Ted

Ted the yellow, almost white, lab weighs in at over 100 pounds...but whose counting? He's a good guy who enjoys tearing the screen out of the back door, biting water, and playfully chasing visitors while chomping a tennis ball. My kind of dog!

Ted lives in my neighborhood and I've know him since he was a puppy or, about a year. Here are a few pictures from an afternoon visit to Ted's yard.


Nope...I'm not cute at all.


Ted with a prized possession. While I wouldn't say Ted is "obsessed" with his tennis ball, he does like it a lot. He tends to detour from the route to a thrown ball if something smells interesting. He gets there...it just takes a little longer.


Thanks Ted!

Going Public

Big news today - Dog Grin Photography is going to go public! No, not as in a public offering of stock, which isn’t a bad idea actually, but as in public display of photographs!

Rose and I had the pleasure of meeting Liz Perry today. She’s the owner of Nutzy Mutz and Crazy Catz on Lakeside Street in Madison. Her store carries a ton of nice pet products. Eco-friendly, natural products including food, toys, training aids, supplements and grooming supplies. Including organic chicken feed.

Anyway, Liz is opening a new store at 555 Midvale Blvd. right near my house. For some reason, she decided it would be a good idea to display a bunch of Dog Grin photos on the walls of her new store. I tried to talk her out of it but it didn’t work. The best news is, I get to put up two pictures in the bathroom! Talk about your captive audience. Liz actually asked me if I minded her putting pictures in there. I told her I’d be happy if that was the only place she put them.

So, time to order some new prints! We held up a 20 x 30 inch print on the wall of Nutzy Mutz which looked HUGE at my house. The amount of open space on this wall made that large photograph look tiny. Guess we’ll be placing a order for some large prints from printroom.com. Tomorrow is also frame shopping day.

Many of the dogs that will be on the wall are actually neighborhood dogs so hopefully they won’t develop attitudes. It’s great to have Nutzy Mutz in the area and I really believe the neighborhood will support them once they open...whether my pictures are in there or not.

The new store is expected to be open in the next week or so. If you live on the west side of Madison, it’s in a very convenient location with off-street parking - right at Midvale Blvd and Tokay Blvd.

Thanks Liz and Nutz Mutzy! We look forward to having you join our neighborhood!

What's new

Well, the Dog Grin Photography web site will be here soon. Hopefully. I'll have lots of useful stuff on there like, galleries, pricing info, dog photos, blog link, dog photos, contact info and dog photos - maybe a baby and a cat photo every once in a while too. I'm doing it myself so by "soon", I mean it'll be online sometime this year. Maybe next.

Actually, I'm going to shoot for next week.

I'm getting a Facebook site going too so you'll be able to get all the exciting Dog Grin updates via your Facebook account! In the meantime, you'll just have to miss all the exciting updates unless you check in on the blog every couple hours.

If you'd like to get on my emailing list, just shoot me an email at dahlgrenphoto@gmail.com and I'll add you. I don't share information with anyone so don't expect any extra email or spam. Except for me, of course.

Let see...ah, yes. Dog photos. I said a while back you'd see Pebbles the Dog again (my dog) and here she is!

Pebbles attempting to relax.

A not so subtle hint that it's time to for yet another walk.

The business end.

Wizard and Twix

The Jack Russell Terrier is a breed that has been described as smart, active, and energetic. Multiply that description times two and then you'll have an idea of what life with Wizard and Twix the dogs are like. Wizard is the veteran with an insatiable appetite for tennis balls. He's an expert at calculating things like ball trajectories and whether a throw is real or just an arm pump fake-out. He's been there, done that.

I like this picture of Wizard. I think it's one that tells a story and that is really the ultimate goal of a photograph, right? This is a very short simplistic story, but it's a story.

Just to break the obvious down for you...you know there's a dog standing there from the shadow and the feet. The shadow dog face is pointing at the tennis ball. You can see the anticipation in the stance. THROW THE BALL ALREADY! Maybe that should be the name of this one.

Photo cropping is skill that I've been paying more attention to over the last couple of months and I played with this one for quite a bit. Too much cropping and people can't tell what the heck the subject is supposed to be. Not enough cropping and there are too many details for the brain to process and the photo becomes bloated with information. One thing I like to use Picasa software for is the crop preview feature. I find it much faster to crop and uncrop a picture in Picasa than with any other software. If I want to play around with a photo a lot, I like to try it and experiment in Picasa before doing the actual editing in Photoshop...the king of photo editing software, hands down.

Wizard ready for yet another toss of the slimy tennis ball.

Twix is the newby, recently adopted from a Jack Russell rescue group. She's almost the opposite of Wizard...shy, not much interest in a tennis ball, but quite "vocal". Twix, who is an early riser BTW, is adjusting nicely to her new surroundings and her new people. Currently, she's enrolled in a K9 good citizen class as part of her adoption requirements and is doing quite well.

I thought this photo captured her pretty well. She's being a little stand-off'ish, a little wary of the guy with the camera. The black and white along with a little soft focus adds a little mystery to the photo as well.

Shop Talk - Picasa

Half the fun and half of the work in taking digital pictures is getting to/having to edit them on the computer. Usually it's not a big deal to go through and enhance or crop a handful of pictures but, when you come back to the computer with 300 or 400 pictures, it's a bit more work.

Most professional photographers use Adobe Photoshop software to edit and Adobe Lightbox to manage their pictures. But, if you don't want to invest $700 in software and a good portion of your life to learn how to use it, you can do many of the same things by using a free program called Picasa. Google purchased Picasa a couple of years ago so you know that it's a decent program. You can get it here - Picasa.

Picasa literally does it all - or at least the really important stuff. You can crop, enhance color, lighten, remove dust or ufo's in your photos. You can make black and white photos, add soft focus or straighten your pictures. And, when you're done, Picasa makes it easy to email or upload your photos to a free web site to show off. It also keeps track of where you put your photos on your computer so you only have to look at it's library to see all your photos - no matter what folder you put them in on your computer.

While Picasa is very good, it's not Photoshop. It isn't able to delete your goofy cousin from that nice group shot. But then again for most people, it does the important stuff...and the price is right. If you lose track of your pictures on your computer or need to back them up (everyone backs up their pictures, right?), Google's Picasa is a definate download.

Boomer and Gavin

There's an old saying in Hollywood about never working with children or animals. Well, the other day I did the unthinkable and worked with both. At the same time. And...I survived.

Boomer is an active (understatement), toy-obsessed, beautiful German Shepard variety of dog. If you want to be specific, he's West German. You can tell by his accent.

He's had LOTS of training and can whip through a command faster than you can blink. Trying to focus a lens on this dog is like trying to read the printing on a car tire going down the highway. I'm just glad my camera has auto-focus. Did I mention that he's really fast?

Anyway, we had a great time in his backyard. During a short break in the action, I was able to meet the family's newest member, Gavin the Baby. Shooting Gavin after being around Boomer was a relief - he's much easier to photography. And, while Gavin is cuter than Boomer, I have to say it's a tie as to who drooled more during the shoot.

Buddy

Buddy the Great Pyrenees lived on a farmette near Mount Horeb and his main purpose in life, as with most GP's, was to protect. In this case, he protected several pens containing Alpacas. Since Alpacas aren't native to this area, there are several predators that would make them easy prey. Buddy was their body guard and he kept them under his watchful eye...and nose. He belonged to my friend and co-worker Mindy and her partner Linda.

He was a very cool dude and was about as dangerous as the large cotton ball he resembled...as long as you weren't a stranger. Sadly, Buddy became ill last year and died at the very young age of 3. I did get some good pictures of him before that when Rose and I visited during "Alpaca Days 2008".

He was replaced by 2 new GP's. I'll have to drive out someday and meet them.

RIP Buddy...

How to follow Dog Grin Photography

Many people who read this blog frequently, ok...my wife, have asked me how to follow the blog so you'll be notified when there is a new posting. Well, I'm still trying to figure that out. The easiest way to to just bookmark the site in your favorite browser but you'll have to check the blog manually.

This article should help - http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?answer=104226

You can become a "follower" on the right side (I promise I won't make you drink the Kool-Aid). Although that apparently does require a Gmail, Yahoo, or AIM account. Everybody needs a Gmail account anyway in my opinion...it will make your life easier for many reasons. As a follower, you won't be notified when there is a new post but it does make it somewhat easier to follow.

Also, feel free to comment. It's easy and free! Just look at the end of each post where is says "comments" and click on it. A box will open up and you can type away!

Pebbles the Dog

This is the face of possibly the most photographed dog in all of Wisconsin and she lives in our house. Pebbles was adopted from the Dane County Humane Society when she was 3...or 4. She has conflicting records. Fast forward 9,000 pictures later. She's now 12 or 13.

Pebbles has had quite a career and has survived a couple of cancers, including a deadly, aggressive form that develops in the anal glands of dogs. After surgery, chemo (a good round and one that almost killed her due to a low white blood cell count) she's still going. She was only supposed to live 300 days after her diagnosis...as of today she's at 670 days. Good girl Pebbles!

Relaxing has always been something that she has been really good at. Her goal is to find the most recently made bed and arrange it to her exact specifications.

This picture was taken several years ago with a "point-and-shoot" digital camera. Actually, it was my FIRST digital camera. The Nikon 990.

Plan on seeing Pebbles again...

Neffy and Marley

A few shots from my visit to Neffy (shepard mix) and Marley's (the other one) backyard.

They were great sports and despite their speed, they were nice enough to slow down for a few minutes so I could snap a few shots.

While the yawning picture isn't technically the greatest picture, it makes my wife laugh every time its on the computer so I put it in the group.

Neffy bears a very strong resemblance to my dog, Pebbles, although Neffy is about a foot taller and is a younger dog. She and Marley spend a good deal of each day playing and conducting simulated attacks on each other. It's pretty fun to watch.

First post

Wow - my very own blog. I'm SOMEBODY...finally.

Dog Grin Photography - Dahlgren Photography...get it? Kinda sounds the same? Anyway, it's the same business only with a twist of dog. I like dogs. I like taking pictures of dogs.

I think that the best place to photograph a dog is on his/her home turf. That's where they feel the most comfortable and where they'll behave the most "normal"...if there is such a thing for a dog. So I don't do the studio pictures. There isn't anything wrong with studio pictures - I just don't think they look natural for a dog.

I recently ran across two very good photographers out in Seattle who focus (pun intended) only on dogs and I thought it would be fun to try to do what they are doing here in the Madison area. If you'd like to see their work, they are at www.erinvey.com and www.cowbelly.com. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

Welcome. I hope you like it here.