Category Archives: Macro

Some Storm

May 7, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I rarely discuss the weather, but that was some storm last night. I wish I had some pictures of that storm to post, but I don’t. I spent last night inside, like a coward. Rather than outdoors taking lightning pictures. Not because I am a coward, but because Crossroads just wasn’t going to watch itself.

I do have some pictures of the storm aftermath to post that I took on the short jaunt from the back door to the car before I made the sojourn to the Computer Mine.

A Worm

Purple Tulip

A Leaf

Yellow Tulip

Peach Tulip

The first tulip of the yeard did not survive the storm.

On an unrelated note, The Mother’s Day Peony is about to bloom. I took this picture a couple of days ago of an ant hard at work.

Peony

I suppose it is right on schedule.

Alexis, Flowers, Macro, Sports

Cardinal Gymnastics Academy

May 3, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Today was Alexis’ gymnastics recital. I took a few pictures of her during the event.

bars2

As you can tell, she is really good.

Flowers

I’ve been fighting a battle with a tulip lately, but I finally got a few of pictures of it. These are the first flower pictures of the year.

Hopefully this means tthat there will be a flood of flower picture opportunities coming my way.

Animals, Commercial, Macro, Shannon, Writing

Little White Lye Product Endorsement Part 4

April 26, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Little White Lye Soap

We have established the economic benefits of switching to Little White Lye Soap. We have established the universal appeal of Little White Lye Soap. We have shown the wide range of products available from Little White Lye Soap. We have displayed the practical uses of a soap that is so powerfully gentle. We have shown that Little White Lye Soap is the behemoth of the soap world, tipping the scales at nearly 6 ounces.

The only thing left to wonder about is what type of people are you getting into business with when you purchase your first bar of LWL.

In the briefest of terms, wonderful people.

Wonderful People

8. Little White Lye Soap provides tremendous customer service. For example, say that you are a shut-in, invalid or terminally lazy. You would like to switch to LWL, but you just can’t make it to the nearest retail outlet. LWL will hand deliver the soap to your door. That is the type of customer service that you just don’t see any longer. Little White Lye Soap isn’t your ordinary company, they actually care about their customers and they show it with their superior products and superior customer service. The soap is Old School. So is the customer service.

9. Little White Lye Soap is an environmentally friendly company. Little White Lye believes in being stewards of our planet, but they do more than just believe, LWL leads by example.

LWL has a virtually non-existent carbon footprint.
All LWL products and containers are either recyclable or biodegradable.
No electricity or fossil fuels are used in the creation of their products.
All baskets or crocks that are used in the production of LWL Soap are reused. There is virtually zero waste.
Animals are not used to test any LWL products. (Unless you count this guy.)
The lard used in LWL comes from free range hogs.
Everything from LWL comes from nature and can return to nature in a harmonious manner.

LWL Keeps the World Safe and Beautiful for this Guy

10. Little White Lye Soap is a brilliant name. It is a pun, but it isn’t punny. It is classic merrymaking. Just having a bar of Little White Lye Soap is an instant conversation starter with even your most boring moribund acquaintances. It is both a great description of the product and at the same time a clever play on words. Would you rather lather up with a product that even has a brilliant name. If the name Dial is the best they could manage, how hard do you think they tried when designing the soap?

There you have it. 10 excellent reasons to stop buying soap from The Man and switch over to a superior product. A product that is greater in size. A product that is both powerful and gentle. A product that is good for your economy. A product that is good for your skin. A product that is good for the environment. A product that is just as good to your clothes as it is to your body. A product that is sold by wonderful people. A product that has a brilliant name.

If you need that website one last time, I will oblige you:

Little White Lye Soap

I expect that next time I see you that you will be cleaner and happier person.

Commercial, Flowers, Macro, Shannon, Writing

Little White Lye Product Endorsement Part 2

April 24, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Little White Lye Soap

Now that you have a solid understanding of the economic benefits of making your soap of choice Little White Lye Soap, you might be wondering: “Who is soap for?”

3. This is a man’s soap.

Finally, there is a soap for men. For years and years and years men have been forced to wander the soap aisle of their store of choice looking for a soap that made them clean but didn’t leave them smelling like their Aunt Florence. Quite frankly there aren’t many options. The smell of lilacs and lavender shouldn’t come from a man’s shower. When a man is done showering, he should smell like a man. A clean man, but a man nonetheless. He shouldn’t smell like a rose. He shouldn’t smell like a strawberry. He’s a man and he should smell like a man. A clean man.

Let’s face it. The only soap on the market today that is safe for a man to use is Lava. There is no denying it. Lava is a manly soap. However, Lava is to be used when a man is done changing the oil in his car. You can’t take Lava into the shower with you. Lava has pumice in it. That is great for getting transmission fluid off your hands, but you can’t use pumice on your twig and berries. Not if you want to keep them fully functional and your vocal range within its proper manly octave.

Little White Lye Soap steps into this vacuum that has been created by The Man’s estrogen drenched soap monopoly.

Why is LWL a Man’s soap?

It is strong. It is powerful. You can work on your rig all day and LWL has the prowess to get your hands clean, but it is versatile and gentle enough that you can take it into the shower with you and use it on all of your most delicate, but manly parts.

The kicker is that LWL doesn’t contain any perfumes or oils. A man can take a shower and clean himself from head to toe and when he comes out of the shower he can smell good, but not fruity. He can leave the fruity smells to his female friends. It smells good on them.

4. Little White Lye is a woman’s soap. Now I don’t want to come off like I’m an expert on the female body. But I believe I have studied the female form as much as any other layman and there are parts that I have committed to memory. What I can tell you from those studies is that LWL is great for a woman’s sensitive skin.

You see it goes back to the old no perfumes or oils. Those things are bad for your skin. LWL is good for your skin because it doesn’t dry it out.

Are you using enough lotion to soften the skin of the entire population of a small Pacific Island? Then it is time to change your soap to LWL. A soap that doesn’t dry out your skin and leave you dependent on lotion.

5. Little White Lye has a wide variety of products. Although this is a soap based company, LWL offers a variety of complimentary products. They include the following:

Bars of Soap

Mini Loofah

Full Loofah

Laundry Soap

12 Loads of Laundry

30 Loads of Laundry

50 Loads of Laundry

Washcloth

That is a pretty impressive array of products and the list is growing. I’m not sure I should be telling you this, but a few weeks back I was hanging around the R&D staff and she let me in on this juicy little tidbit. There is a foaming soap on the horizon as well.

Not that LWL needs to add to its veritable arsenal of cleaning products. I can tell you from experience that the loofah is a cleaning powerhouse. If you pick up that little number, you will come out of your shower fresh as a daisy.

Could be You!

Plus if you have ever compared a nice handmade washcloth to the washcloths turned out by political prisoners in China, (the type they sell in most stores) you know that there is no comparing the quality or the life expectancy. Handmade washcloths are as good as it gets.

Perhaps now you are convinced. Now you know that buying Little White Lye Soap helps your local economy, it is a man’s soap, it is a woman’s soap and you know that you have a wide selection of choices. If this describes you, then you should visit the link below to learn more about this wonderful company:

Little White Lye Soap

There is a chance that you haven’t been convinced yet. That is okay. I still have 5 more excellent reasons you should pick a dozen or so bars of soap from the nearest Little White Lye retail outlet.

To Be Continued…

Animals, Bowling, Macro, Work

Texture

March 11, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Our bowling team has been making a bit of run as of late. Two weeks ago we won 21 of 24 points. Then last night we won 19 of 24 points. We’ve pushed our way all the way from nearly last place to 5th place. We might even be higher when the standings come out next week.

On Monday night we were dealt another blow. We lost another team member for the remainder of the season. I didn’t quite catch all the details, but one of our team members violated their probation and now they have to go away. However, it didn’t sound like he was going to prison. He kept using the word treatment.

The good news is that a bowling phenom just moved back to the area from Arizona. Now all we have to do is convince him that he needs to join our team.

While I have been avoiding the cold weather this winter I’ve been trying to figure out ways to add texture to my images. This search has caused me to make the image below while I was testing a scanner at work a few days ago.

I do love getting play with scanners at work. I just wish I got more time with them.

Frank, Jesse, Macro, Still Life, Work

Notes from Yesterday

January 11, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I got another mysterious fortune yesterday. I lunched at The Mandarin with Frank and Jesse. We had a lengthy conversation about bathroom etiquette at the Computer Mine. Then I got this fortune:

I have yet to get that offer. I’m standing by and I’ll let you know when I get it.

Jesse came in and gave me the thing in the picture below:

I think this proves that Mentos has realized that as a candy or mint their product is lacking. However, as something to be dropped into a two liter bottle of Diet Dr. Thunder, they are it. I think you know what kind of pictures are going to get posted here in the near future.

A few days back I purchased a small mirror from Wal-Mart. It was designed to hold a candle. I was looking to put a couple cracks in the mirror and use it for a photography project. I got out my trusty hammer and whacked it. Softly. Then a little harder. Then a little harder. All that whacking produced not a crack. I decided I was going to have to get a bit tougher. I cover the mirror with a towel and gave it a harder hit. Then a harder hit. Then I brought the thunder:

The mirror didn’t crack a little bit. It shattered into about a thousand pieces. I’ll probably be going to the Goodwill store to find another mirror to take out this weekend.

Animals, Becca, Black & White, Contests, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Macro, Photoshop, Teresa, Vacation, Vest, Work, Writing

Vacation

August 15, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett

I am on vacation this week. I have not taken a vacation since before Christmas last year. It has become apparent in the last couple of weeks that I was in a desperate need of a vacation. I had become burned out. I was no longer looking forward to coming to work every day. I was definitely looking forward to every weekend with increasing desire every week. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to concentrate and the easier the task, the less desire I had to complete the task.

This came as a surprise to me. I did not think that you could become burnt out at a job where on most days it is fun to show up to work and there is next to zero stress. As it turns out, I could get burned out. It turned out that I did get burned out.

So I’m taking this week to recharge my batteries. I’m taking this week to sharpen my saw.

The need of a vacation was not merely derived from my waning batteries. It also came from the need to stop answering the same question over and over.

As many of you know, I was rejected by the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon this year. I haven’t written about this rejection yet because I’d been working on this blog about the Des Moines Arts Festival and the difference between liking to take pictures of naked chicks as art and pornography. I was hoping to write a really clever blog that included some examples of parody, but it just seems that my heart isn’t in it. I might later today publish my weak attempt, but it might just be better for the world if this poor attempt never sees the light of day.

I believe because I haven’t written about my rejection, some people feel that I am ashamed or angry about this snub. This is not the case, but because of my silence on the subject, I see how people could have reached this inaccurate conclusion.

So I’ll break my silence.

On the Saturday of the Boone County Fair, I woke up and went to the mailbox. There was a letter in it from the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. It read as follows:

Dear Mr. Bennett:

There are days when it is great to be the all powerful judging committee of the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. Those are the days that we discover new talent or days that we see things that we have never seen before. This letter is not in response to one of those events. It is our duty to inform you that you are not a startling new talent. Your work is not revolutionary. In fact, the only thing startling about your work is its decided lack of talent. You sir suck! We take no joy in pointing out your numerous inadequacies as a photographer. However, we would be derelict in our duties if didn’t beseech you to never pick up a camera again. It would be better for you if you pursued a different hobby that isn’t so demanding. May we suggest playing the keytar. We feel it is an instrument poised to make a comeback.

If you have not yet picked up what we are laying down, let us quote the immortal Marty McFly:

“Get out of here kid, you got no future.”

If you decide to ignore our advice, we have done some research and found out that one of your co-workers, a Mike Vest, is a very talented photographer. We feel that your only chance is to study at his feet and maybe some day you will take a picture worthy of being in our Salon.

Good luck next year you no talent hack,

2007 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon Judges*

How could I be angry? They were so nice about it.

The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t bother me that a co-worker got a picture in and I didn’t. Truth be known I always get it handed to me at the Iowa State Fair. I had a streak of two years in a row of getting pictures into the State Fair. That was a good run.

I start over again next year.

I don’t get angry or upset because I know that this is a hard competition. Only 20% of the pictures entered get displayed. Whether or not you get a picture in is kind of a crapshoot. Who knows what the judges are going to like and not like? I have theories about it, but I’m not going to go out my way to make a “photo contest” picture.

I make the kind of pictures I like. I figured out a long time ago that these aren’t the type of pictures that do well at photo contests. I try to make the type of picture you would want to put on your wall. These are not the type of picture that do well at photo contests.

So be it. The end result of this rejection is that I will end up entering the Pufferbilly Photo Contest this year. I was slowly entering a mindset that I was “done” with photo contests. However, I realized this past year that what I don’t like about photo contests (the competitive part) is outstripped by what I like about photo contests. What I like is people seeing my work and reacting to it.

These are my favorite photo contest memories.

A few years back at the Boone County Fair I entered a picture of Karma. The picture was a macro image of her mouth. I was standing nearby and these people stopped and looked at my picture and insisted that the photographer must have “brushed this dog’s teeth” before taking the picture. Karma was a great dog and companion. She never had her teeth brushed though. Although in retrospect, she might have liked it.

Last year I won three trophies at the Pufferbilly Day Photo Contest. That was not my favorite moment.

My favorite moment was when I was standing next to the photo display with Jay. A couple of ladies came down to look at the displays. One of the ladies had drug her friend down with her just to point out one picture to her. It was my picture. It was not a trophy winner, but it made such an impression that she had left to bring her friend back to see the picture. That was a great moment.

The question about my co-workers success and my failure are not quite extinguished by these answers. People feel I should be jealous or angry about this situation. I ask you, what kind of person is angry about somebody else’s success. I’ll tell you what kind of person. A small person. A prick. A software support person.** I am none of these things.

As humble as I might be, I do have some pride in my work. So before the failed images get locked in a trunk for the rest of time I would like to put them on public display here. I could go into theories about why they were rejected, but I’ll let you postulate on your own.

Throes

Ant Food

A Deceptive Likeness

Lost Dreams

The good news is that my family is only tainted with one loser. My sister Teresa did very well with her crocheted projects. She did thusly:

1. Snowmen Ornaments – First place
2. Blair the Bear – Second place
3. Felted purse – Third place
4. Felted bowl – Third place
5. Crinoline Lady – Third place
6. Grab Ball – Fourth place
7. Heart doily – nothing
8. Baby afghan – nothing

*Just for the sake of gullible people. I didn’t get this letter. Just a post card saying that all my pictures were rejected.

** I say this because I recently went to a bachelor party for a guy from work and a good portion of my party experience was spent listening to the people from software grousing about other people in software. Come on people!!! It is a party, leave the office at the office.

Animals, Christianity, Flowers, Jay, Macro, Nature, Road Trip, Sports, Ungs, Willy

Last Few Days

July 8, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett

Who is up for a random collection of pictures that come without descriptions? Perhaps including a picture of the worst John Wayne statue I have ever seen and pictures of some really sweaty dudes.

Animals, Art, Black & White, Blogging, Boone FUMC, Flowers, FNSC, Macro, Music, Shannon, Steph, Teresa, Work

Odonata

April 4, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

I haven’t had the “pleasure” of being on MySpace much lately. Which means that my “blogs” have become sporadic and if I’m not mistaken, lower in quality. I can’t say that this saddens me. There are more important things I should be doing with my time, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t times that I miss the moments of entertainment I get from this little site or the contact I lose with some people that I seem to only make through this “social networking” thing. Still, Uncle Sam hit me with a pretty stiff tax bill this year. I should be trying to figure out how to raise the funds to pay the feds off before I end up rotting in debtors prison. Although I do know this one thing about many of my chums. If I do end up rotting in debtors prison, I shant be alone. Some of us will be rotting together. I think I speak for all of us when I say, “Do your worst Uncle Sam! Just not to me, I’m not like normal people. I don’t like pain.”

I have changed the background music for the blog yet again. I will not pretend to have the musical talent or knowledge of at least 4 of the subscribers to this thing. I just felt that I should cool things off a little bit after the hard rocking of Pillar’s cover of “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”. I’m also quite certain that somewhere north of where I sit typing, Mike Britson is scoffing at my tenet that Pillar is anywhere near the neighborhood of hard rocking. I can’t dispute this fact. Mike has always claimed to be the “World’s Greatest Music Snob”. I do not think that he has a t-shirt that proclaims this fact, but in my heart of hearts I hope that Stephanie made him a button that did.

I come away from that aside. All I really wanted to point out is the fact that the new background music is “Minuet in G”. It was composed by the great Ludwig Van. It has always been one of my favorite pieces of music. Due to my relative musical ignorance (despite being a wretched to middling trombonesman in my day) I may be interpreting the intent of the music incorrectly. I have always been struck by how desperate this music sounds. It is more than sad. It is desperately mournful. Yet when you feel like it should be too depressed to carry on, it seems to find a way to carry on. In that ability to carry on, I find the song hopeful as well.

Take that for whatever you like. I don’t claim to be an expert. Although I do subscribe somewhat to what Roy Adzak said about art:

“Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us.”

Meaning that the person interpreting the art is in many ways more important than the artist. That is a somewhat scary thought. I have the slight delusions of my own artistic ability I don’t like giving up my art and allowing whomever stumbles upon it to translate what it means. I don’t even struggle with the control issues that some of my friends do and it is still difficult.

I guess what makes this concept bearable and allows me to subscribe to it is the fact that the alternative is utterly unbearable. Namely, having to explain the meaning of everything. Of course, this also allows me to view “Minuet in G” as desperate and hopeful in the same breath and dear old Ludwig Van just has to accept it. IN YOUR FACE BEETHOVEN!!

Dictionary Dot Com defines “irony” in such a way: 5.an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

I’m not sure this following tale is actually really ironic in the way the word was forged by its creators or in the “Alanis-Morrisette-I-Clearly-Wrote-A-Song-About-Irony-Where-I-uses-Examples-of -things-That-Aren’t-Ironic” way.

Perhaps it is ironic that I don’t know if this is ironic and I am having a go at somebody else for their ignorance. Perhaps I should just tell the tale.

Not really much of a tale. I have found a home for some pictures of mine. Here is the arguably ironic part: that home is the Boone Homeless Shelter. My church has adopted a room at the homeless shelter. As a congregation we are donating items to fill this room. I have donated a copy of “Happiness Shared: #01” & “Happiness Shared: #02” to adorn the wall of our room.

What I found out tonight is that when each homeless family leaves the shelter and sets up their home, they get to take everything from the room to furnish their new home.

I did not hand the pictures over to Pastor Phil personally. I left them in the hands of my sister Teresa. Allegedly Phil was excited by this donation and thinks that I should donate such pictures every time a new family moves into our room.

In some small way I have a “standing order”. In no small way, this kind of excites me. Looks like I’m just doing good deeds all over the place. But before I break my arm from patting myself on the back, I should show you what is going to the homeless shelter, to somebody’s home, and perhaps someday to a Goodwill Store near you.

So what would these other good deeds be that I am doing? Depending on your ability to recall facts about me, you may remember that a while back I was instrumental ( by instrumental I mean the same way I was instrumental to the success of the BHS Concert Band by holding down the last chair trombone) in the making of a batch of soap. Some of the soap from that batch is going into care packages for people being released from Mitchelville State Penitentiary.

The truth is that I had nothing to do with this donation. It is all Shannon. Yet since, she is donating soap for this cause AND I helped make the soap. I get to glom onto some of her glory. The boys I hang with like to call that bandwagoning. Except for one. He likes to call it innovating.

However, I am going to attempt to make the world a better place in one more way. It is through something I hope to propose and railroad through Friday Night Supper Club through my power of oratory. I won’t tell you what it is, but I will give you a hint. I should also point out that at this time Friday Night Supper Club is a secular organization. I point this out for my sister Teresa.

I like to go out to the woods on my break. Some people like to smoke. I like to commune with nature. No tax on that, suckers!!

While I was out there I went a little crazy with the camera on a fellow that became a buddy of mine. Since he was what I like to call Odonata, I cracked out the 50mm lens. This is a lens that is fine and dandy for Odonata, but then I heard a rustling to the left of me. There he was for the 5th time this year. The groundhog! The problem was that I was unprepared for this development.

I did not have the proper equipment. He was staring me down, practically screaming at the top of his rodent lungs: “I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille!” All I could do was take this incredibly bad picture from about 75-100 feet away. This picture is cropped quite a bit. If you saw the original you would never be able to find the groundhog. That isn’t a challenge. Just a statement of fact.

At least I got a few decent shots of my chum Odonata:

Within these images I find solace, but I’m still coming for you Mr. Groundhog!!!!

Animals, Black & White, Flowers, Macro, Teresa, Work

A Tale of Grotesque Proportions

February 21, 2007 Christopher D. Bennett

I know that the deer story did not have the happy ending that we were hoping for, so let me throw this out there. Did I mention that there are also squirrels back there.

So I have mentioned that I have this formal American Cancer Society Fundraiser/Oscar Party coming up this week. On a Saturday I went down to Des Moines to pickup a new dress shirt. This seems to be a fairly simple task.

Within that assumption lies the problem. You see I am a person of strange proportions. I have the neck of a much fatter man. I have the arms of a much taller man. The shorthand version of this tale is that even the Big and Tall store did not posses a shirt in stock that perfectly conformed to my dimensions. On Sunday I shall arrive in a shirt that is freakishly long and a button extender so that I can look stylish and be comfortable.

One last factoid. I am hesitant to admit this fact. I let them talk me into buying a zipper tie. Oh the humanity!!

You may recall that whenever somebody pursues acquiring a picture of mine it always ends up in the bathroom. My eldest sister is redecorating her bathroom. Who do you think she called looking for black and white photos of flowers?

I didn’t take many flower pictures last year. Although B&W is my favorite photographic medium I don’t think I took any B&W flower pictures. So I had to do a little post production work.

Below would be the options I gave her.

Flower #1

Flower #2

Flower #3

Flower #4

Flower #5

Flower #6

Flower #7

Flower #8

Flower #9

Flower #10

Flower #11

If you are the curious sort, she choose #2, #4, #9, & #10. She also wants a copy of #7, but it won’t be in the bathroom because it isn’t consistent with her theme.

So where will #7 end up? My guess is the guest bathroom.