Category Archives: WPC

A Spectacle Monopolized

April 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 5 Comments

Since Monday’s reveal of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE submissions I have been flooded (virtually) with questions about what Naima listens to when she has her headphones on.

To be honest, she doesn’t listen to music on headphones. She finds them to be incredibly uncomfortable, as the pictures below will surely indicate.

but when she does listen to music it is usually angry political driven music like Public Enemy or Rage Against the Machine or early N.W.A. or the Dead Kennedys. She thinks it is disgraceful that Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans. She thinks it is horrible that the richest 5% of Americans own 67% of the wealth. That is is atrocious that the richest 1% own more than half of stock and less than 5% of debt.

If dogs ran things, this type of wealth inequality (which is completely unsustainable) would never happen.

She also enjoys Thelonious Monk, Led Zeppelin, and Lecrae.

But what was she listening to on the headphones. Her favorite podcast: “Pod Save America”.

As you can see, she is not a fan of headphones.

Andy, Angie, Becky, Cathie, Elizabeth, Kim, Michelle, Micky, Monica, Naima, Shannon, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 240 – EARS

April 20, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Going to start today with a quote. Those of you who get it, will get it. Those of you that don’t, ask somebody:

“I think we should legalize marijuana in this country. Just so potheads have nothing to talk about ever again.”
-Daniel Tosh

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WooHoo!! 29 straight weeks of double digit submissions!! I didn’t even send out any text message reminders this morning. Maybe it is the better weather. Maybe it is the quarantine. Maybe it is the fact that almost everybody has access to ears. But I had received double digit submissions by 7 AM this morning.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Angie DeWaard

Michelle Haupt

Tamara Peterson

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Becky Parmelee

Christopher D. Bennett

Kim Barker

Micky Augustin

Elizabeth Nordeen

Andy Sharp

Kim Barker

Elizabeth Nordeen

Cathie Raley

Monica Henning

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:

NOSE

NOSE! What a great theme! What is a NOSE picture? A picture of a NOSE. That is really it. Almost everybody has one and everybody has access to a NOSE.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

The picture has to be taken the week of the theme. This isn’t a curate your pictures challenge. This is a get your butt off the couch (my personal experience) and put your camera in your hands challenge. Don’t send me a picture of you next to the Eiffel Tower, when I know you were in Iowa all week. I will point out that I have let that slide some in the past. I will not in the future. Since it is literally about the only rule.

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.

I now allow people to text me their submissions. In the past, I had made exceptions for a couple people that aren’t real computer savvy, even though it was an inconvenience for me and required at least 3 extra steps for me. I am now lifting that embargo because I have a streamline way of uploading photos. I’m not giving out my phone number, but if you have it, you can text me.

It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very nosy Monday!

Animals, Naima, WPC - Reminder

Wild Goose Chase

April 17, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Delving into the 2019 backlog. This is a collection of pictures that span a couple different trips to Dickcissel Park with Naima. Most of the pictures are from the second trip where we encountered a wounded goose.

The goose had been injured some way above its leg. It was out there for a couple more days, but then it was gone. I’d like to think that it recovered enough and eventually flew off. I didn’t find any signs of a struggle or goose remains any way and every time I saw the goose, it was hunkered down in the same location.

While there is a fair chance it eventually became victim of a predator, it did have a pretty good system of working its way out onto the pond on the thin ice. Too thin for a creature that weighed much more than it to get to it.

Here are some pictures:

This is a meaningless statistic, but it is a huge milestone for the backlog. I am now down to two rows of folders to curate!

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A reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is EARS:

EARS

An EARS photo is any picture that involves EARS or things that are used by EARS.

Happy photo harvesting!

Andy, Art, Bill, Birthdays, Carla, Cathie, Dawn, Elizabeth, Faust, Jesse, Jodie Cue, Joe Duff, Kim, Michelle, Micky, Monica, Naima, Railroad, Shannon, Tamara, Teresa, Vest, Willy, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 239 – ART

April 13, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I need to start today by wishing the happiest of birthdays to Faust!

It has been a couple of years since I saw Faust in person. When this virus passes, he will be on the shortlist of people I need to go visit. And not just because he lives in close proximity to a sweet Godzilla statue.

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We did it again! 28 straight weeks of double digit submissions! Woohoo! Apparently a lot of you have ART in their lives. Which is why Obama once said, “The arts are what makes life worth living. You’ve got food, you’ve got shelter, yeah. But the things that make you laugh, make you cry, make you connect – make you love are communicated through the arts. They aren’t extras.”

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates! You came to see the submissions:

Katelyn and Aubrey Augustin

Andy Sharp

Dawn Krause

Kim Barker

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Michelle Haupt

Tamara Peterson

Christopher D. Bennett

Carla Stensland

Teresa Kahler

Joe Duff

Bill Wentworth

Elizabeth Nordeen

Cathie Raley

Micky Augustin

Mike Vest

Jodie Cue

Monica Henning

EARS

EARS! What a great theme! But what is an EARS picture? An EARS picture is any picture of EARS or something that is affiliated with EARS. Like headphones or hearing aids. Remember, there is more than one kind of EARS and I’m not just talking about how frogs hear with their lungs.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.

It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very eerie Monday!

Art, Nature, WPC - Reminder

Luna

April 10, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Happy Good Friday everybody! Good Friday was frequently my least favorite worship service, but every once in awhile I really got something out of it. I guess I’ll have to wait another year to see what Pastor Dave has in store for his Good Friday Service.

You may recall that we had a full moon on Tuesday night. I didn’t get out to photograph, but I photographed it on Wednesday night. What is interesting about this picture is the lens that I used.

It is a 400mm lens that belonged to my dad. Attached to the lens is a 2x teleconverter, that makes it an 800mm lens. I then attached it to my 77ii and took a few pictures of the moon.

Now these aren’t the sharpest full moon pictures you will ever see, because there is always a bit of image quality lost when you use a teleconverter, but the important thing to know about these 2 pictures I’m going to share is that they aren’t cropped. This is how close to the moon I can get with that setup. Wish I would’ve thought of this sooner.

I’ll go more into depth about this 400mm lens when when I go through a detailed listing of the lenses I own. You’ll just have to wait.

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is ART:

ART

An ART picture is any picture of a piece of ART or objects that are used in creating ART. A confident person would just argue that any picture they take is a piece of ART.

Happy photo harvesting!

Black & White, Naima, Running, Willy, WPC - Alternate

Chewed Up and Spit Out and Booed Off Stage

April 7, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

This collection of images from the 2019 backlog are from December. The pictures of Naima I took out at her favorite stomping grounds, Dickcissel Park. The pictures of Willy are from track at Goeppinger Field. The Willy pictures are alternates for the THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme of SPORTS/GAMES.

Chewed Up and Spit Out and Booed Off Stage

Really making good time on this backlog thing now!

Andy, Angie, Art, Becky, Carla, Dawn, Jen, Jodie Cue, Kim, Micky, Monica, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 238 – GOVERNMENT

April 6, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

As we get deeper and deeper into quarantine, I think that there is a chance that participation rates will decline. However, this week, we did manage to make it all the way to 27 straight weeks of double digit submissions! WooHoo!

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Jen Ensley-Gorshe

Micky Augustin

Andy Sharp

Carla Stensland

Kim Barker

Monica Henning

Tamara Peterson

Christopher D. Bennett

Jodie Cue

Dawn Krause

Carla Stensland

Angie DeWaard

Becky Parmelee

ART! What a great theme! But what is ART?

Here are a few observations on ART from experts:

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
-Leonard da Vinci

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
-Thomas Merton

“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“All art requires courage.”
-Anne Tucker

“I shut my eyes in order to see.”
-Paul Gauguin

“Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”
-Johnathan Swift

and of course the quote that is the tagline for this website:

“Art is a lie that enables us to see the truth.”
-Pablo Picasso

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.

It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION
Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very artistic Monday!

Black & White, Macro, Music, Naima, Photoshop, Still Life, WPC - Alternate, WPC - Reminder

The Numbing Sensation of Everything

April 3, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I took several pictures of my sad, pathetic, battered, old trombone. These are the ones that didn’t make the big cut for the big show on Monday.

That poor trombone should probably go in the trash, but I worry that the trash man wouldn’t even accept it.

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is GOVERNMENT:

GOVERNMENT

A GOVERNMENT photo is any photo that has anything to do with the GOVERNMENT. Any level of GOVERNMENT. From a county hospital to a city park to federal highway.

Happy photo harvesting!

Aaron, Andy, Angie, Carla, Dawn, Elizabeth, Kim, Micky, Monica, Music, Shannon, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 237 – MUSIC

March 30, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Wow! 26 straight weeks of double digits! I’m so impressed!

But you didn’t come her to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Andy Sharp

Monica Henning

Elizabeth Nordeen

Kim Barker

Dawn Krause

Angie DeWaard

Aaron Barnett

Carla Stensland

Christopher D. Bennett

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Aaron Barnett

Micky Augustin

GOVERNMENT

GOVERNMENT! What a great theme! But what is a GOVERNMENT image? A GOVERNMENT image is any image that relates to the GOVERNMENT. Which is actually more than you think. The police. GOVERNMENT. Firefighters. GOVERNMENT. Military. GOVERNMENT. Stop sign. GOVERNMENT. City park. GOVERNMENT. State park. GOVERNMENT. You get the idea.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations.

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HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

Your submission needs to be emailed to bennett@photography139.com by 11 AM on the Monday of the challenge due date.

It should be pointed out that this blog auto-publishes at 12:01 on Mondays. So it wouldn’t hurt to get your picture in earlier.

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Nobody showed class, taste, and sophistication this week by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. I’ll try and do better next week.

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That’s all I got for today, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will commune right here again next Monday. Hopefully it will be a very governed Monday!

Animals, Macro, WPC - Reminder

White Anglo Saxon Protestant

March 27, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

You know, I thought that the hatred that some of the men I know, the ones that suffer from toxic masculinity, have for flower pictures was borderline obscene. That was I encountered the irrational hatred of my wasp photography.

They are fascinating, beautiful creatures. Learn to love them. Unless you’re allergic. Then learn to love them from a distance. A good distance.

But for all the haters that never gave a young wasp a chance to shine, I say “Peace” and this is the final set of wasp pictures from 2019. We out!

Drops mic.

Pick mic back up.

Seriously. You know what a bee does when it stings you? Rips out its butthole and dies*.

You know what a wasp does when it stings you? “It says, I’m just getting started son.”

I’ll just close with a joke:

A wasp expert walks into a record shop

He goes to the owner and asks if they have the new edition of wasp sounds 2020.

The record shop owner says that they have it in stock and asks if the wasp expert would like to listen too it before he buys.

The wasp expert agrees and the record is placed on the record player.
The pin goes down and all of a sudden a horrible buzzing noise emits from the machine.

The wasp expert is horrified stating that in all his years of being a wasp expert, he has never heard anything as far from wasp sounds in his life.

The record shop owner looks confused until he notices something.

“Sorry” says the record shop owner, “I was playing it on the bee side!”

Drops mic again.

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This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is MUSIC:

MUSIC

A MUSIC photo is any photo of MUSIC being created or played or of anything that might be used to create or play MUSIC.

Happy photo harvesting!

*Yes, I know this is only honey bees.