Category Archives: Lensbaby

Orange City’s Little Cousin

July 11, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

I usually like to make it to Pella about a week before their annual Tulip Festival. It is a perfect combination of nobody is around and most of the flowers are blooming. This year I bungled my calendar and didn’t end up there until a week after the Tulip Festival. It wasn’t exactly the Sahara for Tulips but the majority were gone. However, I found a enough to take a few photos and with some creative composition (that sounds stupid all composition should be creative) it hopefully isn’t too obvious that most of the tulips are gone.

My title is slightly facetious and maybe designed to get under the skin of an email subscriber that went to Central. However, I do want to try to hit both Orange City and Pella for tulips next year. Orange City is much farther north so their tulip festival is a few weeks later than Pella’s. After that I will deem which town is the true tulip monarch.

Art, Candid Portrait, Dahlia, Formal Portrait, Greyson, Lensbaby, Logan, Macro, Mom, Naima, Railroad, Teresa, WPC - Alternate, WPC - Reminder

Congregation

June 25, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

This collection of images is cleaning up some random photos from January and February. The highlight and the majority of these images are taken from when Logan brought Dahlia over see Mom and Teresa.

That was a good day!

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

COMMUNICATION

COMMUNICATION! What a great theme for Year 8 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!

But what is a COMMUNICATION image? It is simply any picture that shows a type of COMMUNICATION or people COMMUNICATIONing or things that are used for COMMUNICATION. For example, in the theme reveal there are several things being COMMUNICATIONed. The business is a carwash. The phone number to reach the proprietor is 515-890-1900. Somebody fears the commercialization of Christmas. They also must like fish. Signs are a great form of COMMUNICATION, as just an example.

Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Equipment, Lensbaby

Even More of that Velvet 85

May 11, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

This is the third and final batch of the first images I took with the Lensbaby Velvet 85. These (most of them) pictures were taken at the sculpture garden in downtown Des Moines.

I still might get into the technical details of the Lensbaby Velvet 85 some day, but today isn’t that day.

Art, Jay, Lensbaby, Naima, Nature

More of that Velvet 85

May 7, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

Here is another small collection of some of the first images I took with the Lensbaby Velvet 85 back in January:

I’m still going to go into some detail about what makes the Lensbaby Velvet 85 such a special unique lens at some point. Just not today.

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

FACE

A FACE image is pretty simple. It is merely a picture where a FACE is a major compositional element. Everybody has access to a FACE. Almost everybody either has a FACE or knows somebody that has a FACE. But not just humans have a FACE. Animals have a FACE. Clocks have a FACE. Even cliffs have a FACE.

Think about the following quote when you are contemplating your FACE image:

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
-Victor Hugo

Happy photo harvesting!

Equipment, Lensbaby, Naima, Nature, Still Life

Lensbaby Velvet 85mm f/1.8

May 4, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

I should point out that I messed up the coding in yesterday’s post. You should go to that post again to see the corrections in the code that allow you to see Kim’s and Shannon’s submissions.

My Christmas present to my self was a Lensbaby Velvet 85mm f/1.8 lens. I was going to do a whole thing on it, but I have owned if for going on 5 months now and I think it is just time to share the first few pictures I took with it.

Rather than going into any of those technical details, here is a description from the Lensbaby website:

A manual focus portrait lens from Lensbaby that’s dreamy and delicate — or tack sharp and subtly vintage at 85mm.

Create soulful portraits with our Velvet 85 art lens. Compose impressionistic masterpieces with a velvety glow at bright apertures, straight out of camera. Use darker apertures to bypass glow and make images with a crisp, film-like aesthetic.

Building on the strengths of our bestselling Velvet 56 lens, Velvet 85 combines lustrous skin tones with the added compression and buttery smooth bokeh found in the best 85mm portrait lenses. Use its macro capabilities to capture significant details with new life.

The Velvet 85 design features a solid heft and smooth, dampened manual focus.

Here are the first few pictures I took with it:

I actually have two other lenses I purchased around the same time. Those lenses are more practical, but I’ll discuss them at some point in the future.

Boone FUMC, Calendar, Drone, Event, Flowers, Johnathan, Lensbaby

Rodan139: Community Thanksgiving

December 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The March image from the 2021 Photography 139 Calendar was taken at Badger Creek Recreation Area. It was taken in the sunflower field there. It was taken on July 25, 2020. It was taken with a Lensbaby lens.

Here are some details on the picture:

DETAILS
CAMERA: Sony ILCE-7M2
LENS: Lensbaby Burnside 35mm f/2.8
FOCAL LENGTH: 35mm
ISO: 50
APERTURE: f/2.8 (probably, didn’t record)
EXPOSURE: 1/320
LATITUDE; 41.47915
LONGITUDE: -93.91051

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Back on Thanksgiving, when I was taking pictures of Boone First United Methodist Church’s Free Community Thanksgiving, I decided to take Rodan139 up in the air to take a few pictures of the line.

Hopefully this is the last time I have the opportunity to use the drone for the Thanksgiving meal. Hopefully next year this meal is back inside the church.

Alexis, Black & White, Calendar, Formal Portrait, Johnathan, Kanoa, Lensbaby, Nature, Photoshop

Kanoa at 1!

December 20, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The January image of the 2021 Photography 139 Calendar was taken in lower Ledges. It was taken on January 4, 2020. It was taken shortly after a recent snow fall. One sad part about the printed version of this picture in the calendar is that the picnic table gets cut off where the pages are bound.

Here are some of the details of the picture:

DETAILS

CAMERA: SONY ILCA-77M2
LENS: DT 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 SAM
FOCAL LENGTH: 20mm (30mm in 35mm)
APERTURE: f/6.3
EXPOSURE: 1/250
ISO: 100
LATITUDE: 41.99793
LONGITUDE: -93.88033

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Back in August at Kanoa’s Birthday Party he also “posed” for some more formal portraits. Here are some of my favorites:

You’d be surprised to know how much Photoshop was used on this picture to remove Johnathan.

If you want to peruse the rest of the Kanoa pictures, click on the link below:

Kanoa – 1 Year Old

Not getting to see Kanoa very much is just one of the many things that suck about this mismanaged pandemic. But hopefully I’ll get to see him more in 2021.

Flowers, Lensbaby, Macro, Mom

Painted without Instruction – 2020 – Alpha

September 29, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Back in late July, it was all the rage to go to the sunflower field at Badger Creek Recreation Area and post photos. So, one Saturday morning, Teresa, Mom, and I loaded up into the car and drove down there. I didn’t post any photos on social media, but I did take some pictures.

We probably missed the peak of the sunflowers by about a week and the place was absolutely lousy with people, I was able to find a fairly secluded section of the field to take some of those pictures. I could see a sunflower picture making the 2021 Photography 139 Calendar. Wouldn’t be the first time. In fact, I think it would be the third time.

Here are some of those sunflower pictures:

I have one more collection of pictures from the trip to Badger Creek Recreation Area in the hopper. S

Animals, Flowers, Lensbaby

That Wasn’t Me

September 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Every once in awhile, and it is a very rare every once in awhile, people ask me where I come up with the titles for my “An Artist’s Notebook” entries. The once that aren’t glaringly obvious. Frequently they are taken from quotes. But frequently they are taken from songs I’m listening to while either editing the images or while I’m typing up the entry.

For example. “That Wasn’t Me” is a Brandi Carlile song that has some of my favorite lines in it.

Hang on, just hang on for a minute
I’ve got something to say
I’m not asking you to move on or forget it
But these are better days
To be wrong all along and admit is not amazing grace
But to be loved like a song you remember
Even when you’ve changed

This is the opening verse of the song, and it crushes me every time I hear it.

Well any ways, here are some pictures I took in late June. Some are of the official bird of the state of Iowa being confused by its reflection. Or maybe it loves its reflection. It should get to know its Greek mythology better. Get to know the story of Narcissus.

The other pictures are of flowers from around my yard. Well one is from my Mom’s yard. One is from Stan and Noreen’s yard.

The bird harassing my Mom’s car, I’m taking that as a win for not keeping your car very clean. I’m talking to my car, which birds never seem to harass.

Derrick, Flowers, Lensbaby, Nature