Tag Archives: featured

Back to Harrier

April 23, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

A couple Saturdays back I took Rodan139 back to the Harrier Marsh for a bit of a joy flight. I’m not sure I really had an agenda. Just wanted to take it out for a bit of a flight and snap a few photos.

It was on this trip that I did decide that I would like to actually post some drone videos on YouTube. I don’t really enjoy video editing and I’m not much of a vlogger, but we’ll see where this takes me. Probably not that far, but when I do get my first drone video up I’ll let you know and then you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Right now I’m a mere 980 subscribers short of being allowed to broadcast live on YouTube.

Here are some pictures i took at the Harrier Marsh:

Since these pictures were taken, they have burned out much of Harrier Marsh. The new plants should be coming in shortly and it will look very different next time we visit there, I’m sure.

Andy, Angie, Carla, Formal Portrait, Jaxon, Jodie Cue, Kim, Self-Portrait, Shannon, Tamara, Youth Group

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 188 – RELIGION

April 22, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

A very solid week of submissions for RELIGION. We hit double digits and maybe if the weather stays nice, we can stay in that rarefied air!

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

Carla Stensland

Jodie Cue

Jaxon Schoff

Kim Barker

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Christopher D. Bennett

Angie DeWaard

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:

DESSERT

DESSERT! What an incredibly tasty theme! It should also put to rest any of the chatter on conspiracy nutbag YouTube channels that I rig the themes in some way, shape or form. Because if I did, and since today is Earth Day, if I rigged themes, this week’s theme would be GREEN.

But what is a DESSERT photo? It is any photo of a DESSERT or somebody enjoying a DESSERT. Personally, I think I’ll be heading down to The Filling Station in Madrid this weekend for a little hardcore DESSERT action.

This theme was suggested by Andy Sharp. See, suggesting themes does bear fruit!

I look forward to your interpretations.

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. 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 sweet Monday.

Black & White, Boone FUMC, Formal Portrait, Movies, Nader, Night, Self-Portrait, Teresa

2009-01-05 & 2009-01-25

April 20, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

There aren’t many pictures in the folders 2009-01-05 and 2009-01-25 so I decided to combine them into one post.

The pictures are mostly from a trip around Boone during a snowstorm and Nader and I’s last trip to the Varsity Theater.

Many people may not remember the Varsity. It was on Lincoln Way across the street from Lake Laverne. It showed foreign, independent, and arthouse movies. It still hasn’t been properly replaced. Now Ames have two multiplexes that devote almost all their screens to whatever mindless Marvel or Star Wars movie is being released that week.

Then if you want to see something original or thought provoking you have to take a ride down to Des Moines. Even Des Moines recently lost one its independent cinemas. Also, call The Varsity.

Here are some pictures to look at:

The sweet Iowa State scarf was a Christmas present from Teresa. She also took the pictures of Nader and I.

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Denouement

Snowy Pictures

Sweet Christmas Present

By restoring these journal entries, I was able to finish completely restoring all the journal entries from January 2009.

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a Boone fire.

Andy, Becca, Boone FUMC, Formal Portrait, Nature, Pastor Sarah, Photoshop, Shawn Karber, Travel, WPC - Reminder

A Photo Journal – Henry Carroll – Page 90

April 19, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

A couple weekends back up I went to Minnesota to check out the Final Four festivities and check-in with a few people I hadn’t seen for a long time.

On Sunday morning I hit a donut shop with Becca and Shawn. Then I went to Minnehaha Falls to kill sometime before meeting Sarah, Shawn, and Addie at Revival. I figured that this trip was a great time to knock out Page 90 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT. Even though it was absolutely just pouring down.

I made the walk to from the parking lot to Minnehaha Falls, protecting the camera as best as I could. I took a few pictures and then it really started pouring down. By the time I got to the car every inch of me was completely soaked.

I was so soaked that even after a 30 minute or so wait at Revival and about an hour eating and talking, my shirt only had a few dry spots on it.

Here is the picture that will be physically adhered to Page 90 of the physical PHOTO JOURNAL:

Page 90 – Create ambiguity with a blend of artificial and natural light

Pretty much every camera (even your cell phone) has white balance. This is where you set the kind of light that is dominant in your scene. It is set on Auto White Balance so that you don’t have to think about it. This is the type of thing that in the olden days you had to do with film. Film was balanced for different kinds of light. Pretty much all consumer film was balanced for daylight. Which is why when you took pictures inside, there was often a strange color cast to it.

The same thing happens when you take your color balance off of auto and set it for a type of light that isn’t in your picture. For example, in the picture of Minnehaha Falls, I set the white balance to tungsten. Since the lighting of this picture could be best described as shady, it the camera cast a blue hue on the image, thinking it was seeing tungsten light. Different kinds of lights have different color temperatures. You can make surreal images by setting your white balance against type.

One of the advantages of shooting in RAW is that you can change the white balance to whatever you want it to be. So I changed half the white balance from the image above to shady, so you can see what the image would have conventionally looked like:

Admittedly, I did play up the blue cast of the images a bit in post.

Here are a few other images I took at Minnehaha Falls:

I’m still on goal to knock out one page of the PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT a week. This week I’m looking at knocking out one of these pages:

Page 97 – Photograph a human as though it were an animal.
Page 84 – Photograph a lie.
Page 43 – Take a picture that only works in Black & White.
Page 37 – Use aperture to capture melancholy

You could be featured in just such a picture.

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Reminder that the theme for this week’s WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is RELIGION:

RELIGION

A RELIGION picture is any picture that involves the practice of a RELIGION. From a picture of a religious building, to a religious symbol, to a religious book, to a religious service.

Happy photo harvesting!

Animals, Naima

Naima vs. Mother Goose

April 18, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

I need to start by saying Happy Maundy Thursday. It is the day we celebrate Jesus giving us a new commandment:

33 “Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I’m telling you: ‘Where I go, you are not able to come.’

34-35 “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
-John 13:33-35 (The Message)

Celebrate accordingly.
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I know a lot of people that hate geese. It is understandable. Geese are, at the aggregate level, jerks. For some reason, that is why I like them. You get near a goose and it spreads its wings at you, starts honking, and under the right circumstances might even bite you.

If you have ever been bitten by a goose, you know that it is much to do about nothing. Perhaps that is why I like geese. Their honk is considerably worse than their bite. They are nature’s jerks, but they are ultimately harmless.

That being said, on a recent trip out to Dickcissel Park, Naima was a jerk back to nature’s jerk. Not on purpose mind you. We all know that Naima doesn’t have a jerk bone in her body. She is whiny. She is pushy. She gets jealous easy. But she isn’t a jerk. Not on purpose.

She once found baby rabbits and carried them around the yard. But when she put them down, they weren’t physically damaged. Although I’m sure their therapist bills were quite extensive when they reached adulthood.

In what may have been the greatest moment of her life, she jumped up and snatched a bird flying through the backyard. After she landed, she spit it out onto the ground. Neither her nor the bird seemed to know what had just happened.

She bowed to the bird, as a symbol she was ready to play. After a few moments the bird managed to get its bearings and flew off. Naima seemed hurt that the bird didn’t stick around to play.

On Saturday we made a trip out to Dickcissel so that we both could get some exercise and a touch of nature. On that day the pond was lousy with waterfowl. The biggest and loudest by far were Canadian Geese. If you don’t know what a Canadian Goose is, it is like a goose from the United States, only 62.1% of their bankruptcies don’t come due to medical expenses.

Naima and I usually do a counterclockwise loop around the pond. We start north, then head west, then south, then east, and then back north to the Sir Pixalotmobile. Almost as soon as we started heading west the geese on the lake began following us. They posted up about 30 feet from shore and honked at us relentlessly.

Naima usually ignores them, but this time she at least looked at them a few times. Naima will get in the water, but she will only go as far in as she can touch the bottom. She is not her breed’s Michael Phelps.

We let them honk and honk and honk. Then about halfway down the west side of the pond they stopped following us. I thought that was kind of weird, but I figured we must have left their territory. We kept walking and I began more concentrating on the flocks of birds in the trees as we hit the swampy area on the southwest corner.

Even though I was wearing my hiking boots, I was trying to stay out of the swampy water as it is still ice cold and provides a healthy shock to the system when it manages to work its way into the boot and strikes a poor, unsuspecting foot.

While I was I was navigating strips of dry land, I heard a goose make a dreadful angry wail and then I heard something of decent size hit the water. I made my way over to Naima, who was standing in the water looking at a goose that she had found. She had given it the scare of its life. It was then that Naima noticed why that goose was hanging out all by its lonesome. It had built a nest on top of an old muskrat hut. Naima was leaning against the hut and smelling the nest.

Mother goose was honking like crazy. The rest of the goose armada had caught up to us and were also verbalizing extreme displeasure. I called for Naima to come and leave the nest alone. She isn’t a jerk, but she will eat just about anything besides certain vegetables. I didn’t want her making a snack out of a collection of goose eggs.

She left the eggs alone, but now she was definitely interested in the geese. She went as far into the water as she could. Before giving up and coming back on land.

Here are a few pictures of Naima and some geese:

It is strange that I like geese because they are jerks, but hate grackles because they are jerks. I guess if geese were scaring pretty birds away from my bird feeder, I would hate them too.

Animals, Candid Portrait, Formal Portrait, Kio, Mom, Pufferbilly Days

Pufferbilly Days Dog Show

April 17, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

I thought I had published every picture I have taken for the Boone Area Humane Society, but while checking out the backlog I realized that was in error.

I never published pictures from the Pufferbilly Days Pet Show. Now the subject of this post called in the Pufferbilly Days Dog Show, but it was actually a pet show, where wisely, nobody entered a cat.

I would guess that these would be the final pictures I will ever publish that I took for the Boone Area Humane Society, but Kio tells me that I might not be retired yet. As far as the Humane Society goes, I do whatever Kio wants.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day:

My Mom was a judge for the pet show.

If you are wondering why I’ve never entered Naima into a pet show, well the pet show world isn’t ready for what she brings to the table.

Animals, Flowers, Macro, State Fair

Having New Eyes

April 16, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett Leave a comment

I’ve been ignoring the 2018 backlog quite a bit lately, so I thought I better get back at it.

This collection of images comes from the Discovery Garden at the Iowa State Fair. I visited the Iowa State Fair twice in 2018. The first time was to compete in the barbecue contest. It was this day where I took this collection of images after the contest had ended.

I actually probably have a tremendous lot of pictures from last year’s Iowa State Fair that I need to get to editing. I also need to figure out what pictures I’m going to enter in this year’s Iowa State Fair. A project I need to start on in the next few weeks.

Andy, Angie, Animals, Boone FUMC, Carla, Formal Portrait, Jen, Jodie Cue, Kim, Logan, Micky, Naima, Photoshop, Tamara, WPC - Submissions

WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE – WEEK 187 – FAVORITE COLOR

April 15, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

The weather last week was all over the place in Central Iowa. Beautiful one day. Windy enough to blow down one side of the Burger King garbage corral the next. Then beautiful again. Then a few snow flurries the next. Then beautiful again. While the weather was all over the place, it didn’t dampen participation rates for FAVORITE COLOR at all.

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

Jodie Cue

Kim Barker

Jodie Cue

Logan Kahler

Micky Augustin

Tamara Peterson

Andy Sharp

Christopher D. Bennett

Andy Sharp

Carla Stensland

Jodie Cue

Angie DeWaard

RELIGION

RELIGION! What a great theme! I can feel what you’re thinking. I can feel it from here. I see through you. All the way to your back button. You are thinking that it sure is super convenient that RELIGION is the theme the same week as Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter and Passover for that matter.

You’re thinking that I rigged it so that RELIGION would be the theme the same week that all the chreasters will be going to church.

There are two things you need to know:

#1. I don’t use the term chreaster. I don’t look down on chreasters. They obviously feel there is at least some need in their life for church, otherwise they wouldn’t show up twice a year. If they are only coming twice a year, the church needs to do a better job of making them want to come the other 52 weeks of the year.

There is a story for why they only show up twice. It could be that they tried to get active in the church and had a bad experience with an overbearing volunteer supervisor. It might be that they sat in somebody else’s pew and were told to move. It can be that they were made to feel unwelcome because of the way they dressed, wore their hair, their personal hygiene, or whatever. Maybe the time they came, the reverend’s sermon made them feel like they weren’t rich enough to belong because he mocked people that buy suits from JC Penney.

Time would be better spent figuring out why some people only show up twice a year rather than pointing out that they don’t reach your gold standard for church attendance

I don’t know their story. I don’t judge their story. Everybody is walking their faith journey and I won’t judge people for where they are on it. I hope people won’t judge me for where I am on mine.

#2. Themes are assigned randomly. I have no control over it.

But, what is a RELIGION photo? A RELIGION photo is any photo that deals with RELIGION. It doesn’t have to be Christianity. It could be Islam. It could be Judaism. There are 12 major religions. Christianity is the largest with 2.04 billion followers. The smallest is Judaism which as 14.5 million followers. Which is a startling number when you recall that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

That is the 12 major religions. Overall there are over 4,300 religions practiced worldwide. That is a tremendous amount of RELIGION photo opportunities.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations!

HOUSEKEEPING

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 RULES DIVISION

That is it, them’s the rules.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHY 139 SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DIVISION

Jen Ensley-Gorshe is the latest person to show taste, class, and sophistication by signing up for a Photography 139 email subscription. Jen, in fact was the first person to sign up using the tools on the website to sign herself up. You may not have heard that this was a possibility because I haven’t actually made them public knowledge yet, so I was super impressed with her diligence. Jen is married to longtime subscriber Derrick Gorshe. They have 4 amazing kids and recently moved to a new house. I have known Jen since we were wage slaves to the Evil Clown Empire. Both of us are now fabulously wealthy and only show up for work because we want to.

If you see Jen out and about, feel free to give her a knowing glance and teach her the super-secret Photography 139 handshake.

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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 religious Monday.

Becky, Black & White, Candid Portrait, Carla, Derrick, Geri, House, Jay, Jen, Night, Self-Portrait

2009-01-02 & 2009-01-03

April 13, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

The pictures from the folders 2009-01-02 and 2009-01-03 involved a trip to ACTORS theater in Ames. Plus a trip to Ottumwa to work on the house that Jen inherited. Plus there are some pictures of when I had winnowed down what house I would purchase down to two similar ranch style houses.

The house that I would ultimately purchase was the lucky winner mainly because it had the better yard. It had the better yard times a million. The intention was always to get a golden retriever when I was back up on my own feet and living on my own again.

As I look at the pictures of the runner-up, I assure you Naima would not have been happy with that yard. I also wouldn’t have been happy with such a small yard too. I mean, if you’re going to care about my happiness.

Here are the pictures:

I do confess though, I could have has some pretty great parties with that carpeted bar.

By adding these images to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Blitz

Intermission

The Ballad of House Buying: Part 2: Initial Look

The Ballad of House Buying: Part 4 – A Closer Examination

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve saying goodbye to an old cinematic friend and a winter storm.

Art, Christianity, Dad, Logan, Photo Journal, Youth Group

A Photo Journal – Henry Carroll – Page 68

April 12, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

The journey to taking the picture for Page 68 of THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT is one that came completely out of nowhere. I certainly didn’t see it coming. I don’t think anybody saw it coming.

It all started when I got home from Youth Group a couple weeks back and saw a bunch of text messages on my phone from Logan. It had been a fascinating night at Youth Group. Pastor Doug came and talked to the youth about the multi-million dollar public relations disaster for the United Methodist Church that was the Saint Louis Conference.

If you aren’t Methodist or don’t follow the news, the Saint Louis Conference was a conference where a bunch of Methodists got together to decide what to do about homosexuality. Just like Jesus wanted. People getting together in big meetings, with a ton of parliamentary rules, to discuss a topic he wouldn’t care about.

He’d be like, “You guys do that. I’m just going to be over here loving people. You might want to think about joining me.”

I have no doubt that Jesus would be throwing all sorts of shade at the modern church. Not just the Methodist Church, but all the pedo-church down the street and the church across town that makes divorcees second class members and the church out in the country that spends a fortune on having a beautiful building but turns it back on the suffering widow and the starving child.

Borrowing from Carlos A. Rodriguez:

Here’s what Jesus did NOT say:

Welcome the stranger, if he has money.
Feed the hungry, who earned the food.
Love your neighbor, when it’s good for the economy.
Give water to the thirsty, once they pay their dues.

Rule. Don’t server.
Be first. Not last.
Take and keep taking.

Borrowing from Barbara Brown Taylor:

The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and m neighbor, I will choose my neighbor… Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.

Remember, 100% of the people you hate were created in God’s image.

There were basically two plans on the table. (That isn’t 100% accurate, but you don’t want to be here all day do you?) One plan was called the Traditional Plan and it was basically, “Hey we’re going to take a couple verses in Leviticus out of context and then forget about literally almost everything Jesus said and pretty much make that our thing. You cool with that? If you don’t agree and step out of line, we’re going to hit you with a bunch of punishments.”

This was put forward by the super conservative churches that our drawn to Christianity because they think it is a way they get to judge other people. Which I get, judging other people makes you feel really good about yourself without having to earn that feeling. It is almost like found money.

My understanding is that this super bigoted plan was put forth by these conservative churches with the intention that it would never pass. Then they could cry foul, take their ball and go home. Their ball being that they could break off from the rest of the Methodists and have their Klan lite meetings without anybody bothering them.

The other plan was the One Church Plan. It basically said, “Hey guys, we aren’t all going to agree on this one issue, but this whole Jesus thing is a whole lot bigger than one issue. So let’s let each church and Pastor do their own thing. If officiating gay weddings is your bag, we dig it, go do it. If it isn’t, that’s like super judgmental, but we won’t force it on you.”

Well, the Traditional Plan passed. So yeah. Sucks to be a Methodist.

But the news isn’t all bad. The Traditional Plan is super unconstitutional (because of a bunch of super boring technical financial issues) and has been sent to the Methodist Judicial Council where it will crash to the ground faster than a Boeing 737 Max 8.

Now the youths weren’t being super talkative. So I had all the people in the room that wear glasses stand on one side of the room and told them for the purpose of this exercise, what would they do if I told them that they were only allowed to come back to Youth Group if they gave up their glasses wearing lifestyle.

Many of them threw their glasses off. They said, they would be willing to cover up who they were to keep coming to Youth Group and that made sad. I dare say melancholy.

Now this exercise was I’m sure was subconsciously based on the C.S. Lewis quote:

“I believe in Christ, like I believe in the sun – not because I see it, but by it I can see everything else.”

But then something that will go on the list of my favorite things that I have ever seen with the youth group happened when two of the youths told me that what they would do if they were kicked out of Youth Group for living a practicing eye glass wearing lifestyle. They said that they would build a giant pair of glasses and put it on the church building.

They were being probably about 40% facetious and another 40% punk, but I thought: “My God! These kids have created the perfect metaphor for the situation we are in.”

Much of the rest of the night’s conversation surrounded the gender fluid and transsexual kids that they knew and ways that they can be their allies in what is probably the worst roughest part of life. High School.

The conversation lasted well past the time we are supposed to close up shop. I feel that is was a successful night.

When I got home it was then that I saw all the text messages from Logan. They were pictures of old doors. One had my Dad’s name and my Uncle David’s name on it. The other had artwork drawn on it, by my Dad. I had never seen these doors. I didn’t know they existed.

My Dad passed away two days before Christmas when I was nine years old. My Uncle David passed away before I was born. This artwork had to date back to the early 1960s.

Logan is the someday to be Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the Boone News Republican. For reasons that aren’t clear, but also aren’t important, his job landed him at Paradox. I think the best way to describe Paradox is that it is an art and antique and craft store. Yes, Boone has a ton of them. But Paradox is different. The kind of things they sell in there are strange. Maybe even a little twisted. Basically, not the type of thing you’d expect to see in Boone.

Somehow Logan got a tour of the entire building that Paradox owns. It used to be Ensley Photography Studio, but right now it is being rehabbed into something entirely different.

On the second floor of the building there is an old vaudeville stage. In this area, there is a door. On the window are the names Gerald D. Bennett and John D. Bennett. In a pile of doors off to the side is a door that is the work of Doc Bennett.

From talking to my Mom, Logan figured out that this building used to be apartments. My Dad lived there after divorcing his first wife. Uncle David lived there with his first wife. This was in the early 60s. They were still there almost 60 years later.

I told Logan that I needed to see these doors and to see if they would sell one of them to me. Logan went back and setup an appointment to get a tour again on that Saturday.

It was on this tour that I took the picture for Page 68 of the PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT:

Page 68 – Let a window do all the talking.

Now the actual purpose of Page 68 in THE PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT isn’t to find a window with artwork on it. It is actually to put a subject next to a window and take their picture lit by the light coming through the window.

However, when the wording is “Let a window do all the talking”, you better believe that I haven’t had a window talk to me like that window talked to me.

Here are a few other pictures I took of artwork, some of it kind of creepy, that I absolutely can’t believe are still there 60 years later:

After the tour I did inquire about buying the door from the husband and wife team that owns Paradox. They said, that they would have to think about it, but they thought that they would. I gave them one of my super fancy Photography 139 business cards so that they could contact me. I haven’t heard from them yet, so I may have to go back in and inquire again.

The next time we check into the PHOTO JOURNAL PROJECT, we will look at Page 90.

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This is your reminder that this week’s theme for the WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is FAVORITE COLOR:

FAVORITE COLOR

A FAVORITE COLOR photo is any photo that involves your FAVORITE COLOR.

Happy photo harvesting!