Time to reveal the December image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. The final image. DECEMBER – 2026 The subject of the December image is me holding a candle during the Candlelight Service at Boone First United Methodist Church. I’m kind of a man’s man. No collar worker with blue… Read More »Des Moining III
Time to reveal the November image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. NOVEMBER – 2026 The subject of the November image is a water lily I found at the Des Moines Botanical Garden. I am a proud member of the Iowa Arboretum and with that membership I can get in… Read More »WPC – WEEK 539 – ENTERTAINMENT
Time to reveal the October image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. The subject of the October image was taken of the Cliffs of Moher. The time of day we visited the Cliffs of Moher it was just crazy with people. You couldn’t throw a dead cat without hitting 20… Read More »State Fairin’: Trip 2
Time to reveal the May image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. MAY – 2026 Technical Details The subject of the May image is a spider sculpture in the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in Des Moines. This is one of those pictures that when I distributed the calendars I learned that… Read More »Selfie Project – December 2025
Time to reveal the Mach image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. MARCH – 2026 Technical Details This picture is the ocean view looking back from the ocean view of the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. If I was forced to pick my favorite part of the Ireland trip, I… Read More »State Fairin’: Trip 1
Time to reveal the January image for the 2026 Photography 139 Calendar. JANUARY – 2026 Technical Details The subject for the January image is the rotunda of the Iowa Capital. It is a part of a series of the Iowa Capital photos called “Where Basic Human Rights Go to Die”.… Read More »Philadelphia Day 2: I Didn’t Hear No Bell
Every last 2026 Photography 139 calendar has been distributed as of roughly 5:30 PM last night. So now is a good time to start sharing the images from this year’s calendar. We will start with the front cover. FRONT COVER – 2026 Technical Details The subject of the picture is… Read More »525,600 Minutes – 2025 Year in Review
Back in June I went down to Des Moines with Teresa. The ultimate goal was to hit the Greek Food Fair, but we also went to the Downtown Des Moines Famer’s Market and the Capital Pride Event. It was a pretty fantastic day. Here is the first collection of images… Read More »Des Moining I
We made it! We finally have gotten to the food adventure where Jesse got injured. This was a bucket list item for me this year and one of only a couple I actually managed to do. One was the Decorah pizza farm. Another was Stroud’s Chicken. Then there was this… Read More »#LakeLife: Jackson County Field Work
It is Week 3 of Advent and I would once again like to light a virtual calendar and use the script for it from the book we are using for our Advent Season at Boone First United Methodist Church this year. The book is “The Redemption of Scrooge” by Matt… Read More »The Swell Season Road Trip
Day 2 in Philadelphia was supposed to be the first day of work. It wasn’t real clear in the early morning if we would work or when we would work. It was dependent on when the contractors got finished putting the Computer Mine Booth together. Fortunately for us, they didn’t… Read More »Philadelphia Day 2: City Hall
The second day of December. No better day to share THE SELFIE PROJECT images from November. Once again, my travel was pretty minimal. I think the farthest I made it from my front step was Des Moines. Gross. But I promise that I will do better in December! Here are… Read More »Selfie Project – November 2025
Give me space from the distance, a break in the silenceA face to the surface and open my eyesGive me words with a purpose that hurt us and burn usFor brittling, kindling, tumbleweed lies She pulled my eye and touched me twiceI froze when I felt the connecting of wiresSo… Read More »Anniversary
After the late night with Sarah and Tim was over, we went back to Newark. Crashed. Woke up in the morning. Ate breakfast. Took the shuttle to the airport. Flew to Chicago. Flew back to Fort Dodge. Drove home. I got to see Bokeh again. I loved Ireland. I loved… Read More »Travel Home Day 2
The first day of November No better day to share THE SELFIE PROJECT images from October. Once again, my travel was pretty minimal. I think the farthest I made it from my front step was Des Moines. Gross. But I promise that I will do better in November! Here are… Read More »Selfie Project – October 2025
Day 5 in Ireland. We took a different route on this day than the others. Rather than driving somewhere, we decided to take a tour bus over to Galway via the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren. We got on the same tour bus with Jon and Angie and kind… Read More »Ireland Day 5
Last time we left off we were walking to the stadium for the game. Our good friends from the Luas told us to just follow the canal and we would get there. We should have followed their advice. We followed the canal most of the way, but then we started… Read More »Ireland Day 4: Part 2
Day 4 in Ireland. This was the actual day of the game. We weren’t exactly sure how to get into the game. The stadium is in the middle of a neighborhood and doesn’t really have much parking next to it. We knew we were going to take a train, but… Read More »Ireland Day 4: Part 1
On Wednesday, the Iowa Pork Producers Association released the finalists for this years Iowa’s Best Breaded Pork Tenderloin. For us blue-collar-to-no-collar folks this is the equivalent to the Beard Awards or Michelin stars. You can have your fancy pants restaurants. Give me a pork tenderloin, a side of onion rings,… Read More »Ireland Day 3
The first day of October! No better day to share THE SELFIE PROJECT images from September. I freely confessed that I struggled with the project this month. Often forgetting to take my selfie until the last minute. I was insanely busy for parts of September, but I didn’t really go… Read More »Selfie Project – September 2025
Since we’ve cleared up the entire 2024 backlog, time to start hammering away at the 2025 backlog. Here is a collection of images from January that never fit into any previous “An Artist’s Notebook” posts. Some of them are just of my outdoor Christmas tree decorations, but others are alternates… Read More »And I Showed You Stars