This is final collection of Iowa State Fair pictures from 2018. Published just in time for the close of the 2019 Iowa State Fair.
I’ll be spending the day at the Iowa State Fair solo today as all 4 of the people that were going to go with me all gave me the shaft. C’est la vie!
These pictures are from the day I went to the last day of the Fair to pick up my pictures from the Photography Salon. Nader and Jesse went with me on that day.
I’m already looking forward to the 2020 Fair.
You can still technically vote in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest Poll right now, but it will shut down at some point today. So if you haven’t voted yet, then you need to get on it.
By the time this post publishes, Baby Got Rack will have been judged and should be finding out where we placed in this year’s State Fair Barbecue Contest sponsored by some insurance company that I can never remember because it isn’t my insurance company. I insure with American Family Insurance. I don’t necessarily endorse them because I’ve literally never had an interaction with them. I pay them. They take my money. I’ve never made a claim. Car or house. It is a good relationship. So far.
Unlike Bank of the West. It is a matter of time before I dump that awful bank. I just haven’t figured out where to go. I prefer to bank in Boone and I’ve been considering credit unions lately, but there isn’t a credit union in Boone. So I just sit and stew about Bank of the West and their terrible customer service. This is why I should have never went to direct deposit for day job’s paycheck. Even though I’m sure they would have just forced me to do it at some point by now. I wonder if they would direct deposit my paycheck in a rusty coffee can buried in my backyard. Don’t laugh. That rusty coffee can gives me the same customer service as Bank of the West. Probably more.
Any way, go vote in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest poll if you haven’t. I’m not providing you a link. You should have figured it out by now.
Here are some pictures of animals from last year’s Iowa State Fair:
There are about 3 collections of Iowa State Fair pictures left to share. By my calculations at least.
Reminder, there are 6 days left to vote for the pictures I enter in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.
If voting for 6 photos at one time is too much for you, you can vote for my Photoshop entry below:
If you are ready to vote in all 6 polls, click on the link below:
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Here is another collection of pictures from the 2018 Indianola Balloon Thingie:
There is one more collection of pictures from the day.
Before we get into pictures from the Indianola Balloon Festival I want to point out that I have been tinkering with the way that the blog comes to the inbox of Photography 139 email subscribers. If you have a gmail email account, you should have noticed the change starting on Tuesday. Rather than getting provided with a link to see the blog post, it should be arriving in your inbox in their entirety. People with other types of email accounts should be seeing this change in the near future as well.
Last year I went to the Indianola Balloon Festival with Carla and my Mom. It was the first time had actually been there and it was pretty cool. It doesn’t look like I’m going to make it there this year, but hopefully make it again in the future. I still have a goal of actually going on a hot air balloon ride at some point.
Plenty more hot air balloon pictures in the hopper!
WARNING: THERE ARE BOTH LEGITIMATELY DISTURBING IMAGES AND DEPICTIONS OF THE FEMALE BODY IN THE NUDE. IF THAT ISN’T YOUR CUP OF TEA, FEEL FREE TO SKIP STRAIGHT PAST TODAY’S BLOG
NO SERIOUSLY. NORMALLY WHEN I PUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS UP, THE DISTURBING IMAGE IS A PICTURE OF AN IOWA HAWKEYE FAN OR NEBRASKA BUGEATER FAN OR A KANSAS JAYHAWK FAN. THAT ISN’T THE CASE THIS TIME. USUALLY WHEN I WARN THAT THERE IS A DEPICTION OF NUDITY, IT A PICTURE OF A FLOWER CALL “THE NAKED LADY” OR A TASTEFUL DEPICTION OF THE FEMALE FORM IN ART. THIS ISN’T EITHER OF THOSE THINGS.
SO WHY AM I POSTED SUCH THINGS? WELL, I SAW THEM, SO I’M SHARING THE PAIN.
On Saturday I turned in my pictures for the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon. Which means that the Boone County Fair is right around the corner. When I get back from the mission trip you can bet dollars to donuts that I will be putting out a poll where you guts get to select the pictures I enter into the Boone County Fair photography “contest”.
Since I got the Boone County Fair is on my mind, it is as good a time as any to publish some random Boone County Fair images from 2018. I think I took most of these pictures for different pages in THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT and then decided not to use them.
NOW IS YOUR TIME TO STOP IF DISTURBING IMAGES DISTURB YOU…
Although I don’t watch many any longer, many a high school night was spent with a bunch of friends in a now condemned house watching horror movies. To this day I can quote you chapter and verse from the books of Jason Voorhees to Michael Meyers. But I don’t think I would have ever desired a vehicle decorated in such a manner.
That being said, the artist is very skilled.
A couple Saturdays back I went to downtown Ames to watch Evie’s piano recital, making her the third Gorshe I have now seen in concert. just 3 more to go and I will have collected the entire set. Although I think it will be awhile before the twins are ready to tackle the music scene.
I arrived at the concert venue about 45 minutes early, so I figured I would knock out Pages 74 & 75 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT.
Pages 74 & 75 are to make “A record of interesting backgrounds that I can return to later should I need to shoot someone’s portrait.”
There are spots for 11 of these backgrounds in the physical PHOTO JOURNAL. As you will quickly find out, I’m partial to brick walls. Decrepit brick walls.
This wall is actually in Boone.
Plenty more from THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT coming this week!
…the strength of street knowledge.
I don’t usually take a bunch of extra pictures for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE any longer, but with a theme like STREET PHOTOGRAPHY, it really screamed to take a ton of images. So that is what I did.
On Saturday morning I went down to the Des Moines Farmer’s Market with my Mom. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY is supposed to be kind of activity where you just take pictures quickly. I set my camera on High Contrast Monochrome and just snapped when I saw something I liked. Kind of a second homage to “The Americans”, like the one I did for THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT.
Here are some of my favorites from Saturday:
I do love STREET PHOTOGRAPHY. It is one of my favorite themes every year.
We hit double digits for, we’ll call it, the 5th week in a row. STREET PHOTOGRAPHY was a surprisingly popular theme even though it is a type of photography that can often put people outside of their comfort zone.
This week, the Photography 139 Weekly Photo Challenge Empire extended as far east as New York City and as far west as Los Angeles. A good great deal farther than Cersei Lannister’s current empire.
But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions!
Cathie Raley
Christopher D. Bennett
Cathie Raley
Jodie Cue
Jodie Cue
Jodie Cue
Kim Barker
Kim Barker
Kim Barker
Stephanie Kim
Micky Augustin
Linda Bennett
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:
RURAL! What a great theme! But what is a RURAL photograph? A RURAL image would be an image that “relates to the countryside, rather than the town”. As always, I look forward to seeing your interpretations!
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. 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 rural Monday.
For the first time, in something like 15-20 years I went to the Boone County Fair Parade. The original idea was that these pictures would be for THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. They were going to be for the page that was something-like “Take a picture that is outside of your comfort zone.”
I decided, at the time, that while I find parades extremely boring, they aren’t exactly outside of my comfort zone. There are few things where enjoyment varies more from engaging and activity to watching an activity. Fireworks is one. Baseball is another example. But parades might be the most extreme example. Being in a parade is a blast. Watching a parade is aigo;nngb[uion jk kakb aejkn…
Sorry, even typing the words caused me to nod off and faceplant into my keyboard.
Here are some pictures from the parade:
The picture that ultimately was taken for that page was a picture at a wrestling tournament. While I might find parades boring, I’m completely out of my element at a wrestling meet. I’m still not sure what happened there.
The photos in the folder titled 2009-02-03 are from when the building on the northwest corner of Story and 8th Street burned down.
I don’t remember how I was tipped off to this fire going on, but I was able to roll out of bed, snap a few photos and then roll on to the Computer Mine to get to work.
It turns out that I never published these pictures on “An Artist’s Notebook”. Although I did include one of the images in The 2010 Photography 139 Calendar. I might have entered it in a photo contest once as well, but I’m not really sure about that.
Here are a few pictures from that event:
Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane involve a trip to Arizona. Partially for fun. Partially for work.
