Project 365 - Day 13

Tree pose.  Some days I'm a quaking aspen, occasionally I'm an oak.

I don't face in toward the house when I do yoga because the overhead lights shine in my eyes, so when I took these photos, I took them as I actually practice yoga, not posing for the camera.  But maybe next time I'll try to remember to pose facing the camera.

This is not as easy as it looks. I promise!  Actually, standing on the left leg and tucking in the right leg is much tougher for me than standing on the right leg and tucking in the left leg.  But, some days simply standing on one leg is tough!  So while this may not be fine art, this is part of my morning ritual.  (Yoga, not necessarily standing on one leg - or toppling over...)

Project 365 - Day 12

Sunrise.

Trying to get the moose sculpture in the sunrise.

Starting the climb up the hill.

This way to Middle Earth.

Project 365 - Day 11

Eh. Nothing special today.  There was some great hoar frost at different points on our walk, but it was really cold out (we - and the doggies - were all bundled up appropriately, but I wasn't feeling enough like a suffering artist to take my gloves off for most of the walk!).  And I was preoccupied with my to-do list for work, which made me a less active observer.

So, just a "meh" sort of day. 

This was not at all what I was hoping for (I was aiming for the hoar frost on the guard rail), but I like the hint of sun coming up behind the aspens. Still, nothing to write home about.

The starbust of the sun is always fun, but my little camera has a minimum aperture of f/11, so it's tough to get the really sharp starbursts.

I like the frost on this mailbox sculpture (sculptures on mailbox stands are a thing here), but it really wasn't what I was looking for - not enough frost, not as sharp as I'd like.

"You shoulda been here yesterday..." This was actually a photo from yesterday (and was passed over for dog photos). I love the mornings where there is frost on everything.  It looks pretty.

So, today's lessons are 1) suck it up and take off the gloves, and 2) leave the work stuff at home, and try to be an a more active observer.

Project 365 - Day 10

This was a weekend of puppies.  Today's puppy is Eddie, who belongs to Heide (owner of Healthy Pets Summit County, our favorite doggie boutique) and family.  Eddie is 14 weeks old, and based on his weight (26 lbs), he's going to be slightly smaller than Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Size aside, Eddie is super-cute, and possibly a bit athletic.  From a technical point of view, shooting a black and white dog in snow and full sunlight is not the easiest thing in the world.

Did I mention that he's a bit athletic, in that goofy-puppy sort of way?

It seems our backyard anti-gravity field is easily transferrable!

Any weekend with puppies is a good weekend!

Project 365 - Day 9

 Meet Beau.  He's a 10 week old Goldendoodle puppy.  His parents hired me in November to take photos of Harley a 12 year old Goldendoodle who was Fi's spirit brother - same personality, same "old soul", and just a sweetheart of a dog.  Harley had cancer and crossed the Rainbow Bridge less than two weeks after I photographed him.  His family decided to add a freshly minted Doodle to their family; their daughter had grown up with Harley as her furry brother, and since she is attending university at home this year, they thought this would be a good time for their daughter to bond with a new canine sibling.  

They had messaged me about the puppy, and we set up a time to get photos.  Last Saturday was snowy and yukky, but today was perfect.

And zoiks!  Just like Harley was Fi's brother in spirit, Beau looks so much like Fi did as a puppy.  Not quite as red as Fi was, but otherwise looks very much like a wee Fi.  Which is to say, ridiculously cute.  And, I must had been intriguing to Beau (or I had bacon in my pocket...  Just kidding! I don't actually bring snacks to puppy shoots - youngsters are still trying to figure out their diets and I don't want to add anything new), because he was all over me, breathing his puppy breath into my face, and nibbling on my nose with his puppy teeth, and just generally convincing me he was the cutest puppy I had seen in person in quite some time. But judge for yourself.  And masks, because, well, it's a sign of the times.

"Hi!"

"I am the bestest puppy ever. Dad, give me snacks." (Dad gave him snacks.)

Ear flappage!

Scenery is so much better with a dog in front of it!

Puppy tongue!

I could have photographed Beau all day long (well, if I didn't have my own Doodles waiting at home, and grocery shopping, and all that stuff), but the wee beastie was worn out by his photo session, and was falling asleep on his feet.  However, I'll be photographing Beau again around his 6 month birthday!

Project 365 - Day 8

Work-life balance.

Life.

Ski tracks on the hill across the canyon from the upper part of the neighborhood.

Work.

Too subtle with life in color and work in black and white?  *grin*

Project 365 - Day 7

 As we all know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting  different results.  I'm beginning to think that without some instruction on landscape photography I'm starting to approach the insanity part of things... (The Digital Photography School has some articles that will get me started, and my Dad has some resources that will help, so I might be able to avoid turning into a raving lunatic..)

However, we did see true alpenglow this morning (not the best camera for this, but since the best camera is what you have with you, I had the best camera).  If you don't know of alpenglow it's the pinkish/reddish glow on the tops of the mountains - it's caused by the glow of the sun just below the horizon.  It doesn't last long, and you really need snow to see the glow well, and this photo doesn't really do it justice (I couldn't zoom in any further, and couldn't crop further without ending up with about 2 pixels...), but it is a beautiful sight to see.

And there were some cool clouds.

And since I want to avoid insanity, I thought I'd get a few photos of a certain bouncy, fluffy dog.

And yep, the anti-gravity field continues to run at optimal strength with the power from the solar panels.

I won't lie; the landscape photos feel forced.  The dog photos are effortless.  But part of the point of this whole exercise is to get out of my comfort zone, so we'll see where this takes me.  But the dog photos are fun - and I need something for next year's calendar, right?  :-) 

Project 365 - Day 6

Even if I had taken a photo of the dark side of the Moon today (or a Moon and Half Dome  photo, ala Ansel Adams), this photo would still, sadly, be the photo of the day.

Taken with my phone, while I was working on statistical analysis.

A day that should live in infamy.

But since this photo depresses me, here are a couple of photos from today's dog walk.

Thinking about landscape photos, I think I probably need more patience.  I'm used to photographing dogs - waiting hours for Just The Perfect Light doesn't really work with dogs.  So I have to decide whether I want to exercise some patience, or not get too hung up about landscape photography!

Project 365 - Day 5

Snow day.

I'm not super-thrilled with any of these photos, but there are days like that.  At least it gives me the opportunity to ponder how to do them better!

Controlled burn on the hillside.

Still need to work on the landscape thing.

Return from a snowy dog walk.

This photo totally did not come out how I wanted it to. I actually like the lighting, but I know that I really didn't put much thought into the composition of this photo.  So, like the moose sculpture, expect to see these subjects again.

And the obligatory "Gary clearing the driveway" photo.

In my defense, I had a lot of work to do today, and was thinking more about work than being an active observer.

Project 365 - Day 4

Closer to what I was thinking of with this moose, but still not quite it. I suspect there will be more photos of this moose until I get something that grabs me.

Coincidentally, about a mile past this photo, we encountered two live moose (Mom moose and youngster moose), but since my little camera only zooms into 70mm, all I got was a photo of a brown blob.

The other thing that was visually interesting on today's walk (and what caused the frost on the metal moose), was the fog in the valley below us.

This is the intersection just north of the house; you can see the fog layer below us.

Because of the live moose, we had to backtrack, and caught the fog spilling over the far hillside, ala 1950s cheesy horror movies!

It looked really cool, but in my copious free time I really should learn more about landscape photography!

Project 365 - Day 3

 I had a vision of what this moose would look like, but this isn't it.  So, I'll try again another day.

I'll have to revisit it and figure out how I want this to look.

Since I wasn't really happy with the moose photo, and it was snowing (and the only thing the Lumix isn't good for is wet/snowy conditions, as it's not truly weather-sealed), I decided to get some photos of the girls.  New and different? Not really, but I like the different angles.

And since I had a ring light handy, I pulled it out for a few photos. I really want to play around with the ring light some other time, so this is just a bit of a mental reminder.

And, I couldn't resist a photo of the Sisters Dranow.  All 4 of them.

Project 365 - Day 2

Hoar frost.

Project 365 (?)

 Maybe.  We'll see how much life interferes.  But I'd really like to get back to 'seeing' things, and it seems this project always drives me to see things in new ways.  The sundog was amazing, and the photos of the girls aren't "special" but why I love taking their photos - I'll look back at these in years to come and enjoy them.