Category Archives: Macro

I Miss Your Smile, And I Miss Your Touch

April 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Here is the second collection of pictures of flowers I took at the Iowa State Fair on the last day of the Iowa State Fair. Almost all of these were taken in the Discovery Garden. The last one was taken near Pioneer Hall.

I see more than a couple potential future photo contest entries or calendar pages or additions to THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT in this collection. Hopefully there is an Iowa State Fair or a Boone County Fair or Pufferbilly Days to have a contest. At the very least THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT isn’t going anywhere.

Animals, Flowers, Macro, State Fair

Dear Love, I Miss You Much

April 21, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

I’ve finally hit the point in the backlog where I am emotionally, spiritually, physically, and psychologically prepared to start curating pictures of flowers from the Iowa State Fair.

It is known that one of my favorite places at the Iowa State Fair is the Discovery Garden. I have to spend at least a couple hours there every year. In fact, here is my power rankings of my 5 favorite places at the Iowa State Fair:

#5. The Avenue of the Breeds
#4. Pioneer Hall
#3. Cultural Center
#2. DNR Building
#1. Discovery Garden

#5 is because Shorty used to take his Scottish Highland cows there. #4 is because my parents used to volunteer there. #3 is because that is where the Photography Salon is located and also because the cheapest Pepsi refills are in the courtyard. #2. Is because it is one of my favorite places to photograph. #1 is because it is my favorite place to photograph.

This list is off the top of my head. I’m sure if I considered the list longer, some of these would be shuffled. Others might be added, like the Animal Learning Center, Heritage Village, 4-H Building, or the Big Boar.
However, I’m pretty sure no matter how many times I made the list, the Discovery Garden would almost always be #1.

Here is the first of two collections of flower pictures from the 2019 Iowa State Fair:

The first few pictures were taken inside the Agriculture Building. The rest were taken in the Discovery Garden.

Animals, Flowers, Macro

Speed of the Sound of Loneliness

April 8, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

This collection of pictures I took back in October. All of these pictures were taken in my backyard.

I’m down to 3 rows of folders to curate int he 2019 backlog now. That is a completely meaningless statistic to you, but it is pretty big milestone for me.

Black & White, Macro, Music, Naima, Photoshop, Still Life, WPC - Alternate, WPC - Reminder

The Numbing Sensation of Everything

April 3, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I took several pictures of my sad, pathetic, battered, old trombone. These are the ones that didn’t make the big cut for the big show on Monday.

That poor trombone should probably go in the trash, but I worry that the trash man wouldn’t even accept it.

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

GOVERNMENT

A GOVERNMENT photo is any photo that has anything to do with the GOVERNMENT. Any level of GOVERNMENT. From a county hospital to a city park to federal highway.

Happy photo harvesting!

Flowers, Macro, Vest, Work

Yesterday is Gone Now

April 2, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

People have actually asked me what I have been listening to while I have been working from home. I just finished off Day 9 from work from home and my listening choices have reflected a little bit what they are when I work at the office.

Now I can’t listen to music in a meaningful way when I’m at the office. But on my drive to work I listen to 96.1. It seems to center me and prepares me for the day.

I now listen to 96.1 from 7-9 in the morning. After that, I have been listening to classical music.

Today I listened to Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Ravel, and Dvorak.
On Wednesday I listened to Richard Strauss, Wagner, Johannes Strauss, and Brahms.
On Tuesday, I listened to Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven, and Mozart.
On Monday, I listened to Haydn, Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach.
Tomorrow, I have Mendelssohn, Grieg, and Schumann on deck.

One thing I discovered is that I now like Liszt way more than I recall. I’m going to have to pursue this at a future time.

The classical music usually takes me to about 2:30. The last 90 minutes of my day I listen to Murph and Andy on KXNO.

I don’t know if I can think of any other positives about working from home, but I can say that this week I’m starting to hit more of my stride. I have a better handle on my system now. Hopefully it is smooth sailing here on out.

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Tonight’s post is a bit of a short post. I worked with my webmaster a bit this evening to work out some kinds in the website that resulted from a recent update. That took up some of my website time.

However, I think those of you that don’t hate flowers will enjoy this small collection of flower photos I took last October:

Zinnias and mum, if you are wondering.

Flowers, Macro

Feel Like Whistling

April 1, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

“If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.”
— Audra Foveo

On Monday I took my first flower pictures of the year! Huzzah!

I’m sure there are plenty more pictures of flowers in my future. My daffodils haven’t bloomed yet, but that has to be coming in the near future.

These are the first flowers to bloom at my Mom’s house.

Black & White, Flowers, Logan, Macro, Mom, Naima, Taylan, Underwater, Youth Group

Piebald

April 1, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

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.

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.

Black & White, Candid Portrait, Flowers, Logan, Macro, Mom, Naima

Multifarious

March 31, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Hitting up the 2019 backlog with a collection of pictures I took on the same day as when I took Taylan’s Senior pictures.

Some are of flowers. Some are of Naima. Some are of Logan and Mom leaving one of the worst restaurants we’ve ever eaten at.

Still a long ways to go with this backlog, but we’ll get there. You just have to believe!

Animals, Macro, WPC - Reminder

White Anglo Saxon Protestant

March 27, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

You know, I thought that the hatred that some of the men I know, the ones that suffer from toxic masculinity, have for flower pictures was borderline obscene. That was I encountered the irrational hatred of my wasp photography.

They are fascinating, beautiful creatures. Learn to love them. Unless you’re allergic. Then learn to love them from a distance. A good distance.

But for all the haters that never gave a young wasp a chance to shine, I say “Peace” and this is the final set of wasp pictures from 2019. We out!

Drops mic.

Pick mic back up.

Seriously. You know what a bee does when it stings you? Rips out its butthole and dies*.

You know what a wasp does when it stings you? “It says, I’m just getting started son.”

I’ll just close with a joke:

A wasp expert walks into a record shop

He goes to the owner and asks if they have the new edition of wasp sounds 2020.

The record shop owner says that they have it in stock and asks if the wasp expert would like to listen too it before he buys.

The wasp expert agrees and the record is placed on the record player.
The pin goes down and all of a sudden a horrible buzzing noise emits from the machine.

The wasp expert is horrified stating that in all his years of being a wasp expert, he has never heard anything as far from wasp sounds in his life.

The record shop owner looks confused until he notices something.

“Sorry” says the record shop owner, “I was playing it on the bee side!”

Drops mic again.

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

MUSIC

A MUSIC photo is any photo of MUSIC being created or played or of anything that might be used to create or play MUSIC.

Happy photo harvesting!

*Yes, I know this is only honey bees.

Animals, Flowers, Macro, Naima, Work

I Always Credit My Enemy

March 25, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Day 3 of working from home. I thought I was going to talk about how a positive of working from home was how soft my feet are becoming. But I’ll cover that at a later date.

Today’s positive about working from home is that Naima has actually started to hang out in the office. Not a little bit, but more than she ever used to in the past. She has never been a big fan of the office and I’m sure that is because the office is probably the most cluttered, messed up room in my house. However, as I sit in the office way more than normal AND I also start cleaning and sorting and throwing things out in my office, she has broken down and started to hang out there.

On to Day 4…

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These pictures are from my backyard that I took back in August.

Wasps are the best!