Puppydogger

Photos of my close friend's Australian Shepard, Zoe taken during my week away last month (wow, that long ago already?). I stayed with C., as did our friend V. We all went to college together, so needless to say there was a bit of hilarity and craziness. Especially since we hadn't been all together like that since graduating. Zoe is such a great dog. V. and I became her adopted Worshipers and Entertainment while we were there. Not to mention trusty alarm clock (though really, compared with the way my cats wake me up, I would much rather be woken up by a happy, face-licking puppydogger). I took quite a few pics of Zoe, and embarrassingly, not much else while with C. and V.--we were having too much fun. These are my favorite of the shots I took, and really, she's too cute not to share!

Tasseled Green Waves

I've been a bit slow going through Toler's photos. Well, any photos for that matter, but particularly Toler's. I like going slowly with them, though, it's a bit like savoring them. Or hoarding them, I suppose. The other reason is that I've been concentrating on other artistic endeavors, namely a new pastel piece. I'm going to describe it here, simply because I think my descriptions of it make it sound lame. That, however, is barely crawling along so far. It doesn't help that I keep laying down an underdrawing, waiting a day or two, then deciding I don't like it and erase it so I can start with a new underdrawing. I hadn't originally wanted to go ahead with the idea for this piece, mostly because it felt too advanced for my current level of experience with pastels, but haunted me and then I just had to start on it, at the very least. I have a feeling, though, that once I get past the sketching phase, it'll be easier than I thought. Hopefully.

Anyway. The first photo here was an experimental shot. I really liked the idea of using a natural filter. Really liked it. The notion behind it is that you simply take the photo while holding an object in front of the lens, like a flower or, you guessed it, grass. If you've ever tried to take a picture of something outside through a screened window, you'll understand what I'm talking about--the object (in this example, the screen on the window) is so close to the camera and the subject is so far beyond it, that the object lies outside of the image's depth of field, rendering it so blurry as to be undetectable. I've seen fabulous images using this simple technique before and thought it would be an excellent way to add a bit more unique flair to my equine photography, as I have yet to see any equine photographer use natural filters like that.

So I tried with Toler. The above picture was "the best" of the bunch I'd taken, and it doesn't really give me the effect it was supposed to. It was windy that day, so the seeded grass I was holding up in front of the lens was probably getting blown forward a bit. I do plan on trying it again, and again--essentially until I master it.

As for the photo below, I have only one thing to say about it: Look at Toler's topline! Lo! I see muscle! =)