More from the backlog. Here are some pictures from when I went up to check out the Thomas the Tank festivities last September:
I was surprised to see Shorty there. I know how much he loves working the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad, but it was nearly 100 degrees. Didn’t seem to bother him at all.
The world wasn’t ready for these OLD/ELDERLY pictures on Monday. I’m not sure the world is ready for them now, but I can’t hold them back any longer.
Most of these pictures were taken at a Methodist Church. Either in Boone or Stratford.
You’re welcome world!
The world wasn’t ready for these alternates for last week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme RUINS. Not sure the world is ready yet, but I can’t hold them back any longer:
Most of these pictures were taken down at the Kate Shelley Museum in Moingona. For those of you from Minnesota, that is pronounced MON like the MON in MONtana. No MOYN like the MOINes in Des Moines. The Kate Shelley Museum is closed to the public while they try to raise money to fix it. However, considering the Historical Society’s current situation with the Eisenhower Birthplace, I can’t imagine it opening back up to the public at any point in the near future.
Sadly, even the outhouses (#outhousesofinstagram) are even closed. However, the trail to the Mill Creek Bridge seems to still be open.
The steps can be found near the intersection of US-30 and R18. Near there is where my Dad took his famous (if you ever went to the bathroom at 415 Greene Street) Mahaska Avenue Outhouse (#outhousesofinstagram) photo.
A friendly reminder that today is the last day to order a 2018 Photography 139 Calendar!
The price of the calendar is still $10. A veritable bargain in this climate of rising prices!
I’m sure you are ready to plunk down $10 or $20 or $30 based on the high quality product that has existed in the past. I would gladly take your money, sight unseen, but I would at least like to reveal what pictures are in the 2018 Calendar.
Have a look:
Each picture was aligned with the month it was taken in. Okay maybe a hair of finagling was done at that front… I’ll never tell… Even if the .exif data will.
The calendars are 17 x 11 inches in size when they are open.
Calendar comes with a free Christopher D. Bennett business card. Good for getting you out of any life or death situation involving Boone toughs.
If you wish to order a calendar or calendar(s), you may email me at:
If you live within reasonable driving distance (about 45 minutes from Boone’s Golden Circle) I can hand deliver the calendar free of charge.
If the calendar needs to be mailed, there will be a shipping and handling charge of some kind.
Order fast! Supplies are limited!
Thanks!
Christopher D. Bennett
Photography 139
CDO
Chairman of the Board
President
Vice-President
Director
Superintendent of Invention
I’m pleased to announce that the 2018 Photography 139 Calendar is now on sale! It will be in stock on December 13th and available for delivery following that date.
The price of the calendar is still $10. A veritable bargain in this climate of rising prices!
I’m sure you are ready to plunk down $10 or $20 or $30 based on the high quality product that has existed in the past. I would gladly take your money, sight unseen, but I would at least like to reveal what pictures are in the 2018 Calendar.
Have a look:
Each picture was aligned with the month it was taken in. Okay maybe a hair of finagling was done at that front… I’ll never tell… Even if the .exif data will.
The calendars are 17 x 11 inches in size when they are open.
If you wish to order a calendar or calendar(s), you may email me at:
If you live within reasonable driving distance (about 45 minutes from Boone’s Golden Circle) I can hand deliver the calendar free of charge.
If the calendar needs to be mailed, there will be a shipping and handling charge of some kind.
Order fast! Supplies are limited!
Thanks!
Christopher D. Bennett
Photography 139
CDO
Chairman of the Board
President
Vice-President
Director
Superintendent of Invention
I have a considerable backlog of images that I need to edit. Part of the problem is that I edit photos in 2 separate distinct locations and it is often difficult for me to figure out what I have edited in one location, but not the other. I have begun the process of mirroring these images in both locations so that I can actually make real head way on my back log. Plus, it should free up some valuable hard drive real estate in both locations.
Not to bore you with too many details, but the first step in this process involves tons or robocopy scripts AND an external hard drive.
And with that, here are some backlog images of Naima from February.
In addition to trying to get a better organizational grasp on my images that are physically in my possession, I’m also trying to get a better organization to my images that are in the SmugMug Gallery.
While it doesn’t help that effort, it is part of a slight re-design of the website. If you’ve been on the website lately you may have noticed some slight changes.
*The base color remains purple. It will always be purple. However, I got rid of some gold and green accent colors and replaced those with a silver and a light blue.
*I completely replaced the old headers with new headers.
*On the homepage, gone is the slide show of recent pictures added to the SmugMug Gallery. It has been replaced with a slide show of images submitted for The Weekly Photo Challenge.
There are some more changes coming, eventually. I’m looking to re-design every page from the About page to the Products page. I might even add a services page where I quote my prices. Like $75,000 to do a wedding on a Saturday that is an Iowa State home game. I hope you don’t think that prices me out of the market.
Here are a look at the current rotating headers on the website:
In the end, I hope to add about 15 more rotating headers to the slight website redesign.
The world wasn’t ready for these TRANSPORTATION pictures on Monday. I’m not 100% sure the world can handle them now, but I can’t hold them back any longer:
The night pictures were taken at McHose Park. The railroad bridge pictures are from west of Boone. There a couple photos from the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad. The final set of photos were taken at the Boone Airport at sunrise.
You’re welcome world.
This is your weekly reminder that this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE THEME is TRANSPORTATION!
TRANSPORTATION! An easy enough theme. Examples of TRANSPORTATION include a car. A train. A boat. A plane. Your feet. Roads. Railroad tracks. These are just the most literal examples.
Here are some examples of TRANSPORTATION photos:
Angie DeWaard
Bill Wentworth
Stephanie Kim
Shannon Bardole
Kim Barker
Monica Kewer
Happy photo harvesting!
On the last Saturday of my vacation I headed up to the downtown Boone area to stroll around and complete Page 33 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT:
This was a little photo experiment that I enjoyed more than I anticipated. I would encourage anybody to try it.
I put an 18-135 zoom lens on my camera for this page. I decided I needed the extra challenge of also zooming blindly, in addition to composing blind for some reason.
Another thing that I didn’t expect to be so hard about the project (for me personally) was to have to so blindly trust auto-focus.
If you are getting a little bored in your photography, I definitely urge you to try this for an hour or so. It is more fun than it sounds. One other added bonus is not seeing the pictures takes us old-timers back to the days of film and not being able to get that instant gratification of what the picture looks like.
Here are the other pictures I took on this photo jaunt that I like (to one degree or another) but won’t physically be placed in the physical copy of A PHOTO JOURNAL:
I did not crop or straighten any of the pictures.
Next time we check in with THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT we will most likely check in on Page 93.
Now that I’ve been back to reality for 7 days, probably a good time to go over my vacation.
FRIDAY
Left work at 4 PM or so. Vacation starts.
Had FNSC with Willy. Ate at Colorado Grill.
After Colorado Grill. Started watching a new show, NARCOS.
SATURDAY
Breakfast at Legal Limit with Mom.
Photography for Amber and Steve’s Wedding.
SUNDAY
Went to the Lutheran Church in Gilbert with Jesse and Nader to celebrate Nader’s 30th year in the United States.
Ate lunch at the church with some of the people that helped Nader when he got to the country.
Went to Gene’s farm to admire his car collection.
Sent this picture to Russell of Youth Nazis harassing this old woman.
Sent this picture to Logan because he sent me a picture trying to make me jealous of his lunch.
A Studebaker with an El Camino back.
Naima getting her pills.
Went to the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad and Shorty was there working it.
While this food stand looks awesome, the ice cream isn’t that great.
MONDAY
Loaded up Mom’s car and headed for Mount Rushmore.
Stopped in Sioux Falls for gas, human fuel, and Falls Park. It rained all the way to Sioux Falls.
Falls Park
Mom struggles with the selfie concept.
Confused by the bridge they built to seemingly just to wreck the view.
I wonder what this picture would look like with me in it.
Oh. Like that.
I give Falls Park the thumbs up. I’ll have to go back when I have more time at some point.
Stopped for gas again next to 1880 town.
Stopped at Wall Drug right before it closed.
Still don’t have the selfie thing down.
Free Water.
Pretty horrible restaurant across the street from Wall Drug.
I’d give Wall Drug the bird. Don’t waste your time. A bunch of touristy garbage with ridiculous hours.
Got to Rapid City and checked into a hotel with free WI-FI and continental breakfast.
TUESDAY
Got up in the morning and ate continental breakfast at the hotel. Had a lengthy conversation with two women from Arizona that came up there for the Buffalo Roundup.
Left for Mount Rushmore.
First view of Mount Rushmore
View from the parking lot.
One armed woman took this picture for us.
Getting better at the selfie game.
What Mount Rushmore was supposed to look like, but they had to stop because of WWII. Another thing we can blame on Hitler.
I give Mount Rushmore the thumbs up.
At the base of Mount Rushmore we ran into Brad Dighton. The cousin of a member of my church. He gave us several pro tips for the area. We weren’t able to get to all of them, but maybe next time.
One of his pro tips was take the Iron Mountain Road to Custer State Park.
All of these tunnels point back to Mount Rushmore. You can’t tell in the picture, but trust me.
I give the Iron Mountain Road the thumbs up.
Custer State Park is a great example of white privilege. I have no clue why a park is named after Custer. His 2 claims to fame are graduating last in his class at West Point and then getting his buttocks handed to him at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Custer Park (like the man) was more hype than pay off. We were told we would see hundreds of buffalo. We saw one. That being said, the feral donkeys and the prairie dogs made up for the lack of buffaloes.
I give Custer Park a thumbs up, but it didn’t live up to the hype.
After we left Custer, we went to Needles Highway.
Still working on the selfie game.
We’re starting to get there.
Needles Highway is a road about the width of McHose Park road, but with a 400 foot drop to your death on one side. It is amazing!
I give Needles Highway a big thumbs up!
After that we went to Hill City to eat lunch/dinner at a place recommended to us by Brad Dighton. That place was closed, so instead we dined at the Hill City Cafe.
We bought fudge there.
Hill City Cafe wasn’t terrible, but it certainly was not great. Thumb sideways.
After that, we went to the Crazy Horse Memorial.
Almost there!
We might’ve regressed on our selfie game.
I’d give Crazy Horse another big thumbs up! My only complaint is that all the information seems to be on the family carving the memorial and hardly anything on Crazy Horse himself. You know, the guy that ripped Custer’s buttocks off and handed them back to him. He took out Custer’s brothers while he was ate it. Crazy Horse was an OG.
Pro Tip: Pay for the $4 bus ride.
After leaving Crazy Horse, went back to Mount Rushmore for the lighting ceremony.
Paid and extra dollar for the Thomas Jefferson ice cream.
The lighting ceremony kind of drags on for awhile, but the part where they bring veterans on stage and take the flag down is powerful. While waiting (forever) for them to light up the mountain we became single serving friends with Lance Young. A former Iowa State wide receiver that played in the Dan MacCarney era.
After the lighting we went back to Rapid City and crashed.
WEDNESDAY
Got up in the morning and hit the continental breakfast. Hard. Going home day. No time for single serving friends. Ate and hit the road.
Stopped at Badlands National Park.
Still working on it.
I think we have it. At least we’re in striking distance.
Taken by a woman who was friendly, but strangely afraid of falling down the side to her death. She has no future as a Photography 139 Assistant!
“I’ll take one to the side and one of you in the middle.”
Not afraid of the edge. Pimp.
Badlands. 2 big thumbs up. They just need to work on their rattlesnake game.
Next stop on the way home was to see the Dignity Sculpture. It looks like the Big Jesus in Sioux City, only less creepy. I don’t have a picture with the cell phone, but when I unleash the camera pictures, there is one there.
The next stop was Mitchell. I was going to avoid the Corn Palace but it just lined up with when we needed gas and human fuel.
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER in corn. Well, I can’t hate that.
Mic Drop! I think we finally nailed it!
Last time I went to the Corn Palace, I gave it the bird. I’m going to upgrade it to just a thumbs down. It is worth seeing, if you don’t waste time going inside.
We stopped at a place called The Hungry Dog for lunch.
The Hungry Dog was by far the best eating experience of the trip. 6 out of 5 Stars!!! It only seats about 5 people on the inside and after the only employee took our order, made our food, and delivered it; she locked the door and told us she’d be right back. She had to go pick up her kids from school.
I loved every second of my experience!
The last stop of the evening was in Jefferson for gas and human fuel.
1424.3 miles in 3 days.
Then home for sleep.
THURSDAY
Did not much in the day. Hung up a bunch of pictures in my bedroom. Cleaned out the guest bedroom now that Alexis has moved out.
Picked Derrick up for the Iowa State game.
Well almost everything about that game sucked, except the company.
FRIDAY
I can’t remember next to anything that happened on Friday.
I visited Scottie D. to get a yard sign. He is running for City Council for Ward 5.
Also had FNSC with Willy. Think it was at Jimmy’s Barbecue.
SATURDAY
Don’t remember much about Saturday either.
Went uptown during YesterBoone to complete another page of the Photo Journal Project.
Went out to McHose Park and with Jesse’s assistance completed yet another page of the Photo Journal Project.
After that, we went to a Gender Reveal Party for one of the members of the Youth Group. It’s a Girl!!
Headed up to Jay’s for Chili Lab. Both Jay and Wily made great chilis and we enjoyed a viewing of KONG ISLAND.
SUNDAY
Got up and went to church at Boone First United Methodist Church.
Then lunch with the family.
Meeting for the Council to Elect Degeneffe.
Then I went to the Freedom Flight Send-off to see Jesse’s Dad.
Monica’s mom made a bouquet that they took with them to place on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Then I went home. Sat on my couch and soaked up the last few hours of vacation, before being back at the grind on Monday.
I’ve been back to work one week. Already fantasizing about the next time I dip my toes into the PTO pool.
