1 December, 2011

We got snow on the first of December! Not very much, but it was definitely a good start to the month. I hope that means we'll get some decent snow this winter; not counting on it, but definitely hoping.

30 November, 2011

As we headed out to the gym, I resolved to take another photo in the 16:9 aspect ratio and decided to throw in a goal to get said photo in black and white. Having a self-established challenge helped me find a photo for the day, for sure.

(Per tradition, here's a copy in a larger size.)

29 November, 2011

Took a trip to the local duck pond that we last visited back in March. This time there were indeed more ducks than geese, since most of the latter had already migrated. I brought both my mother's camera and my own, since they both have attributes that make them quite valuable.

My absolute favorite of the bunch.

A handsome mallard in the setting sun. He waddled onto the shore for a brief while before diving back into the water.

One of many handsome couples.


This final one is the only one from my camera. It handles direct sunlight far better than the Nikon.

28 November, 2011

Today, our pups turned four years old. I know, hardly puppies any more, but that's how we still think of them. Naturally, I felt it necessary to take my girl outside and get some birthday photos of her. I was intending to get some shots of Joy, too, but didn't wind up doing that. I should try another photo shoot with her again soon, though.

I never tire of pretty pictures of my girl, but I'm sure you all are a wee bit weary of my more typical posed shots, so I'm only sharing one of those with you all today. The other three shots are some more unique takes on photographing a subject that's been in front of my lens many a time.


I finally captured the bow! It took a bit of work and several blurry photos, but here it is. I trained this one over three years ago and though we have a few photos of me and her performing the trick together, I've wanted a shot without me, taken by me, for a little while now.

Demonstrating her "step up" trick. Though I feel this could have been framed better, I was having to do some fast shooting since the dog was very much excited (as indicated by her "smile"). I find the big head effect amusing, though.

My girl's paws. Definitely not the feet of a puppy. She held her step up very nicely, though, as I snapped this and several other shots.

27 November, 2011 - LH's birthday

We were thrilled to have LH for her birthday this year! My mom fixed her delicious manacotti for dinner and we had a tasty birthday cake for dessert. It was a rather enjoyable day, I thought.

LH's mom got her the below chocolates for her birthday; I thought the foil looked rather fun to photograph, so I got a few shots of 'em. The below picture was my favorite of the bunch.


I also got to photograph LH herself, which was quite a pleasure. She's an entertaining subject, which turned out some quirky and cute photos. Hopefully I'll get the honor of being her photographer again in the future.

Two of my favorite pictures, though enough of the photos turned out well enough that picking these two was a bit of a debate.

26 November, 2011

LH and I spent a good portion of the afternoon on our computers; me working on file transfers and her on homework. As such, I did what I tend to do when I don't have time or inspiration for anything else--photograph the dogs.

I'm thinking of this shot as "The Stare Down." I tried to get even closer to this scene, but the pups zoomed away before I could.

Cropped this one into a square to cut out a bunch of white noise while keeping the full dogs.

25 November, 2011

I took a ride with LH back to the printer that she hired to print her business cards. Unfortunately, the shop was closed (presumably for Black Friday, but we don't know, as they didn't have a sign explaining their closure) so the cards had to wait. However, I snapped a few shots of scenery surrounding the store to fulfill my picture for the day.


I was actually attempting to capture more of the traffic in this shot, but couldn't seem to catch more than one car at a time.

24 November, 2011 - Thanksgiving Day

This is another one of those times where I frantically catch up on several days in one evening. Please bear with me.

I didn't have many photo opportunities on Thanksgiving, so I grabbed the wobble flower LH gave me last month and finally got a photo of it. It's adorable. And wobbles. And is a sunflower. It's just awesome, in general.

23 November, 2011

Another dog post. I finally managed to capture a good shot of Joy-Ful's front end, though (second shot), which I consider something of a victory. I don't know what her obsession is with keeping her rear to the camera, but the majority of my photographs have her best end facing away from me.

22 November, 2011 - CB's Birthday!

Happy birthday to my sister, CoolBreeze!

This being her birthday, I decided to make a subject out of one her masks for my daily shot. I actually had a lot of fun working with this color combination, illuminated by a sliver of sunlight. (Seriously, the sun is setting ridiculously early. It's madness.)

The shots below were my favorite from the shoot, though the top is definitely my preferred of the two.