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Articles Tagged with: dog

Up All Night

My kids tried to wait up for my wife Amy last night. Kegan didn’t quite make it past the floor. Luckily, Lola was there to keep him company. I still had my camera setup from this post, so I cranked up the ISO to 1600 and got down on the floor to shoot this. I did play with the colors and saturation a bit to get that desaturated look.

In unrelated news, I got the email today that every person in their mid-thirties who attended college waits many years to receive. My student loans are all officially paid off. I think I need a drink! It’s a happy Sunday indeed.

Jump Rope For Heart 2012

My boy Kegan has decided to raise money for the American Heart Association by participating in this year’s Jump Rope For Heart.

Make sure to visit his fundraising website and help him reach his $100 goal!

We had a little scare in our family as we rang in the new year as our little Pomeranian Lola was having trouble breathing. Seriously, she started gagging at the stroke of midnight. After a trip to the vet we found out that she’s suffering from a collapsing trachea. Uggghhhhhh. Why make such a happy, loving, and cute dog only to make it suffer from a horrible genetic disorder? Life can be so unfair and it has no bias in who it chooses to pick on. I’m glad that my kids realize that and are motivated enough to participate in fund raisers throughout the year. We try to live our lives by the golden rule over here because that’s what makes life awesome.

So far she’s almost back to normal with the medication she’s on. She had a few stoned days where she was not herself. That iPhone snap above was from the day after the vet visit, and she was just glassy eyed and lethargic. She can stand to loose a couple of pounds too, so she’ll be joining us with our healthy resolution to stick to a good diet this year 😉

Lola Fishing

Let’s talk about this photo for a minute. This represents the number one reason I love photography. Technically, the photo is an utter mess. The main subject is in the middle of the frame and out of balance, the color of the light is totally mismatched (and speaking of the light, there is a lamp growing out of the back of his head), there is a lot of distracting clutter (thanks to my kids sleeping on the couches because their mother is out of town for the weekend – which translates into instant domestic anarchy), and the composition is rushed so that the context of the bowl of pasta becomes just a bowl and it’s hard to tell exactly what it is my son is feeding Lola, our Pomeranian pooch. On paper, this photo is crap.

I love it.

Why? Because it’s real. I could set the same scene up and get everything right, and I bet I could make it look spontaneous as well. But, this is a real moment that was happening. I had my camera out and I was busy doing some stuff on my computer when I turned around and caught my son sneaking the dog some of his dinner. I crept up and put the camera down on the table and let the shutter rip. This was the result. I know what it is, I will remember it, and one day if my son has his own kids and they do what every kid seems to do if they have a dog, he will have a photographic moment from his childhood to make him smile about it. That’s the reason I was initially drawn to photography – To capture life’s moments so that we can look back or share them and connect with each other.

A photo doesn’t have to be perfect to have meaning. Capturing the moment is always more important than the technicality of the shot, although capturing the moment perfectly is always what we strive for. Careers have been made by the perfect blend of skill and being in the right place at the right time. A perfect shot of a lost moment is meaningless nonetheless.

It’s also another reason of why I love my iPhone. Today, my son Kegan had to tail me as I did some work with a client of mine, which happens to be a veterinary emergency hospital. He had a blast playing with the dogs there, and I was able to grab this shot with my phone as he let a Chihuahua play “King of the Mountain” on him:

Diptychs, Dragons, & Doggies

Sometimes it takes more than one photo to illustrate your idea. Sure, a great photo will tell a whole story or be composed like an opus, but sometimes you can convey a more powerful message by showing showing two separate images together. The trick to making a successful story-telling diptych is to make sure that each photo stands alone as a strong photo. When combined, they should serve to enhance each other to either tell a more complete story, exude a more compelling emotion, or just drive a point home.

Above, in the photo no the right, I liked the play of the dog and the toy – it looks as if the toy is whispering sweet nothings into the dog’s ear. Unfortunately, you can’t tell just what the toy is even though in what little you see of it it takes on life-like characteristics. With the addition of the photo on the left, you see more of the toy as it lies lifeless on the couch like a toy the kids left behind. The toy, by the way, is a Dronky from the Shrek movies, which is a half-donkey and half-dragon. The message of the shot is about relationships. While the photo on the right could convey a similar message, when it’s combined with the lonely toy shot it uses the thematic contrast of the two to drive home the idea of happiness in companionship.

Below is another diptych I made. The theme of this shot is loneliness. The two shots are different but the same – an empty stool in an ice cream shop and my daughter sitting alone at the counter of the same shop waiting for someone (in reality she was waiting for the waitress to refill her drink).