Sunday, February 6, 2011

Abstract

Dog Blog Post #227: What luck! Today's Daily Shoot:

Go abstract today and make a photograph that focuses on form and color rather than detail.

... and it just happened to fall on a day when:

1.  I could be at home during one of the two time slots when I can get lovely streams of sunlight
2. The sun was shining (or at least the clouds were parted) during one of the two time slots when it can make it into the house

-and-

(most importantly)

3. I took advantage of that first time slot, including shoo-ing (less than impressed) hubby out of my narrow beam of light, to take pictures

A good thing, as high clouds came in later in the day and obliterated the second time slot.

This was a really fun shoot. I love taking the Narrow Beam of Light (black background) pictures -and- the dogs are really good at this sort of "posing".

Elapsed time from first to last picture? 16 minutes. Number of pictures taken? 59. Number of duds? Basically zero. (Ok - there might have one when somebody moved.)

I then spent an hour trying to sort out which one was my favorite.

Missing Skill of the Day? Henry is still total camera hog. It would be even worse with Narrow Beam of Light shoots (as the area to work in is, by definition, narrow) except those are always stationary, and if there is one thing Henry is good at, it's being stationary!

The winning picture is below...


... chosen because I felt it best met the principle component of the assignment: abstract. My favorite? Probably the one up at the top of the post, as he's so darn cute there! I had some really nice pictures of Zachary as well, so don't be surprised if they don't crop up over the next few days to "decorate" other posts. (None are shown here as his fur just doesn't do abstract like Henry's does!)

Let's see, what else? Sugar the Golden Retriever mentioned Watermarks. I haven't a clue how to make a watermark, although I'm certainly curious, but I kind of doubt my practically medieval software supports such a thing.

Oh... and eyes. Houndstooth mentioned how lovely Bunny's eyes are (and she's right! Something about greyhound eyes... magical...) and wondered about my own boys. Alas, no. Their eyes are deep and dark, like really good dark chocolate, but solid and impossible to take pictures of.

Beau had lovely eyes, richly pattered with shades and flecks of browns. Alas, again, for while he would stare into my eyes for hours (an old soul, that one was) he didn't care to do so for the camera, and in the thousands of pictures I have of him, there isn't a one that really shows them off. The best I could come up with is the heavily cropped picture nearby.

Doesn't really do them justice, I'm afraid.

I miss my Big Dog.

9 comments:

Elaine Pritchard said...

Lovely!!

LuLu and Wally said...

Great job! I love the way the two textures play together.

Beau's eyes were beautiful. I'm so sorry for your loss. :(

Annieke said...

My favorite is the one at the top, great shots!

Sage said...

Excellent photos! You've done a great job of capturing the abstract here. It's really nice that you had such a high resolution picture of Beau so you could capture those gorgeous eyes.

houndstooth said...

I agree with you! The top one is awesome, and that second one really does a great job showing abstract! Beau did have beautiful eyes. I think that's a great shot of his eye, too!

Kolchak Puggle said...

Your pictures are gorgeous, watermarks might be a good idea, though I always feel like they "ruin" the picture to a degree. It's very easy to watermark a photo using online servies like www.watermarktool.com or picmarkr.com

123 said...

Gorgeous photos! You are an incredible photographer, capturing details so well. I'm following you from The Doggy Blogger. Hope to see you on my site. :-)

Katie, Maizey and Magnus said...

Lovely as always! I can't believe the shots you are getting, absolutely priceless. I miss my big dog too.:( They really never leave your heart. . .

greygirl25 said...

You are totally rocking The Daily Shoot. Nice work. I love the winning abstract image..