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.