Today I’m going to share some pictures I took of Jesse in a culvert that goes under the Senholz Trail near Linwood Cemetery. These pictures were alternates for Week 268 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. The theme was FRAMED:
This originally was going to start out a burning steel wool picture, but Jesse broke the lighter, but in the end, I am very pleased with the images we made on the fly.
I need to start out by wishing a Happy Valentine’s Day to everybody that celebrates today.
Now, I know that there are a ton of people out there that are violently opposed to Saint Valentine’s Day. They call it a holiday invented by candy companies and the florist industry designed to make a large portion of the population feel lonely. I mean a holiday celebrated by eating candy and having flowers to photograph? Sounds like an amazing holiday to me! But, Valentine didn’t get beat to death with clubs and then have his head cut off, just for candy. He did that for love!
And loneliness? Almost a year into a pandemic, loneliness sounds underrated.
Since Photography 139 is if nothing else, a romantic website, on this day that celebrates love, I thought I would share the text from one of the most famous love letters in history. A love letter that was written by Beethoven and discovered by one of Beethoven’s friends shortly after his death. It was hidden in a secret drawer in his wardrobe. There is still debate to this day, about who the letter was written to. While there are actually 3 unsent letters, I’m going to share just the last one:
Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — yes, I regret, it must be. You will get over it all the more as you know my faithfulness to you; never another one can own my heart, never — never! O God, why must one go away from what one loves so, and yet my life in W. as it is now is a miserable life. Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time. At my actual age I should need some continuity, sameness of life — can that exist under our circumstances? Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day — and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm — love me — today — yesterday.
What longing in tears for you — You — my Life — my All — farewell. Oh, go on loving me — never doubt the faithfullest heart
Of your beloved
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours
I hope that puts a little love in your heart, thinking about good old Ludwig Van! I know it does mine!
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Back before Anela was born, I went to McFarland Park with Alexis, Kupono, and Kanoa to do some pregnancy pictures of Alexis. Here are some of my favorites from the second collection of the photo shoot:
There are still at least one more collection of photos from this photo shoot. Most likely two!
This is the final collection of pictures from when I went to Manhattan to take pictures of the triplets near their second birthday. Chaos! That is the only way to really describe what a photo session with 3 two year-olds with their own agenda. I should have brought a photo assistant, but that certainly isn’t the easiest thing to do in a pandemic. However, in the future, I am going to try to get Alexis to come with me for all family portrait shoots. She has a great eye for the part of portrait photography that I generally fail at. Posing people. I don’t know that she will want to go on 10 hour car rides, but I’ll figure out a way to make it worth her while.
Here are the remainder of the Miller pictures:
A picture that proves sometimes, there are no rules in photography.
Hopefully we have another great photo session when they get ready to turn 3!
I thought I would have posted the second and last collection of pictures of Amanda and Logan well before, but life happens. So here is the rest of the images of Amanda and Logan before she gave birth to Dahlia shortly thereafter:
I look forward to a day when we can take a family picture with all the new additions!
August 9, 2006. That was the date where I first took keyboard in hand and began typing out the blog that I entitled “An Artist’s Notebook”. I entitled that first post “First Journal Entry”. The categories for that first post were “Blogging”, “Contests”, “Jay”, and “Sara”.
This is the first paragraph I posted:
So here is the first journal entry. I felt like having as pretentious sounding name as possible for my journal. I have a few goals about this journal. My main goal is just to actually write in it. My second goal is to be as truthful as possible towards my true thoughts and feelings. I have another journal on another website, but it is really just a collection of sarcastic statements and cheap jabs at open faced sandwiches. This journal is meant to be about what my achievements and failures are in the world of art. What projects I am working on and what I have accomplished and what I have failed to accomplish. What I am photographing and what I am thinking about entering in photo contests. What I am thinking about. It might not always make sense. It might just be things I need to write down because they strike me as poignant or inspirational. This is in a small way an online “idea box”.
Then it goes on to talk about how I attended the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon Reception with Sara to see what two pictures had been accepted for display that year. Then I would go on to talk about how Jay had talked me into entering the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.
The last line of the entry was simply:
I don’t want to mail it in.
While I was actually referencing the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest, it is my hope that I also didn’t choose to “mail it in” as it pertains to “An Artist’s Notebook”.
It has been 5,276 days since that first post. 5,276 days to reach this day and the 4,000th post in this blog, or “online journal” like I sometimes call it when I don’t like calling it a blog. It is hard to believe I have made it this far, for this long.
It hasn’t been necessarily smooth sailing the whole time. My website has been through a couple different servers. I have been through a couple different hosts for the blog part of the website. I have been through 4 (I think) different image hosting options in those 5,275 days. That jumping around for image hosting solutions did cause the problem that images from my posts from the first few years of this website’s existence have had to be “restored” slowly over time. So far I have semi-successfully restored all the entries though June of 2010. Which means, I still have a full year’s worth of entries left to restore. Somewhere in 2011, was when I fully made the move to my current SmugMug image hosting solution. I have unfortunately lost a few images, probably forever, mostly old phone pictures, but those old posts are as complete as they will ever be.
When I hit these milestones, I like to publish a lot of fairly meaningless stats. This one will be no different. So, here are the “An Artist’s Notebook” categories that I have used the most often:
#8. WPC – Submissions – 381 Entries
#5. WPC – Submissions – 381 Entries
People often ask what is the best way to improve their Photography 139 Category Score. The easiest way is to submit pictures to THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE. But posing for and assisting me with photo project or photo adventures is also a very good way.
What people have a shot at cracking the Top Ten by the time we hit Post #5,000? Kim, Sara, Logan, and Micky all have a shot. But 1,000 posts is a long ways away. So anybody has a shot!
But what are the Ten Most Popular Photo Galleries in Photography 139 history? Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question. I can only process stats up to 365 days ago. However, I can tell you the Ten Most Popular Photo Galleries of the last 365 Days are.
Click on the image to peruse that gallery.
#2. Christopher D. Bennett – 41080 Views
#3. 9 Emotions Project – 36972 Views
#4. Taylan Howard – 2020 – 34075 Views
#5. Daisies – 26800 Views
#6. Drone – 24659 Views
#7. Weekly Photo Challenge – HOF – 24603 Views
#8. Family Happenings – 18,231 Views
#9. Alexis Pregnancy Photo Shoot – 2020 – 17057 Views
#10. Black Lives Matter – Boone – 2020 – 16160 Views
#2. 3153 Views
#3. 2460 Views (Photo by Logan Kahler)
#4. 2228 Views
#5. 2127 Views
#6. 2111 Views
#7. 1971 Views
#8. 1916 Views
#9. 1891 Views
#10. 1830 Views
Now the secret to the popularity of some of these images is that they are cover photos for albums, but shhhh… don’t tell anybody!
Another category of meaningless statistics, I’d like to share is what have been the most popular posts since the inception of “An Artist’s Notebook”. Although it might not be the most accurate way to judge such things, the only statistic I can use to judge this is “Comments” left on each post. That doesn’t mean emails or text messages or comments I received in person. These are comments that were left in the Comments section of each post.
#2. Weekly Photo Challenge – Week 9 – Food – 22 Comments
#2. Weekly Photo Challenge – Week 43 – Sunrise/Sunset – 22 Comments
#4. Town Sign Project: Hamilton County – 21 Comments
#4. Town Sign Project: Dallas County – 21 Comments
#6. Postcard Recreation Project: Some Churches – 20 Comments
#6. Rodan139: Swede Valley Lutheran Church – 20 Comments
#8. Will History Blame Me… – 19 Comments
#9. Yo, Ya Just Get in that, You Get in that Head Space, Ya Know – 15 Comments
#9. You Can Call it a Comeback – 15 Comments
#9. Wild Goose Chase – 15 Comments
#9. Sorry Not Sorry – 15 Comments
One thing to note is that each “An Artist’s Notebook” entry has its Comments section close 30 days after being posted. Some of those still have a chance to grow, but most have been locked into place forever.
The last statistic I want to share before closing out Post #4,000 is kind of a loyalty score. To even be considered for this list, you first have to have a Photography 139 Email Subscription. The following is a statistic based on “loyalty” for lack of a better term to that service.
1. Michelle Haupt – 99%
2. Joe Duff – 97%
3. Shannon Bardole-Foley – 94%
4. Sara Lockner – 90%
5. Corey Faust – 89%
Thanks to everybody that has supported this adventure for 14 years, 5 months, and now 10 days!
A couple months back I met Alexis at McFarland Park to take some pictures of her shortly before she gave birth to Anela. While 2020 was a cesspool of terrible, I did add two great-nieces to my family. In Anela and Dahlia. Here is the first collection of Alexis pregnancy pictures:
As always, with my luck with portraits, the lighting was brutal, but yet I feel still like we did some good work. There is more of pregnant Alexis on the way. Kupono and Kanoa will even show up eventually.
All the pictures in the folder 2010-06-05 are pictures of Derrick and Jen while Jen was pregnant with Evie. This was a part of a series of images we took to document Jen’s pregnancy as part of a PERSONAL PHOTO PROJECT.
Here are some of those images:
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:
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve lightning and roses and art on a train bridge.
The January image of the 2021 Photography 139 Calendar was taken in lower Ledges. It was taken on January 4, 2020. It was taken shortly after a recent snow fall. One sad part about the printed version of this picture in the calendar is that the picnic table gets cut off where the pages are bound.
Here are some of the details of the picture:
DETAILS
CAMERA: SONY ILCA-77M2
LENS: DT 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 SAM
FOCAL LENGTH: 20mm (30mm in 35mm)
APERTURE: f/6.3
EXPOSURE: 1/250
ISO: 100
LATITUDE: 41.99793
LONGITUDE: -93.88033
+++++++
Back in August at Kanoa’s Birthday Party he also “posed” for some more formal portraits. Here are some of my favorites:
You’d be surprised to know how much Photoshop was used on this picture to remove Johnathan.
If you want to peruse the rest of the Kanoa pictures, click on the link below:
Not getting to see Kanoa very much is just one of the many things that suck about this mismanaged pandemic. But hopefully I’ll get to see him more in 2021.
Today I want to share a few photos I took of Amanda and Logan a couple weeks before Dahlia was born. These were taken out at Don Williams and They were definitely looking for some silhouette pictures. You’ll be able to tell that, I’m sure…
There is one more collection of images from this photo shoot still left to be curated.
When I got a refund for my Iowa State football season tickets back in August, I used the money and put it towards the purchase of a new lens. The biggest gap in my Sony mirrorless line up was what I would call a mid-telephoto lens. I don’t need a 400mm lens, yet. But something near a 200mm lens was definitely needed.
I considered about 4 or 5 different lenses before ultimately deciding on the Tamron 70-180 f/2.8. I was willing to sacrifice a bit on the length in exchange for have a consistent widest aperture of f/2.8. That was a pretty easy trade to make.
Here are some of the specs of the lens:
Specifications
Focal Length: 70-180mm
Maximum Aperture: f/2.8
Minimum Aperture: f/22
Angle of View: Diagonal: 34 Degree 21′ – 13 Degree 42′ (for full-frame mirrorless format
Minimum Object Distance: 33.5 inch.
Filter Size: 67mm
Here are some pictures of the lens:
I took a series of pictures to present an idea of the lenses reach. A 50mm lens is pretty close to way the naked eye sees the world. I took a picture with a 50mm lens and then a picture with the widest setting on the lens (70mm) and then the closest setting on the lens (180mm).
70mm at 5 yards
180mm at 5 yards
50mm at 10 yards
70mm at 10 yards
180mm at 10 yards
50mm at 25 yards
70mm at 25 yards
180mm at 25 yards
50mm at 50 yards
70mm at 50 yards
180mm at 50 yards
Here are a collection of the first images I took with the new lens:
It has been a few months since I bought a new lens. I’m starting to jones for one. Look, Lensbaby is having a sale!
