Santa visits Dog Grin Photography

Santa paid a visit to me over the Christmas holiday via one of his UPS messengers. Wrapped amidst some bubble wrap, inside a #4 brown cardboard shipping box was a new copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2! Just what I've ALWAYS wanted! How did Santa know???

I've been reading about the virtues of Lightroom on blogs by some excellent dog photographers like Erin Vey and Jamie Pflughoeft (don't ask me how to say that last one), and decided that Lightroom 2 was the next thing to tackle in the never-ending quest to master this crazy thing we call...photography. I already own all kinds of photo editing software but this one seems to be a real time saver when it comes to "workflow", the process of taking an image from your digital media through a series of edits and file conversions to ultimately wind up with a finished product. The trick is to do this in the least number of steps possible to save time and to do the least amount of damage to the file. Unnecessary steps or conversions can damage an image by degrading it's quality - and that's always bad. The time savings becomes important when you come home from a shoot with 400 images that need to be kept or tossed - cropped, color corrected, tweaked, touched up, and finally saved (with a backup of course).

Every photographer has a different workflow. Mine is still under development, especially with this new tool in the toolbox. I fully expect it to become much more streamlined and efficient in the very near future. That will leave me with more time to cruise the web sites looking for great deals on Canon camera equipment so I can work on THAT toolbox. :)

More on Lightroom 2 to come after I drive it around the block a few times and kick the virtual tires.

Dogs Welcoming Home Soldiers

Here's a link to a series of home movies of dogs doing just what the title says...welcoming home their friends who had to defend our country. Some of them are quite touching. It's just amazes me how much affection an animal can show and how ingrained dogs have become into our society.  

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/40324

Bountiful Beagles!

Last week I had a chance to meet up with a couple of Beagle pups - six month old Daisy and her brother Oliver. These guys live in downtown Madison and greeted me with a familiar Arr-oooooo when I walked into their home. After a few minutes of ear licking and furious sniffing (my camera bag must smell like 20 different dogs by now) we were all best buds.

During the 45 minutes I was there, I witnessed the complete destruction of a new stuffed animal. After pulling out every possible piece of stuffing, the prize was unveiled...the squeaker - which mom promptly took away and put on a table. One of my favorite shots came out of this event. The shot of Oliver standing amidst the explosion of stuffing scattered all over the carpeting. I still chuckle every time I see it.

 

A brief jingle of their collars was all that was required to wake them from a very brief nap on the sofa. Oliver and Daisy knew exactly where the elevator was and bolted for it the second the door opened. Then it was off to the Wisconsin State Capitol (or is it Capital, I can never remember).

While living downtown might not be super great for wide open spaces and walking dogs off-leash, it sure is good for sightseeing. I never get tired of the architecture and contrast of modern buildings sitting alongside 100 year old buildings. The Beagles seemed right at home, bounding up the capitol steps like they live there (it's capitol...I looked it up).

After all that excitement, a four hour power nap was required to recharge the Beagle batteries according to their mom. The next day, we met up again at a dog park in Verona and got some good shots of the dogs bounding through the snow and attempting to steal a pink tennis ball away from a Golden Retriever. They actually worked as a team, Oliver distracting the dog and Daisy sneaking in for a quick grab before getting chased down and coughing up the ball.

Good times in the cold, Wisconsin weather. Stuffed animal destruction, walks in the snow, and pink tennis balls. If you are six months old and a Beagle, it doesn't get any better!

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Tuckered out...

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had a chance to spend a little time with Tucker the Cocker Spaniel. He also happens to be a dog-in-law. When my niece Katie is home from college, you can find Tucker and Katie together somewhere.

Tucker, who's a bit of a counter surfer, happened to be a tad over-stimulated with all of the Thanksgiving meal preparations under way. He did a pretty good job of making sure the floor was a no-food-zone too.

It's pretty obvious that Katie is Tucker's keeper. While he gets along with everybody, he mostly hung out on Katie's lap.

(Elvis impersonation)            

Happy holidays Tucker and everybody!

(click on photos to see larger version)