Ashley C. Bennett

OMG, what an adorable child.

The photograph is titled "Protection." 

And, "You Daresn't Touch Me Now." 

The first stop action photo ever taken. Boston audiences gasped when this photo was projected as a magic lantern slide.

19th century magic lantern with printed slide inserted upright so if the lantern were lit it would project an inverted picture. Therefore insert the slides inverted. 

Akshully, Ashley's father is more famous. Yes, his son's photo made Boston audiences gasp because up to this point all photos are stilted because the subject had to sit there unblinking for long exposures.  Ashley's father, H.H. Bennett, invented a new shutter that allowed stop action. 

Wikipedia:

At age fourteen Bennett moved with his father and uncle to Wisconsin and settled in Kilbourn City, known today as Wisconsin Dells. Henry worked as a carpenter. Bennet joined the army and fought in the Battle of Vicksburg then was severely wounded by his own gun.

What a dummkopf. 

What a klutz. Some people, such as myself, should just never handle firearms. 

Or chainsaws.

The wound prevented Bennett from returning to carpentry after the war so he took up photography.

But nobody wanted portraits. Because everyone in Wisconsin was fat and ugly and they didn't care to sit around so long for long exposures. They kept blinking and wiping their nose and turning their head and going, "oh man, look what that dog is doing" and, "hey, does anyone have any cheese around here? A beer fer Christ's sake?" And, putting on a posh accent, "My t-h-r-r-r-o-a-t is pahched."

And that ruined all the photos. 

So Henry decided to do landscapes instead. And, Boy, was his area ever perfect for that. Natural beauty was all around him. All he had to do was go into it. He quickly learned on his first trip to first sheep dip himself in a vat of insect repellent Off! 

His training as carpenter served him for making his own equipment save for the glass lenses in his cameras. He built a portable darkroom  and towed it along with his cameras and equipment across the local countryside taking pictures. He went around the Wisconsin River Dells which is a gorge with a lot of sandstone formations. 

Sensing the awesome three-dimensional aspect of the formations is forfeited in two-dimensional photographs Henry began creating stereoscopic images so that viewers could see his photographs with both eyeballs in three-dimensions. You can see these dual images here. 

It doesn't work if you have only one eye.

People began to flock to the area due to Bennett's photographs of the Wisconsin Dells. They wanted to see the rock formations in person. Bennett built his H. H. Bennett Studio in 1875 and used it to sell postcards and souvenir portraits. 

He continued to innovate by inventing a stop action shutter. Now he was able to take photos of moving subjects. 

Bennett also introduced story telling through photographs in series. Bennett was fascinated with raftsmen riding their lumber down the river to market. He had always been interested in taking a series of photos of their activities. Eventually dry plates became sufficiently reliable to not need a portable darkroom. Henry and Ashley made a 100-mile week-long trip on a lumber raft between Kilbourn and Boscobel, Wisconsin, taking 30 pictures of the raftsmen's activities and he called his series The Story of Raftsmen's Life on the Wisconsin. This was the fist time a photographer wrote a story with pictures. Boom, photo journalism was born.

Bennett invented a revolving solar printing house that is now housed at the Smithsonian Institution. 

Additionally, because early cameras were unable to capture details of the sky or reflections in water after adjustments for the light of a typical land photograph, Bennet stacked pieces of negatives from multiple photographs of land, sky and water for his prints. 

Due to the attention he received for his advanced techniques he was commissioned by the Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad to photograph the landscape along the company's track in Wisconsin. 

Bennett photographed the circular cyclorama paintings producing a set of stereoviews on the Civil War cycloramas of various battles. 

His family continued to operate his studio after his death. They remodeled the studio in 1917 and kept at it until 1999 when the building was restored to its 1908 appearance and became a historic site operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

That photograph of Ashley jumping the gap between rocks is really something because one wrong move means death, or certainly serious injury. And then there you are out there where emergency crews cannot get to you easily.

My brother Barry pulled that crap all the time mostly at Red Rocks but also other places. Without any equipment.

I swear to God, with Jesus His other self as my witness, Barry was far more daring than that. He scared the living piss out of me. Other views show the gap isn't all that much, and other photographs show dogs jumping back and forth across the gap. 

My German shepherd would do the exact same thing without even thinking about it. But none of my Belgian sheepdogs would, so similar in confirmation, so capable of physical leaps, so different in judgement. But no. The Belgians would stand there and bark at us angrily for being so careless and stupid. 

The German shepherd wanted to do everything we did. He wanted to be right there with us. Next to us. The Belgians, all three, were all, f.u., no!

And that was disappointing and encouraging at the same time.

This was the smallest dog. A little princess. She loved this area but she was not adventurous. Just curious and happy to do things. Now this area is fenced off and the wildlife present is amazing. 

My brother was tall and thin as a beanpole. 

Now he's a big fat rotund dude. And I mean fat!

See, it all started with his first wife.

They were such a lovely couple. She a high school beauty and him a thin young stud. 

But it turns out she was lazy a.f. 

It's just one of those things you don't know about until you're in it together. Because until then your families are keeping you straight.

And he frankly didn't care. 

So they ate and slummed it and both became incredibly fat. He sat around computers all day and ate snack food until BOOM his body was completely changed. Now there are literally three of him slathered upon the bone structure of one. And she is equally round. 

And they both accept their new state.

Now you might think about how two people this fat get together and find it impossible to visualize. All I can say about that is it's a good thing he is well endowed because two fat people scissoring for connection requires a generous length and apparently it works because they do have two children together. 

And his second wife is the same way. Both women are utterly charming. All three people are charming. I love that all three of them love me so much. And show it. As I do. If you showed them this all three of them would laugh.