A week back when I was publishing my endorsement of Little White Lye Soap the product pictures on the Little White Lye Soap were less than satisfactory. They have since been replaced and updated with way more acceptable pictures like this one:
I urge you to follow the link below and check out the new images:
I went to the church on Wednesday to take a group photo of the stitching group that Teresa started in Olivia’s name. Here is the result.
This picture is going to go in the church bulletin, so in the end it will end up looking something like this:
I took a couple candid photos of the group.
Then Becky grabbed the camera and took this picture.
Olivia’s Stitching Time meets two more times before taking a hiatus for the Summer. It is a group for people to come and work on and share their sewing projects. It meets from 6:30 – 8:30 on Wednesday nights in the Parlor of the First United Methodist Church. All are welcome to come.
I also fired off a few other random pictures in the sanctuary.
I might be prejudiced, but I think that we have a beautiful sanctuary. I’d love to seriously photograph it at some time in the future.
I went in to see Monica to get my quarterly shearing. Do you see a difference?
I feel much better now.
I was sitting at work today minding my own business when an e-mail fluttered across cyberspace and into my inbox. Technically it was two e-mails. I now share with you what was contained in those e-mails, namely pictures from Jen’s camera of the Oscar Party.
I think for the 2009 Oscar Party I might switch to a fedora and bring a cane. Although with the beanie Jen says I look “very Mohammad”. I dig that.
I might as well throw up a few pictures I took on that night. I didn’t take a camera to the party. I’ve been considering buying a small camera that I can fit in a pocket for this type of event, but I haven’t done it as of yet.
I know it is derivative, but everybody loves the bass picture so why not post this one?
If you are wondering, I will be buying a Sony. Carl Zeiss Lens! That is all I need to say!
I’m not what you would call a commercial photographer. However, recently I have gotten some commercial photography gigs.
The first gig was (and is ongoing) to do some of the photography for the website of a local soap company. However, I don’t want to delve too deeply into that because I will go into much greater depth about that when the website makes its World Wide Web Debut.
The second and third gig are kind of similar and somewhat related. Look at the picture below.
Some of my best friends were in a now defunct local band known as UnHingd. The members of this band have pretty much gone their separate ways, but they have stayed musical.
Not pictured is Dennis. He has moved on to become the lead singer of 35 South.
Mike has formed a new band with the old drummer from Obsidian’s Dream and some dude named Adam. His new band is called Inebriated Saints. Mike contacted me about taking some pictures of them during their upcoming show.
Let me tell you what all the cool kids are going to be doing this Friday night. I can hardly believe I’m about to write this: (Grit your teeth you can get through it.) The cool kids are going to be going to The Venue to watch Inebriated Saints win the Battle of the Bands. The winner gets to open for Firehouse. Yeah, that might be one of those win/lose things. It will also mark my first appearance at a Boone Bar since June of 2006. I think it was the Southside if you are wondering.
No really. It should be a great time and Mike is the self proclaimed “Best Bass Player in Ames”. Who am I to argue with that? I will post some of those pictures in the near future.
Then earlier this week I was contacted by Shawn, the former drummer of UnHingd.
Shawn booked me to take pictures of his new band Act of Gravity for their website. I’m pretty excited about this opportunity and will certainly post those pictures when they get taken.
You can check out Act of Gravity’s website by following this link:
One other small tidbit of news. On Monday I had a check pass through my account that made it official: I’m debt free. Not for very long hopefully, but it feels good to breathe the sweet air of freedom
Perhaps you are wondering what happened to Guitar God Derrick Gorshe.
He is also still active musically. Besides being the sound guy for 35 South and being the store manager of Rieman’s Music, he might also be putting the pit orchestra for one of the Ames community theater groups next productions. Look for updates about that as they become available.
I got an interesting MySpace e-mail today. It was related to the picture below.
It is from a woman I graduated from dear old BHS from all those years ago named Dawn.
I like to give credit where credit is due, and as one creative person to another, I thought you would enjoy knowing that your latest default picture helped influence my latest poem “the calling”. I had already been working on another poem about Spirit Lake, but your picture took me in an entirely different direction. Anyway, enjoy!
The Calling
Looking upon nobility of the sea
Ebbing tide whispers
Follow me…follow meLife’s course has been set for me
Seagulls cry
Break free…break freeThoughtful now I can’t turn to flee
Buoy holds tight
Let me be…let me beMy savior has set me free
Steady pier
Just for me…just for me
It feels good to have helped influence a fellow artist. This e-mail comes at a good time. I have felt less than creative lately. It does remind me that I wish I had poetry writing in my skill set.
I wrote about the ugliest Christmas present I received this year, the prettiest present I got was from Rebecca.
She even matched her painting to my 4 Flowers picture.
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.
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.
At the conclusion of Supper Club tonight, I convinced Willy and Jay to throw around a frisbee so I could play with a freeware program known as Hugin. This program will stitch several images together for you to make a panorama. What lies below isn’t great art, but I think it is kind of cool. I might end up being the only one. This starts with the original 4 images and ends with panoramic image.
Mr. Wentworth came over to Boone this weekend. So it turned out to be a pretty good weekend. I took some pictures to remember the events that Bill’s presence triggered.
First of all, I have completed the next picture to be hung in Salon 908. Below is a picture of the picture that will replace “Last, Loveliest Smile”.
This picture is an enlargement of a picture that Teresa commissioned me to do for her living room. I have named my color flower pictures the “Earth’s Laughter Series”, but I did not have a name for black and white flower pictures. Until now. The full title of the picture is “Happiness Shared – #01”.
The title comes from the old adage: “Happiness held is the seed. Happiness shared is the flower.”
On Sunday we went to Cold Stone Creamery. I found out Bill is somebody that hates seeing people have a good time at their job. Usually I find that the people that fit into this category hate the job that they have. Bill seems to fit into that category as well. So when we got back to Boone I took a picture of Bill.
Bill complained that I didn’t give him a chance to get ready before I took his picture. I told him that I wasn’t interested in posed pictures. I was interested in pictures of people how they are. A pretentious person might call that candid photography. A pretentious street photographer might call it guerrilla photography. I just call it capture what “is”.
Willy decided not to ride to and fro with us. The weather was warm and he was ready to get on his motorbike.
The second picture was taken from Jay’s automobile. It turns out that being on a motorbike doesn’t automatically make you look cooler. But check out those sexy legs. Ladies.
Some time last week Jay Janson went a milking. There is video tape evidence of Jay’s encounter with an utter, but I have yet to lay my hands upon it. Jay did bring me the coolest memento from his adventure.
I could really go for a Boyd’s malt right now. One of my fondest memories as a child was returning the milk bottles to Boyd’s because I got to put the bottles on a conveyor belt. I’ve always been fond of conveyor belts.
Then on Monday while I was on my break I encountered this fellow.
I have also seen the groundhog that lives behind the building within which I toil 4 times so far this year. I only saw him twice all of last year.
Then despite all of these good things that put me in good humor I came upon something that reminded me that while Spring brings much good to the world it also bring pure unadulterated evil back to Boone.
I have worked in Ames and lived in Boone going on 10 years now. There has been one constant in that experience. The ability of co-workers to constantly deride Boone as being a backward, hick, racist town.
I point to the myriad of good things there are about Boone.
They point to the Speedway.
I don’t have a rebuttal.
They win.
Stupid Speedway