Back in February I cruised around Cherokee and O’Brien County harvesting their town signs. Here is the final collection of auxiliary images from that trip.
Paullina
Calumet
Sutherland
Primghar – Look closely and you will see how Primghar got its name.
Sheldon
Sanborn
Hartley
The next time we look at some aux, it will be from Osceola County. Some from Lyon County too. It was a trip I stopped short on because I ran into a hail storm.
Back in February I traveled around Cherokee and O’Brien County harvesting their town signs. This is the second collection of auxiliary images from that trip.
Cherokee
Aurelia
Larrabee
Marcus
Germantown
Granville
There is one more collection of images from this trip left to share.
Back in late January I made a trip out to Jackson County to harvest the balance of their town signs. Here is the second collection of the auxiliary images I took on that trip:
La Motte
Zwingle
Cedar Rapids
Most of the pictures were taken in Saint Donatus. I did not walk the Way of the Cross there to the chapel because it was closed. It is on my list of things to do in the future. I have quite the list of places I want to visit again after I complete THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT.
The next time we hit the open road to look at auxiliary images from THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT, we will visit Cherokee and O’Brien counties.
Back in late January I made a trip out to Jackson County to harvest the balance of their town signs. Here are some of the auxiliary images I took on that trip:
Springbrook
Bellevue
Saint Donatus
There is one more collection of auxiliary images left to share from this road trip.
Time to share another collection of auxiliary images I took while cruising around Buena Vista and Palo Alto County harvesting their town signs:
Linn Grove
Mallard
Ayrshire
Emmetsburg (I think)
The next time we hit the open road for auxiliary images from a TOWN SIGN PROJECT road trip, we will hit up Jackson County.
On Tuesday I completed another month of the Fat Mum Slim Photo A Day Challenge. It was month of random prompts and I think for the most part, there is some good work mixed in with mediocre work. The kind of thing you get with a Photo A Day Challenge. This month I took pictures in 3 different states. Iowa, Florida, and Minnesota. I’m not sure how many different towns I took pictures in, but for sure it was Boone, Miami, Miami Beach, Des Moines, Ames, Nevada, Alta Vista, and Minneapolis. A few in rural areas as well.
Here are May’s pictures:
May 2 – Good Morning
May 3 – Free Choice
May 4 – Trees
May 5 – Mirrors
May 6 – Leaf
May 7 – View from Here
May 8 – Love
May 9 – A Seat
May 10 – Where I Stood
May 11 – Something Small
May 12 – In Nature – See the turtle?
May 13 – Green
May 14 – Sunshine
May 15 – Upside Down
May 16 – This Season
May 17 – A Shape
May 18 – A Door
May 19 – Creative
May 20 – I Read This…
May 21 – Waves
May 22 – Flying
May 23 – Stairs
May 24 – A Pair
May 25 – Something Warm
May 26 – Pink
May 27 – Lucky
May 28 – Horizon
May 29 – A Car
May 30 – Sky
May 31 – This is Also Me
The plant that is in the picture for May 6 is also the plant in the picture for May 17.
There is only one prompt for the month of June. That is Grateful. The instructions are simply take a photo each day of something you’re grateful for.
This could be a very difficult month or a very easy one. I have a ton of things in my life to be grateful for, so in theory it should be pretty easy. But on the other hand, it is actually coming in to contact with those things (or more directly people) to get the pictures that I want in my head. I’ll at least try to make it happen. Or maybe my Instagram feed will just be filled with 30 pictures of nonsense. It could break either way.
Remember, you can follow along with this project on the daily at the Instagram account I’ve created just for this project at @fmsbennett.
Here’s hoping June goes well and that you are grateful you get to see those pictures.
This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is FLOWER:
FLOWER! What a great theme for Year 9 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!
But what is a FLOWER picture? Simply put, a FLOWER picture is any picture where a FLOWER is a major compositional element of the picture. The FLOWER can be real. The FLOWER can be fake. The FLOWER can be a artistic rendering. There are so many options!
Happy photo harvesting!
Here is the rest of the collection of pictures from my trip harvesting the town signs of Pottawattamie County and Harrison County. All of these were taken in Harrison County.
Mondamin
Magnolia
Logan
Woodbine
There used to be a Dairy Sweet in Boone in my youth. I know they aren’t connected, but I like to pretend they are.
The art scene in Woodbine is greatly underrated. It is a town I would like to go back and photograph in greater depth at some point. Possibly Missouri Valley as well. They have a train ride I’d like to visit someday too.
This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is HISTORY:
WARNING: NEXT MONDAY IS MEMORIAL DAY. WHILE THE BANKS AND THE GOVERNMENT MIGHT BE TAKING THE DAY OFF, THERE ARE NO DAYS OFF FOR PHOTOGRAPHY 139. THE STRUGGLE IS REAL! YOU MIGHT BE OUT DOING HOLIDAY TYPE THINGS. THINK ABOUT THIS WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR PLANS TO SEND ME YOUR SUBMISSION. I ALSO MIGHT NOT BE IN POSITION TO SEND OUT ANY REMINDERS. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!
HISTORY! What a great theme for Year 9 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!
But what is a HISTORY picture? A HISTORY picture is simply any picture that deals with a HISTORI(Y)cal artifact. Could be something found in a museum. It could be something found on the side of the road. It could be an old church or an old building. It could be living history. It doesn’t have to be anything as grand as the spot where a President of the United States spoke. It doesn’t have to be political HISTORY or military HISTORY or religious HISTORY. It could very easily be personal HISTORY or family HISTORY.
Happy photo harvesting!
Here is the final collection of auxiliary images I took on a trip to Clinton County and southern Jackson County. Most of these images are taken in Clinton County. A few in Jackson County. I think the last three are taken in Benton County. Possibly Linn or Tama as well. But I’m pretty sure it is Benton.
Felton
Delmar
Buckhorn
Monmouth
The next counties we will visit through auxiliary images are Pottawattamie and Harrison.
Several weeks back I cruised around Clinton County and the southern tip of Jackson County harvesting their town signs. Here is the first collection of auxiliary images from that trip:
Low Moor
Clinton
Andover
Sabula
Sabula holds the distinction of being the only city in Iowa that is an island. There are still several more pictures from this trip still to come!
A long, long time ago when I revealed the towns signs of Monroe County I pointed out that the town of Melrose, Iowa had a memorial up in their town park to honor the 1936-37 Melrose Shamrocks boys basketball team. A team that the Des Moines Register honored as the best team in the first 100 years of Iowa boys basketball in 2012.
Kio took great offense to this and sent me the following email:
Some of what Melrose claims about their championship basketball team might be a bit of blarney. I have to stick up for the Boone High Boys State Basketball 1931 State Champions. Although I’m not completely impartial, my Dad was the captain of that team, it had a legitimate star at all positions. Also worth noting, there were no classes or divisions in high school basketball in those days. All the teams in the state were lumped together. So if you won the state championship, you were truly the best team in the state. I always add this footnote when talking on this topic. Although Boone hasn’t won a state basketball tournament championship since 1931, no one would have been prouder to see his team’s record beaten than my Dad.
While Kio is clearly prejudiced, I think it is fair to reveal why the Melrose Shamrocks are considered the best boys basketball team in the first 100 years of Iowa boys basketball.
Here are some facts about them:
+ Melrose was the smallest school to ever win a single-class state basketball title in Iowa. Enrollment was 66. They beat Marshalltown in the championship game. A school with an enrollment of 1,077.
+ Melrose was the first team to go undefeated in state history. Going 33-0. They defeated undefeated Rolfe (29-0) in the semifinal game. They beat them 29-13.
+ Their 35-17 win over Marshalltown was the largest margin of victory in the championship game up until that point.
+ Played their home games in an opera house because they didn’t have a gym. The court measured 30 feet by 40 to 45 feet. Why 40 to 45 feet? One of corners of the playing floor featured a wood stove that heated the building and was blocked off so players didn’t run into it. A standard basketball court is 50 feet by 94 feet.
+ “Many of the players on the Melrose basketball team wanted to fit in with the “big city” crowd of Des Moines. In the fashion of the day, they slicked back their hair with Rose Hair Oil. Rose Hair Oil was inexpensive (“about 15 cents per gallon,” according to Walt O’Connor), so they apparently used lots of it. The oil also had a nice smell to it.
While this was fine before the tournament started, it gave the team trouble in their first game against Geneseo. During the game, the hair oil went from their hair to their hands to the ball. As Walt O’Connor recalled, “We started perspiring and wiping our heads to get the hair out of our eyes, and the first thing you knew, the referee couldn’t hold the ball.” After having trouble handling the ball in the first half, the players washed out their hair at half time. Better ball handling in the second half helped them to win the game, 35 – 34. After almost letting the first game of the tournament slip their grasp, Melrose stopped using the hair oil in the later games.”
Some of this information is taken from the Melrose website article on the team:
All of that being said, the Ames High team featuring Harrison Barnes and Doug McDermott would have beaten this team by at least 20 points. They did win 53 games in a row.
Here is the first collection of the auxiliary images from a road trip I took to Monroe and Mahaska County with Teresa.
Georgetown
Albia
There are still two more collections of images to share from this road trip.
