Category Archives: Nature

Animals, Baby Got Rack, Black & White, Drone, Formal Portrait, Iowa State, Jesse, Kalista, Kelly, Nature, Nora, Photo Journal, Pufferbilly Days, Saydie, Scottie D., Self-Portrait, State Fair, Taylan

The 2019 Howards – Subset Dos

April 30, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

One of the products of all this home times is that I have started up on THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT again. What started as the accent wall in my living room and then turned into the Friend Wall and then became the 9 Emotions Project wall, was turned into the Canvas Wall about 2 years ago. The ultimate goal is to cover at least 95% of the wall with canvas photos.

I recently added 7 more canvases to the wall. These are all smaller canvases that are meant to fill around the doorway that leads to my hallway.

Here are the 7 canvases that have recently been added:

The pictures that have been selected for THE CANVAS WALL PROJECT are meant to be a combination of every day life pictures and my more artistic pictures.

I’m getting pretty close to the bottom of the wall now. The next collection of pictured added to the wall are definitely obstructed, but that is okay. It matter less that they can be seen, and more that they are there.

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Time to reveal a second collection pictures from the 2019 Howard Family Photo Shoot:

Still plenty more Howards to go!

Aaron, Andy, Cathie, Elizabeth, Kim, Michelle, Micky, Mom, Nature, Shannon, Tamara, Teresa, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 241 – NOSE

April 27, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

30 straight weeks with double digits!! The second straight week that I didn’t send any reminder text messages this morning and still made double digits easy. You dig?

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

Elizabeth Nordeen

Teresa Kahler

Andy Sharp

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Michelle Haupt

Tamara Peterson

Aaron Barnett

Kim Barker

Andy Sharp

Kim Barker

Christopher D. Bennett

Cathie Raley

Micky Augustin

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:

TREE

TREE! What a great theme! But what is a TREE image? It is any image that involves a TREE or a TREE byproduct. You know. Like wood. Or paper.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

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.

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.

I now allow people to text me their submissions. In the past, I had made exceptions for a couple people that aren’t real computer savvy, even though it was an inconvenience for me and required at least 3 extra steps for me. I am now lifting that embargo because I have a streamline way of uploading photos. I’m not giving out my phone number, but if you have it, you can text me.

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

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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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 woody Monday!

Art, Nature, WPC - Reminder

Luna

April 10, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Happy Good Friday everybody! Good Friday was frequently my least favorite worship service, but every once in awhile I really got something out of it. I guess I’ll have to wait another year to see what Pastor Dave has in store for his Good Friday Service.

You may recall that we had a full moon on Tuesday night. I didn’t get out to photograph, but I photographed it on Wednesday night. What is interesting about this picture is the lens that I used.

It is a 400mm lens that belonged to my dad. Attached to the lens is a 2x teleconverter, that makes it an 800mm lens. I then attached it to my 77ii and took a few pictures of the moon.

Now these aren’t the sharpest full moon pictures you will ever see, because there is always a bit of image quality lost when you use a teleconverter, but the important thing to know about these 2 pictures I’m going to share is that they aren’t cropped. This is how close to the moon I can get with that setup. Wish I would’ve thought of this sooner.

I’ll go more into depth about this 400mm lens when when I go through a detailed listing of the lenses I own. You’ll just have to wait.

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

ART

An ART picture is any picture of a piece of ART or objects that are used in creating ART. A confident person would just argue that any picture they take is a piece of ART.

Happy photo harvesting!

Animals, Birthdays, Black & White, Equipment, Logan, Macro, Mom, Naima, Nature, Pufferbilly Days, Scottie D., Self-Portrait, Still Life, Underwater, Work, WPC - Reminder

I Don’t Know Why You’re Mean to Me

March 20, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 6 Comments

I took Thursday and Friday off this week to watch basketball. Obviously there is no basketball right now. There is no basketball for at least a month and there is no NCAA Tournament this year at all. I wasn’t sure if I was going to still take these two days off. I waffled for a few days and then I ultimately decided that I needed a few days off.

I understand that can sound tone deaf. To need a few days off, when there are many people that aren’t able to work right now. People who suddenly are finding themselves unemployed. I am blessed that for at least now, the Computer Mine is still open for business. I am also blessed that starting a couple days ago, the Computer Mine opened up the option to work from home for some employees. They started by opening it up to workers that are in high risk groups and workers that are around people that are in high risk groups. I fit into that second category.

I wasn’t sure I was going to work from home or continue to work from the office, but after listening to a few co-workers regurgitated Fox propaganda talking points, I knew that I no longer trusted my co-workers to make smart decisions for their health, for the health of the people the come into contact with, and the health of the people that they come into contact with.

Starting on Monday, I’m going to start working from home. Because of this, I spent Thursday building a computer to use as my work from home computer from some computer parts I have laying around. I didn’t want to complicate my main home computer. So that is what passes for ENTERTAINMENT for me yesterday.

I also added a web camera to my work-from-home-computer so I could have video calls with my co-workers:

It isn’t the best web camera in the world. In fact, it is the web camera I bought a few years back so I could set up a modest photo booth at my birthday party:

But it will get the job done as far as video chatting goes. Because the one thing that I’m definitely going to miss as I work from home for at least a couple of weeks is some of my fellow miners. Most of them have opted to work from home, but I think Joe, Micky, Elizabeth, and Ron and a few others still seem to be committed to showing up to the mine. I’m going to miss you guys

Working from home does mean that I’ll have more time on my hands. I won’t have the 20 minute or so one way commute every day. My one hour lunch break will also be spent at home. Plus with not going pretty much anywhere at night, I will definitely have added time to work on my photography backlog. You guys might have to endure some days of TWO “An Artist’s Notebook” entries! Oh the humanity!

Hopefully the webcam will help with the social isolation. Hopefully my dog adjusts to having me around all the time!

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Since I mentioned birthday parties, I might as well mention that while I have been planning to have a birthday party this year, it is definitely off. Which is sad because Scottie D. and I had a tremendous menu planned. Baby Got Rack was going to cater the heck out of that party! You’ll just have to imagine what it would have been like.

What you don’t have to imagine what it is like, was what the invitations were going to look like. My nephew Logan took some of the photos that were going to be used for the invitations, that were going to look like they came from a political candidate. Here are a couple of the pictures that won’t get used:

That last picture wasn’t getting used for sure, I just like it. Maybe 2021 will be a better year to bring the party back!

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Last week I took more than one picture for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE, so here is a good chance to share the once that didn’t have what it takes to make the big show on Monday:

The pictures of Naima were taken with a new Lensbaby lens I bought for my new camera. I will probably going into some boring detail about it at some point in the future.

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

ENTERTAINMENT

I have no clue what participation will look like this week. However, I can assure you that even if you are taking social distancing to self-quarantine, this theme and every theme in the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is a theme that can be accomplished within the confines of your house or your yard.

Happy photo harvesting!

Andy, Animals, Birthdays, Naima, Nature

Dickcisselin’

March 3, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Need to start today by wishing a happy birthday to my mission trip and youth group buddy Andy! 5 or 6 years ago or however long it was when we first went to Martin, South Dakota together I never would have guessed how good of friends we would end up becoming.

Here are some pictures of Andy:

Happy birthday Andy!

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Hitting up that 2019 backlog again. These are pictures I took out at Dickcissel Park in June.

Only like 40 some days of pictures left in the 2019 backlog.

Animals, Christianity, Faust, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Grandma, Jay, Jesse, Macro, Mom, Nature, Road Trip, Teresa, Vacation

2009-09-09

February 29, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folder 2009-09-09 are from two road trips I took back in 2009. One was a trip with my Mom, Grandma, and Teresa to Kalona. Kalona has always been one of my favorite places to visit. It has been too long since I have been there, that is for sure.

The second road trip was one I took with Jay and Jesse to visit Faust up in Mankato. It also has been too long since I have visited Faust. I don’t lack proper motivation. Mankato has a sweet Godzilla statue that I still haven’t seen.

Here are some pictures from those road trips:

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

Vacation Stuff – One

Vacation Stuff – Two

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve some family photos I did for Jim’s lady friend Pam.

Drone, Nature, Panorama

Rodan139 – Ledges

February 27, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

On Sunday I took Rodan139 out for its first flight of 2020. It was a pretty quick trip. Mostly just up and down. Rodan139 hadn’t taken to the skies since December and I just wanted to knock the cobwebs off.

Plus I had a limited amount of time between when church concluded and when I had to leave to get to Hilton to watch the Ashley Joens and the gang take on the Red Raiders.

Here are a few of the pictures I took:

Hopefully we get some warm weather again when I have more time and I can take to the skies again, soon.

Animals, Candid Portrait, Dad, Equipment, Jason, Logan, Macro, Mom, Naima, Nature, Still Life

I Just Smile, Once in a While

February 18, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

A few weeks ago I decided to buy a new camera. This isn’t the post about the new camera, because that one is going to get pretty deep into the weed, but this is a post that is happening because of that decision.

The short version is that because of the new camera purchase I started to look around at adapters. Something that happened while I was looking at adapters I came across some adapters that would hook my Dad’s Minolta manual focus lenses to my current camera and to my new camera. Those adapters arrived on Friday and I took dug out the lenses and took a few pictures:

In fact, my WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE submission from last week was a picture I took with my Dad’s lens of Logan taking a picture with one of my Dad’s lenses of my Mom:

WEEK 231 - FAMILY - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT

I’ll go a little more in depth on each lens in the future, but right now I just want to celebrate the fact that I can use them!

Black & White, Jesse, Nature, Road Trip

Birthday Road Trip – Dunnings Spring Waterfall

February 16, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I’m not 100% sure if the waterfall featured today is the Dunning’s Spring Waterfall or the Dunnings Spring Waterfall. I have seen it spelled both ways by multiple reputable organization. This is the type of thing that keeps me up at night.

The Dunnings Spring Waterfall in Decorah was the main goal of my birthday road trip. I had visited it once a few years back and I have always been completely unsatisfied with my pictures of it. It was a goal of mine to get back there and take at least one picture of it that I liked.

Here are my attempts:

Birthday Road Trip - Dunnings Spring Waterfall

Jesse fell down the side of the waterfall and cut himself. But he kept the camera equipment he was carrying protected, so good work on his part!

I have a couple more sets of pictures from the Birthday Road Trip still to share. Kind of a miscellaneous set of pictures and the some cruddy cell phone pictures.

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.