dogs | cheech 297

Spring….

Finally…….and everyone is thrilled…..

Squeek caffeinating….

Havoc resting up….

Trouble ready as usual…

I’ve been AWOL for awhile….Hopefully spring will find me posting with more regularity.

Again and again…..

Yesterday they threatened us with 5 inches of snow and we barely got 2 inches. Today we were promised rain and this is what we got

The snow covered mounds in the lower left are my ancient (30 and 29 years old respectively) thoroughbreds.

I have been using the few bits on sun I get in my house (when it’s not snowing) to work on my pet portraits.

Trouble, I can’t believe he’s almost two.

Havoc, he is just over a year old now.

Squeek, we don’t discuss her age, note the grey eyebrows.

My house gets hardly any direct sun, it’s on the north side of a hill and shaded by mature trees…..it’s wonderful in the summer…..but you starve for vitamin D in the winter. So it’s interesting to try and use the little bit I do get. I’ll have to see what else I can do with it, besides pet portraits.

Havoc and Trouble

Still house bound, though at this point it’s the fault of my truck not the snow. However the result is the same…..very limited subject matter to photograph, basically I’m stuck with the critters…..

“Come on, it’s fun. Trust me.”

Bird watching.

“Hey, play with me.”

“Fine.”

I find it interesting how the lighting in this image makes it look like I photo shopped it together (I didn’t). It’s the product of two separate unbalanced lighting sources and a bit too much burning and dodging (done for clarity) making the over all lighting look unnatural/fake. Odd, isn’t it?

The difficulty with photographing one’s own pets is to get images that are not just snap shots. These are more fun than anything else, but fun is good too.

Xmas….Snow…..and Dogs

I love where I live. This is Main st. Rosendale. I love my town.

Except that this is the weather today.

This is what it should be….

The dogs at least know how to have a good time (I am sulking)

Really you just think you’re bigger than me.

And this is what Trouble the cat thinks….

“Ah, a sunbeam I’m good.”

Havoc and his cohorts

Dogs today, gardens tomorrow….

Havoc and Mags in a rare moment of stillness.

Havoc and Willow at the dog park.

Havoc and Astro with Phoebe in blue.

Brat keeps top dog status.

Squeek gets the last word.

Portraits…animals with people

I have been going through my photos trying to organize the vast morass into coherent groups, ugh. It’s fun in some ways, pictures you’ve forgotten, things that you skipped over in the initial edit and sometimes you find out you have a project going that you hadn’t really planned. I have acquired a number of portraits of people with animals or animals with people if you prefer. My goal is for them to be interesting, not just the pretty shot, and that the animals are as important as the people. I don’t think I always succeed in the latter. But here are a few examples that I am pleased with.

Victor, Lil andSqueek.

Christian and Brat.

Double Dip and Jen

Rowan and Willow.

Rowan and Willow, take two. This doesn’t really fit the group, but I really like the photo.
Hopefully the organizing will end in new and updated galleries before next weekend.

Havoc’s compatriots…..

When we got him they were all the same size, not so much anymore.

Havoc and Trouble making plans.

Waiting for Havoc to catch on.

Trouble shows the event horses how it’s done.

Trying to explain correct child decorum to Havoc.

Squeek demonstrates.

The pursuit of snacks.

I could have sworn you had a cookie.

Havoc……an update

So he’s not a puppy any more, more of a lanky adolescent, who ended up bigger and better looking than I expected. So today I offer some comparison shots.

Two versions of trying to fit in someone’s lap.

‘You used to let me sit in your lap, I know you did.’
The little guy on the right is Louie.

Lost his puppy coat, went up two collar sizes and changed color.

Trying to follow the example of his elders/betters.

Sheep Dog Trials

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Watching black and white dogs zip around a meadow in the diligent pursuit of sheep is a rather pleasant way to spend a spring afternoon. The dogs are amazing and it’s fascinating to watch how much the terrain affects the direction the sheep travel. How much harder the dogs have to work to keep them on a line cutting across a slope instead of letting them follow their natural inclination to travel down hill. I shouldn’t have been so surprised, years spent working with horses should have made me think about the lines of least resistance across terrain, just like holding your line to a cross country fence. The day had much in common with the nicer horse shows/events I have been to – good weather, beautiful landscapes, clever animals, good training and all the drama in the competition not the competitors. However as much as I like dogs and found the whole thing both beautiful and interesting, I could never, ever, ever do this for fun……it would take me precisely ten minutes of trying to get recalcitrant sheep into a pen to decide that the only good sheep were the ones that were properly butchered and in my freezer, which would really rather complicate things.

Finality Farms, Dover Plains, NY.

This is a difficult event to photograph with out fast, long lenses and I was not well equipped. I had hoped to do some dog and handler photos, but…… Make sure you check out how keen the dog in the top photo looks (he’s in the top left corner). It’s easier to move large groups of sheep (they want to stay together and are calmer in a herd) than moving just three like they do in competition.