Recently Carla texted me to let me know that there was a collection of egrets hanging out in a field she passes on her way to work.
Shortly thereafter, I went out there looking for them. I really only got a couple decent egret pictures, but I did get a few decent pelican pictures that were hanging out nearby.
The pelicans were photographed at the Jay Carlson Wildlife Area. A place that I’ll definitely visit when I finally pull the trigger on the drone. However, that is months away.
About this time last year I headed to McHose Park and photographed the Howards for their annual family photo.
This Sunday, we will be heading to Cedar Falls for this year’s family photo.
But let us just enjoy last year’s for now:
Plenty more pictures of the Howards in the next week or so!
It is Tuesday, so it is time for even more pictures from the 2017 Pufferbilly Days Pet Show:
There are still more pictures of the 2017 Pufferbilly Days Pet Show on the horizon. Perhaps some from the 2018 Pet Show coming soon as well.
It doesn’t appear that many people were in touch with their inner BOREDOM. That is okay, I feel like this week will be a bounce back week.
But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came here to see the submissions:
Tamara Peterson
Christopher D. Bennett
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:
ARCHITECTURE! What a great theme! But what does it mean?
An ARCHITECTURE photo is any photo that deals with a building or a structure. Either the inside or the outside. Doesn’t matter.
I look forward to seeing your interpretations!
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
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 architecturally sound Monday.
Hitting the 2016 backlog with more pictures from the Desdamona photo shoot:
More Desdamona pictures next Sunday!
Yesterday, Iowa State had an emotional football game.
Before the game, there was a moment of silence for Celia Barquin Arozamena. They placed her picture in the endzone where she would have stood to be honored as the Female Athlete of the Year. Both the Iowa State and Akron football teams wore CBA decals on their helmets. They played a video tribute to her on the video board. The team came out with a Spanish flag. At least 70% of the fans wore yellow/gold to honor her memory. The Iowa State University Cyclone Varsity Marching Band spelled out her initials on the field.
The game was almost an afterthought and it played kind of like one. Iowa Sate beat Akron 26-13 in a somewhat lackluster game.
Here are some pictures from the day.
Next Saturday Iowa State is on the road against TCU. Kickoff is at 6 PM. As always, you are welcome to come watch the game with me in the Union Street Theater.
There are so many images in the folder called 07-20-08 that I’m going to split the next 2 folders into 3 posts, most likely.
The images in this post are from Ames on the Half Shell with Kountertop, the Iowa Games, some softball, and the Boone County Fair.
Kountertop was one of my favorite bands that played Ames on the Half Shell. To be honest, Ames on the Half Shell was a collection of nondescript classic rock cover bands. 1 band was just about indistinguishable from the next. Which worked for the target audience of Ames on the Half Shell. They just want to get a good buzz and listen to music that doesn’t challenge them.
There were a few exceptions, but they were pretty rare.
Kountertop did fit into the mold of classic rock cover band, but they at least had some style. Plus, they were skilled musicians.
The softball pictures are from a game between Boone and Madrid. It was a battle of some Bennett family friends. The Howards from Boone and the Madduxes from Madrid.
The Boone County Fair pictures were taken with Becky and some of her family. You should be warned that there are some bunny pictures in there. If you don’t like bunny pictures, turn back now!
By adding these photos to THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 PHOTO GALLERY, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve even more softball, pictures from my first mission trip, and possibly a trip to the Miller farm.
A few weeks back I got together with my bros from the West Ames Outpost of the Evil Clown Empire. It might have been the first time we have been together all year.
We ate at the worst restaurant in Ames and went to the worst movie in theaters at that time, but I let all that slide as long as they agreed to pose for Page 56 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. Which they did!
While only one picture can be physically adhered into the physical THE PHOTO JOURNAL, I did take a couple others.
I didn’t really give them any direction, other than to look through the window. I even let them choose where they sat on the firetruck. I wanted the picture to be about who they are and the decisions they made. Then you can figure out where they chose to sit, hold the window, and look says about each of them as a person.
Next time we check-in with THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT, we might look at Pages 78-79 or maybe Pages 48-49.
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If you have been paying attention to the news lately, you certainly heard about the senseless murder of Celia Barquin Aroamena. She was a former Iowa State golfer that was finishing up her Engineering degree. She was the European Amateur Champion. She was 2018 Big 12 Champion. She competed at the U.S. Open. On Saturday she was supposed to be honored as the Iowa State 2018 Female Athlete of the Year at the Iowa State football game. All reports are that as great of an athlete as she was, she was just as great of a person.
Monday morning, while she was practicing her craft, a man came out of the woods that line the golf course and murdered her. No real reason for it. He had been fantasizing about murdering a woman and so he did.
If you think about it for a million years, you couldn’t make sense of it.
On Tuesday, Iowa State Athletic Director sent out the following letter:
Sept. 18, 2018
Dear Cyclone fans,
It is with a very heavy heart that I share thoughts on the tragic passing of our former women’s golfer Celia Barquin Arozamena. Celia, who was the Big 12 Champion last year, was scheduled to be honored at this week’s home football game as our Female Student-Athlete of the Year. Celia, who is from Spain, was a fifth-year senior planning to graduate this spring with a degree in civil engineering.
Although the details of her passing are still being investigated, it is believed she was the victim of a senseless act of random violence committed by a total stranger, in broad daylight, while playing golf at the Coldwater Golf Course. This situation clearly cuts at the very core of our community, our institution and especially our athletics program.
I wish there were words or actions that would make this all better. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. Losing one of our student-athletes is like losing a child. We are all devastated and heart-broken.
We also know that we must carry on in the same spirit that Celia lived her life. She was a passionate, caring and vibrant young lady who was so proud to be a Cyclone. She attended all the sporting events of her fellow student-athletes and was so excited to be selected as our 2018 Female Athlete of the Year. In fact, when she was told she was going to be honored on the field at this Saturday’s football game, she broke down and cried.
The purpose of this letter is to share with you we plan to move forward with honoring Celia on Saturday at the home football game. We will honor her with a video tribute and a moment of silence, prior to the marching band playing the national anthem. The tribute will take place at approximately 10:50 a.m. We strongly encourage all Cyclone fans to be in their seats by 10:45 a.m. to pay tribute and show her grieving teammates, coaches and friends, what it feels like to be fully embraced by Cyclone Nation.
I look forward to seeing you in the stadium Saturday morning.
Go Cyclones!
Jamie Pollard
Director of Athletics
Also on Tuesday, Celia’s teammates requested that fans wear yellow to the game. It was Celia’s favorite color. So if you are going to the game on Saturday, please be there on time for the moment of silence and wear yellow to honor Celia.
The football team will be wearing her initials on their helmet. Akron will also do that.
On a personal note, the man that murdered Celia was homeless. He lived in the woods behind where I work:
There are usually several people living back there. I’ve walked those woods several times and never feared for my safety, but I know a co-worker that wears a gun when he walks back there.
When I think about the whole situation, the one thought that keeps crossing my mind is, “We can do better. We can do better. We can do better…”
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A reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is BOREDOM!
A BOREDOM photo is a photo of somebody that is experiencing BOREDOM or an activity you do to fight BOREDOM.
Happy photo harvesting!
Seemed like a good time to share some of my pictures from the Iowa State Fair this year.
I made two trips to the Fair. 1 with Baby Got Rack. The other on the last day of the Fair with Jesse and Nader to pick up my 2 photos that were displayed at the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. Russell even met up with us briefly.
Fortune smiled upon me with the scheduling of events at the Iowa State Fair. One of my favorite bands was playing on one of the free stages and the date happily coincided with the last day of the Fair, so I didn’t have to make a special trip to see Here Come the Mummies.
If you haven’t heard of Here Come the Mummies they are a funk group where everybody in the band dresses like a mummy. You can see how they appeal to my particular set of tastes.
Legend has it that the Nashville based band is filled with Grammy award winning artists that dress like mummies to conceal their identity; for fear of the band members violating their current record contracts.
I don’t know if this is true, but their high level of musicianship would make a pretty strong case for it being true. I don’t know too many other rock/funk concerts where you would see a badass flute duel and it would make 100% total sense.
Before I go on first dates, I like to send my date a copy of PANTS to listen to. It is the easiest way to insure that there is no second date. Also why my Tinder profile is so unpopular.*
Here are some pictures from an awesome (but one of the wettest I’ve ever experienced from the standpoint of water) rainy night with Here Come the Mummies:
We didn’t stick around for the concert as long as I had hoped. Hopefully Here Come the Mummies comes back to Iowa in 2019 so I can have the full experience.
*This is all a lie. I don’t go on dates. My Tinder profile is very popular.
This is the final collection of eclipse photos from my trip to Missouri to watch the eclipse with Jesse, Sarah, Tim, Mike, and Adam.
That is the end of the eclipse pictures until the next eclipse. About time to start making plans for it now!
