from when she started at United Way. She needed a head shot for some kind of press release or newsletter or to hang in the company bathroom. I’m not really sure. However, I am 100% sure that Shannon will continue to work at The United Way for the foreseeable future. She will probably retire from there.

Next week’s walk down memory lane will involve snow.

Happy Birthday Nate!

Way back in May of last year I surprised Nate for his birthday. Well, I wasn’t the surprise, I was the distraction. While I was in the Manhattan area, I snapped a few photos:


Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Kansas

Some of the pictures were taken in Manhattan suburbs like Leonardville and Ogden and Shelbyville and Ogdenville and North Haverbrook.

Also, happy birthday to my sister Carla and Dawg Pound sister Monica. Since, you know, it is actually your birthdays today.

Nothing Behind Me, Everything Ahead of Me

Dipping back into the back log. These images are from the Caves Road Trip that Jay, Willy, and I went on back in July.

On our way to the main course, the Maquoketa Caves State Park, we passed through a virtual ghost town. Scotch Grove. The only things is that it appears that somebody forgot to tell the people that live there that there town is dead.


Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

Scotch Grove, Iowa

We learned a little bit of the history of Scotch Grove from a local that came out to accuse of casing the town for a future theft. But I think he was covering up. He just said that this Balster family just lost interest in the businesses and closed them down. I think there was a mass suicide, like at the Lemp Brewery in Saint Louis*. Prove me wrong.

Made it Ma! Top of the World!

A couple weeks back I went down to Manhattan, Kansas to visit Nate with Dae Hee. I actually only took out my camera once on the trip. Here are a few photos from Top of the World:


Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

Top of the World

It was a successful trip. We ate at the Toot Toot. We sat next to Nick Weiler-Babb’s uncle during the Iowa State-Kansas State game. We watched IT. We ate at Jordy Nelson’s family restaurant. We went down a seedy back alley for donuts. We found out that Nate is a heavy sleeper in the most inconvenient way possible. All in all, it was a successful trip!

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 129 – SHADOW

The weather is getting better. Participation rates took the slightest uptick. Maybe next week it will take a big uptick??

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


WEEK 129 - SHADOW - ANGIE DEWAARD
Angie DeWaard

WEEK 129 - SHADOW - ANGIE DEWAARD
Angie DeWaard

WEEK 129 - SHADOW - MICKY AUGUSTIN
Micky Augustin

WEEK 129 - SHADOW - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT
Christopher D. Bennett

WEEK 129 - SHADOW - TAMARA PETERSON
Tamara Peterson

WEEK 129 - SHADOW - STEPHANIE KIM
Stephanie Kim
This doesn’t look like much but it’s a room at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West home in Scottsdale, Arizona. There are lights in the floor and from above but he created this lighting effect to mimic the mountains in the area!

WEEK 129 - SHADOW - SARA LOCKNER
Sara Lockner

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:


WEEK 130 - ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT! What a great theme! But what is an ABSRACT photograph? Well here is a decent definition courtesy of the Googles:

art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures.

Okay, great. Sounds like a picture that you messed up and now you’re calling it ABSTRACT. Take it easy there. Yes, sometimes you can screw up a picture so bad that it turns out abstract. Just a swirl of colors and shapes. But that can be beautiful as well.

However, here are a couple of suggestions for purposefully creating an abstract image.

1. Take a long exposure (in the dark) of lights. Hand hold the camera or move the camera around. Or move the lights around. (For example, the picture in the ABSTRACT reveal was taken with a 5 second exposure while I handheld my camera and drove by that semi rollover out on Ericson Corner last night on my way back from Buffalo Wild Wings following by rec leagues team banquet last night.
2. Another way to do an abstract image is to pick something fairly colorful and take a picture of it completely out of focus. You will have a lot more control of your final image this way. I don’t know if it is as much fun though.
3. You could also find an abstract piece of art and photograph it. The Computer Mine is lousy with abstract art, for example.

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

On Friday night I went to The Open Flame in horrible Gilbert, Iowa for Andy’s birthday party extravaganza. While there, Andy convinced Jaxon Schoff to become the latest person to show class, taste, and sophistication by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. Jaxon might be the youngest subscriber currently. He is in the 8th Grade. But to think, if he is showing this much taste, class, and sophistication now… well he has av very bright future. America has a very bright future. If you see him out walking the mean county roads of rural Boone County feel free to give him a knowing glance and show him 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 abstract Monday!

Stupid Fleet Foot

Hitting up the backlog again. Here are a few more pictures from the Caves Road Trip. These are from Wapsipinicon State Park:


Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

Wapsipinicon State Park

These aren’t the caves we headed out to see, but we still hit them hard. Nothing like Bonus Cave Action.

There is a legend about how the Wapsipinicon River got is name. It goes a little something like this (according to the Buchanan County Historical Society):

A beautiful Indian maiden named Wapsi who once lived in a village near present-day Quasqueton. In a neighboring village lived Pinicon, son of an Indian chief and the ardent lover of the gentle Wapsi. On the eve of their wedding day, the two lovers were canoeing near Wapsi’s village when the jealous Fleet Foot, a former suitor of the Indian girl, drove an arrow into Pinicon’s heart. As wapsi sprang to the aid of Pinicon the canoe overturned and the two lovers sank beneath the water of the swiftly flowing river. In commemoration of this tragic event the sorrowing Indians combined the names of the two lovers and called the stream Wapsipinicon.

While it is a great story and reminds one of the story of the Swinging Bridge in Columbus Junction. Unfortunately, it probably isn’t true. The Wapsipinicon is most likely named for the wild artichokes that grow on its banks.

While artichokes aren’t romantic, even though there is such a thing as artichoke hearts, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Brandi Carlile’s new album came out last Friday:

A love song was playing on the radio
It made me kind of sad because it made me think of you
And I wonder how you’re doing but I wish I didn’t care
Because I gave you all I had and got the worst of you

If you haven’t picked it up, you aren’t doing the way you listen to music right.