Here is another collection of images from my road trip with Nader to go check out the Dysart illusions:

Still one more collection of images from this road trip left to share!
This week’s food adventure is looking back on 2023’s edition of Taco Tailgate. If you have forgotten. Taco Tailgate is the annual tailgate event for an Iowa State football game where Jorge makes me tacos. He makes tacos for other people, but I think they are mostly for me.
This was a heavily attended tailgate. By far the largest of the 3 times I tailgated this year. In attendance were (but not all at the same time):
+ Yours Truly
+ Jorge
+ Randi
+ Jesse
+ Elainie
+ Sabas
+ Derrick
+ Rachel
+ Sean
+ A few of their friends.
+ Elizabeth
+ Micky
+ Robyn
+ Katelyn
+ Aubrey
And I’m possibly forgetting somebody. If I am, I’m sorry.
Here are some pictures:
I also took a few pictures at the game with a little point & shoot. Here are a few of those:
I’m not sure what next Sunday’s food adventure involves. Possibly pizza.
A reminder that if you are looking for a Thanksgiving meal or a place to volunteer on Thanksgiving my church is hosting it’s annual Thanksgiving meal again this year. Information below:
I will be there for at least part of the day!
I haven’t selected the 52 themes for Year 11 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. But here is a list of the suggested themes:
-Science
-Remorse
-Necessity, something critical to your way of life
-Monochrome
-Tourism
-Sentimental
-Dog
-Screenshot
-Anything in the world but a cat
-Roman Numeral
-Outside your home county
– Memories/Memorial/etc.
– Clothing
– Out-of-date (I was thinking specifically of technology or items like pay phones and outhouses here, but it could be more expansive)
– Hands
– Struggle (or challenge)
– A stranger
– Fashion
– Starburst
– Symmetry
– Rule of 1/3’s
– Wheels
– Self portrait
– Emotion
– 6:00pm
– Warmth
– Candlelight
– Window view
– Ugly
– Sunday morning
-ANIMAL or PET
-PASSION
Definitely several of these will make next year’s list! Obviously ANYTHING IN THE WORLD BUT A CAT is a no-brainer!
PORTRAIT! Everyone has taken one or been in one. But did enough people take a PORTRAIT to make it a popular theme? You’ll have to keep scrolling to find out!
As of 12:01 PM on Monday, November 13, this was the current list of ACTIVE streaks (ignore the numbers in parentheses):
1-Susanna Funk – 1 week
2-Diane Sharp – 1 week
3-Suzie Brannen – 2 weeks
4-Monica Jennings – 2 weeks
5-Elainie Hernandez – 2 weeks
6-Sara Lockner – 2 weeks
7-Alexis Stensland – 5 weeks
8-Scott Degeneffe – 12 weeks (3)
9-Sabas Hernandez – 13 weeks
10-Willy McAlpine – 13 weeks
11-Mike Vest – 19 weeks
12-Sheri Fakhouri – 22 weeks
13-Logan Kahler – 23 weeks
14-Nathanial Brown – 24 weeks
15-Jesse Howard – 24 weeks
16-Tamara Peterson – 27 weeks
17-Mindi Terrell – 39 weeks
18-Brandon Kahler – 63 weeks
19-Linda Bennett – 68 weeks
20-Sarah Toot – 69 weeks (2)
21-Angie DeWaard – 73 weeks
22-Dawn Krause – 77 weeks
23-Kim Barker – 83 weeks
24-Joe Duff – 84 weeks
25-Teresa Kahler – 95 weeks
26-Carla Stensland – 95 weeks (2)
27-Micky Augustin – 97 weeks
28-Andy Sharp – 98 weeks (2)
29-Bill Wentworth – 99 weeks
30-Cathie Morton – 103 weeks
31-Elizabeth Nordeen – 104 weeks
32-Shannon Bardole-Foley – 106 weeks
33-Kio Dettman – 108 weeks (2)
The third week of each month I like to share a map of all the states that have had pictures taken in them that were submitted for this calendar year. Well, I checked my calendar and this is the third Monday of the month. Here is the map, heading into this week:
That is a lot of states filled in. In fact, going into this week, there are only 10 states that haven’t been visited and photographed by somebody that submits here. I don’t think there is any chance we will fill in the entire map this year, but we sure have gotten a lot closer than I ever would have guessed! There are 6 weeks left in this calendar year. I don’t anticipate any more states being filled in at this point. Maybe Indiana. But that is a pretty full map if it doesn’t change.
But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates or streaks. You came to see the submissions and what streaks continued and what streaks flamed out:
Shannon Bardole-Foley (Iowa) – 107 weeks
Christopher D. Bennett (Jack Trice Stadium – Ames, Iowa)
Linda Bennett (Jewell, Iowa) – 69 weeks
Suzie Brannen (Iowa) – 3 weeks
Nathanial Brown (Dobson Pipe Organ Builders – Lake City, Iowa) – 25 weeks
Scott Degeneffe (Boone County, Iowa)- 13 weeks
Kio Dettman (Iowa) – 109 weeks
Angie DeWaard (Iowa) – 74 weeks
Jen Ensley-Gorshe (Iowa) – 1 week
Sheri Fakhouri (Ankeny, Iowa) – 23 weeks
Mary Green (Manchester, Iowa) – 1 week
Elainie Hernandez (Ledges State Park – Boone County, Iowa) – 3 weeks
Sabas Hernandez (Ankeny, Iowa) – 14 weeks
Jesse Howard (Iowa) – 25 weeks
Brandon Kahler (Iowa) – 64 weeks
Logan Kahler (Iowa) – 24 weeks
Teresa Kahler (Boone, Iowa) – 96 weeks
Cathie Morton (Iowa) – 104 weeks
Elizabeth Nordeen (Iowa) – 105 weeks
Amy Peterson (Idaho Falls, Idaho) – 1 week
Tamara Peterson (Iowa) – 28 weeks
Andy Sharp (UNI Dome – Cedar Falls, Iowa) – 99 weeks
Andy Sharp (UNI Dome – Cedar Falls, Iowa)
Alexis Stensland (east Des Moines, Iowa) – 6 weeks
Carla Stensland (Ames, Iowa) – 96 weeks
Sarah Toot (New Jersey) – 70 weeks
34 participants! A pretty good week by current standards!
There were submissions this week taken in the following places:
+ Idaho
+ Iowa
+ Montana
+ Nebraska
+ New Jersey
+ Texas
Here is the current calendar year list for states:
+ Arizona
+ Arkansas
+ California
+ Colorado
+ Florida
+ Georgia
+ Hawaii
+ Idaho
+ Illinois
+ Iowa
+ Kansas
+ Kentucky
+ Louisiana
+ Maryland
+ Michigan
+ Minnesota
+ Mississippi
+ Missouri
+ Montana
+ Nebraska
+ New Hampshire
+ New Jersey
+ New Mexico
+ New York
+ Nevada
+ North Carolina
+ North Dakota
+ Ohio
+ Oklahoma
+ Oregon
+ Pennsylvania
+ South Carolina
+ South Dakota
+ Tennessee
+ Texas
+ Utah
+ Vermont
+ Washington
+ Washington D.C.
+ Wisconsin
+ Wyoming
40 states and 1 district! That is pretty impressive! Over 80% of the way there! Every continental state west of the Mississippi is now accounted for.
This is the list of states currently missing:
+ Alabama
+ Alaska
+ Connecticut
+ Delaware
+ Indiana
+ Maine
+ Massachusetts
+ Rhode Island
+ Virginia
+ West Virginia
The Outside of the United States map is currently:
+ Spain
+ British Virgin Islands
+ Mexico
+ Nassau Bahamas
+ Canada
+ Peru
+ France
+ Austria
+ Germany
+ Italy
+ Slovenia
The big milestone this week is Bill joining the Triple Digit Club! Also Cathie joins the 2 Year Streak Club. I forgot to mention it last week when Elizabeth joined it or a few weeks ago when Shannon joined and a few weeks before that when Kio joined it! Also, Dawn joined the Year and Half Club!
But it was all good news. Diane couldn’t build on her submission from last week. Monica’s 2 week streak went poof! As did Sara’s. And worst of all… Willy’s streak ends at unlucky 13.
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:
ANIMAL! What a great theme for Year 10 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!
But what is a ANIMIMAL picture? It is simply a picture of an ANIMAL. That could be a live ANIMAL. It could be a stuffed ANIMAL. It could be a box of meat. It could be a pet. It could be a wild animal. It could be something related to an ANIMAL. The possibilities are endless!
While thinking about possible subjects for your ANIMAL picture, meditate on the following quote and I have no doubt that you will come up with a fabulous image:
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
-Anatole France
I look forward to your interpretation!
The picture has to be taken between 12:01 PM today and 11 AM next Monday. This isn’t a curate your photos project. This is a get your butt off the couch (unless you are taking your picture from the couch) and take pictures challenge. There is a limit of 3 submissions per participant. To be considered the photographer, you have to be the one that takes the picture. Don’t be stealing the work of other artists. You can submit pictures for other photographers that took pictures with your camera or phone, but give credit where credit is due.
You can send your images to either bennett@photography139.com OR you may text them to my Pixel 5.
That is it. Thems the rules!
That is all I got, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will all be sharing your idea of ANIMAL in this place that loves dogs and so many other animals next Monday.
Today is Veterans Day. A day that celebrates all those who served in the U.S. Military.
Happy Veterans Day to all the veterans I know! And to the ones I don’t know too.
Time to hit up the backlog again. These pictures are from March and they just didn’t fit into any previous post. Some are sunset pictures. Some are from Gretchen’s birthday party. Some are pictures of gas stations.
Have a look:
Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of Gretchen or Maven. I kinda suck.
There are still plenty more images in the March backlog to share.
Here is the final collection of images from the birthday road trip I took with Jesse and Nader. On the way back we stopped at The Grotto of the Redemption. Nader had never been to it before, which was no shocker. But this was also Jesse’s first trip there.
But before we made it to The Grotto of the Redemption, we stumbled across an unincorporated town with a town sign that had a town sign I hadn’t harvested:
Maybe not a great town sign, but a solid town sign.
When we pulled up to The Grotto, I wasn’t sure if Nader was going to get out of the car. He was being a grumpypants and was pretty addicted to his phone. But he did finally get out of the car and then after he saw the Grotto he described it as the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life. It is definitely beautiful.
Here are the pictures:
I wonder where I will go for my birthday road trip in 2024?
I’m currently out of drone pictures, so thought I would move up the next post on the Orange City Tulip Festival a couple of days early.
We start this collection off where the collection ended. We had just got our poffertjes and had sat down to eat the deliciousness!
These buckets of water are throughout the parade route. Little kids clean the road before the Orange Festival Royalty walk through. I hope to get pictures of that next year.
Fried Almond Patties are a game changer!
Still a couple more collections of images from this trip left to share!
We’ve come to the end of the black & white week. Time to share the black & white pictures I took last Sunday. Some of these pictures are from wandering around my yard. Some are from the Howard Family Photo Shoot. Some are from the Octagon Art Festival.
This might be the biggest collection yet, so we might as well get to it:
If you are wondering about the Howard family photos, I kept a separate camera set to black & white to snap a few photos here and there. The photo shoot was not in black & white. Except for the clothes they are wearing.
If you are wondering how many black & white photos I took last week to get one submission for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE… the answer is…
Although to be transparent, somewhere on Tuesday I knew the basic setup of the picture I was going to use for my submission. So you could say I took that image and then over 800 safeties.
Black & White Week has concluded. But remember.
There was nothing wrong with this website. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. I am controlling transmission. If I wish to make it louder, I will bring up the volume. If I wish to make it softer, I will tune it to a whisper. I will control the horizontal. I will control the vertical. I can roll the image, make it flutter. I can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For this last week, you sat quietly and I controlled all that you saw and heard. There is nothing wrong with this website. You participated in a great adventure. You experienced the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… Black & White Week.
I now return control of this website (not really) to you, until next year, when the Control Voice will take you to Black & White Week!
This collection of alternate images for last week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE will include pictures I took on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. Most of them I took on my lunch break from the computer mine on Wednesday. I went to downtown Ames to talk to Derrick about the upcoming football game on Saturday, but he was actually at the bank. So I did wander around a little bit and do some street photography.
I got stuck working late yet again on Wednesday night, so I didn’t take many pictures in the evening.
Here is the collection of images from Wednesday:
On Thursday I woke up to a foggy morning. I had to work at the Computer Mine worldwide headquarters. So I snapped some pictures on the way there. Then I snapped a few pictures at work and then did some shopping after work. Then took a few more when I got home.
Here are the Thursday pictures:
A lot of examples in this collection for why I love black & white photography so much. Or one of the reasons. There is just so much play in the exposure control that you get with black & white that you don’t get with color photography. Which isn’t to say that it is less demanding, because if anything, it can be more demanding. However, there is so much latitude in exposure and some of the things that can destroy a color photo like grain (or digital noise) can actually enhance a black & white image.
4 days down, but believe you me… we are just starting to get warmed up.
Seems like a good time to clean up the July backlog. This collection of images was taken in July of last year, but never really found a spot in a previous “An Artist’s Notebook” entry. Some pictures are of a storm. Some are from the Boone County Fair. Some are of a baby bird, or an immature bird. Some are from Dahlia’s birthday party.
Always feels good to get a little bit of that backlog cleared out.