The Archives: Edition Sixty

The following images come from:

Backup/My Pictures/People/Family/Bennetts

All these pictures were taken at a Majors Family Reunion, not a Bennett Family Reunion, but.. whatever.


The strangest thing has dawned on my while I was looking through these pictures. For the first time in my life, I am looking forward to the Majors Family Reunion this year. Another sign that I am getting old.

Next week’s folder will be:

Backup/My Pictures/People/Family/Bennetts/Kahlers/Brandon Kahler

Roundball Oracles Year 8

It is the time of the year known as March Madness. That, of course means it is also time for me to run my annual NCAA Tournament Pool.

It is open to all interested parties (I’ll take a few uninterested parties as well) regardless of their basketball knowledge. After all, this pool was won by a woman last year* and the 3 years before that is was won by a dude living in Taiwan. You couple that with the fact that somebody with my immense knowledge of the greatest sport ever invented has yet to bring the title home to Union Street means that there is a certain degree of luck involved, so you shouldn’t be too intimidated by my intimate knowledge of the pick and roll.

As always there is no entrance fee. The winner does get a trophy. The only thing one has to risk is pride.

Pride, it would be pointed out by C.S. Lewis is the greatest sin, so you are out of excuses for not getting in to the fray with the combatants from last year.

2011 Final Standings

1. Carrie Baier
2. Jesse Howard
3. Linda Toot
4. Dawn Krause
5. Jason Baier
6. Corey Faust
7. Your Humble Narrator
8. Robert Henning
9. Russell Kennerly
10. Andree Jauhari
11. Nate Buckingham
11. Tim Peterson
13. Lowell Davis
14. Nader Parsaei
15. Mark Wolfram
16. Shaun Kirsch
17. Frank Meiners

The pool of entrants atrophied last year slightly, so I hope to garner more participants this year so all you have to do to get in is email me at:

bennett@photography139.com

And I’ll email you instructions and in no time you’ll be on the road to having your name on the Plaque of Immortals:

Previous Champions

2011 – Carrie Baier
2010 – Mark Wolfram
2009 – Mark Wolfram
2008 – Mark Wolfram
2007 – Tim Peterson
2006 – William McAlpine
2005 – William McAlpine

*I hope that sounded at least half as sexist as I hoped it would, but already two members of the fairer sex have thrown their hat into the arena.

Personal Photo Project of the Week #108


Whispering Beauty - 2012
Whispering Beauty – 2012

Peonies are perhaps my favorite flower that I don’t own. I’ve been considering remedying that recently, I’m just not quite sure where to put them in my yard. They are also the one flower I think that just begs you to go crazy with the saturation. I did manage to hold back on that this year while photographing my grandma’s peonies.

The rest of the Whispering Beauty – 2012 Series:


Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Whispering Beauty - 2012

Another thing I love about peonies is that they are always crawling with insects and of course, I love insects!

Sony Alpha DSLR SLT A35

True few people will care about such things, but I feel that every once in awhile, I should write about my equipment. I recently bought a new camera. It had been about 3 years since I bought a camera, so I was well past due.

Since the last time I bought a camera Sony had released a new line of camera that replaced the reflex mirror with a transluscent mirror. I was immediately intrigued and when I got my ducks in a row and decided to purchase a camera I decided to give one of these new revolutionary cameras a try. This is what it looks like:








Here is the first picture I ever took with the new camera:




I don’t want to bore you with too many technical details about the new camera, but here are a few:

Imaging Sensor Pixel Gross: Approximately 16.5 megapixels
Anti Motion Blur: 6-image layering
Auto High Dynamic Range: Yes
Sweep Panorama: Yes (2D/3D)
Face Detection: Off, Auto, Child Priority, Adult Priority (up to 8 faces detectable)
Smile Shutter Technology: Yes – Off, Slight, Normal, Big
Still Image Mode: JPEG (Standard, Fine) RAW, RAW+JPEG
Exposure System – Metering Modes: Multi-segment, Center-weighted, Spot
Exposure System – Exposure Setting: Auto, Auto Advanced, Program Auto, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, Sweep Panorama, Continuous Advance Priority
Exposure System – Scene Modes: Portrait, Macro, Sports, Sunset, Night Portrait, Night View, Handheld Twilight
Exposure System – Picture Effect(s): Posterization (Color), Posterization (BW), Pop Color, Retro, Partial Color Red, Partial Color Green, Partial Color Blue, Partial Color Yellow, High-Key, High Contrast Monochrome, Toy
Video Mode: AVCHD

There are obviously a ton more technical details, but that should cover it for now.