Sunday, April 10, 2011

Picture Time

Henry in Sunbeam

Dog Blog Post #295: Today's Daily Shoot assignment was:

Illustrate time in a photograph today.

The first thing that ran through my mind were clocks and watches, but I just did a watch not that long ago...

... and then a song my mom listened to when I was little, "If I could save time in a bottle..."

... and then my interior monologue whining, "Really? Time? With a dog?"

But the next thing that popped into my head was a sign I bought some years ago that looks something like (actually, exactly like) this:

ds510 - Time


Sign was placed in a holder (that normally holds a clock on the mantle - irony anyone?) and set on a few bricks to make it about a foot off the ground. Set the camera to a 2 second delay, click the button, wait a heartbeat, and chuck the Lacrosse ball down the path.

Click!

And there you have it. The fact the dogs were in a little patch of sunlight when the picture snapped was purely luck.

The picture at the very top of the post was taken for grins and giggles, in a lovely late afternoon sunbeam.

Yup.

Yellow.

But I don't care. Henry is postively glowing and I think he looks pretty fine when doing so.

This is also my first picture for a new scavenger challenge flickr group I just joined (both new for me -and- a new group) - #7: Our four-legged friends. Yeah - just what I need - more things to do. But as I feel no need to make this a dog-only activity (unlike my self-imposed restriction on The Daily Shoot) perhaps it'll take a bit less time.

ds506 - On Edge


The remaining pictures were from Tuesday's Daily Shoot (which didn't make it here due to Wordless Wednesday and then me being overly chatty the rest of the week):

Focus on an edge today and make a photograph.

The one above is the one I posted, which I regret now, and wish I had posted the one below. Oh well, live and learn.

ds506 - On Edge

Editor's Note #1: I think houndstooth is (once again) quite right. My (low) opinion of how yesterday's chess pictures came out were definitely colored (groan) by how I was picturing (groan) them coming out in my head. And that wasn't red (or yellow!) Maybe the trick is to snap the pictures, then erase preconceived notions of both the assignment and the desired outcome from my mind, and use my gut to pick the shot I like best.

Now I'm curious how everyone else decides which pictures to include/exclude from their blog (or elsewhere)????

Editor's Note #2: Don't eat the checkers Oscar - they'll give you a tummy ache.

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

7 comments:

Golden Woofs! SUGAR said...

Woof! Woof! LOVE the sign. Mom does not know how to set her camera in time delay ... ?how do you do that. My mom takes numerous daily photos of me. Only 1 or 2 gets posted. We had an issue before copying our photos so had to limit it n included a watermark. Lots of Golden Woofs, Sugar

Amber-Mae said...

OH not only can we make it to the fence/gate in 2.8 seconds, we can slam into it too! And I mean slam into it HARD!! The porch is tiled so it's very hard to apply the breaks. HEE HEE

Good shot!

houndstooth said...

I loved the one you used for yesterday's assignment! It was just so perfect, with them in motion in the background. Plus, I think almost everyone else used a clock or timer of some sort in their photo. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, well, I like to do things that are different. I actually like the one you used for the edge picture for The Daily Shoot the best, too. It just has more visual interest for me.

That one at the top would be a great one for today's assignment, which I am still mulling over!

Well, the pictures I use for the blog get chosen one of two ways. If it's from an event that we went to and I talking about what we saw and did, I try to pick the photos that are the most interesting and illustrate some of the points that I'm talking about. I also choose the ones that grab my eye the most, or ones that I keep coming back to. The second way I choose them is when I'm writing about something like the obituary story, and I set up pictures to illustrate the point. Then it's just a matter of choosing the ones that are the best, without her nose bent, tongue sticking out or eyes glowing green. Sometimes I have a really hard time choosing, too!

Greyhounds CAN Sit said...

What a great photo you took for the Illustrate Time assignment! And I can see why you wished you'd used the other photo for the Edge assignment.

Between you and Houndstooth you've got me investigating the Daily Shoot - not ready to participate yet though:) I'm not good at lateral thinking, I go for the obvious, and I'm hoping that by seeing how other people interpret the assignments I might be able to sharpen the old brain up a bit:)

The first criteria for choosing photos for my blog is whether my photos are in focus! That cuts out a lot, although I will sometimes use a photo that isn't quite as sharp as I'd like and hope no-one notices! Then I just choose ones that I like that apply to whatever I'm blogging about. And I usually post way too many but I kind of look at my blog as a bit of a photo diary as well as a diary of what we've been doing.

greygirl25 said...

I love the fence sign. Too funny.

As for the reflection with the beer, it's just a mirror underneath. The challenge is getting just the black background reflection and not everything else in the kitchen. (Yup, I set-up everything on the kitchen table.) Takes me a while to work the camera angle.

Pup Fan said...

I love the photo with the sign! So fun... and so creative. :)

As for choosing blog photos... sometimes after I take a photo, I just know it needs to make an appearance on the blog. Other times, I have to really think about it - I like to choose things that have different POVs, facial expressions, etc., so that I'm mixing up what I'm sharing. However, that being said, sometimes I just pick the cutest and go with it. :)

K-Koira said...

Generally, I try to pick photos that:

1. Illustrate a point I am trying to make or best show the atmosphere of an event/day

2. Make me think "this was a great photo" meaning in focus, good lighting, good background, etc (for me, this is based on getting a good picture with my 10 year old 3MP camera)

3. Make me laugh. This sometimes includes pictures that aren't quite in focus, don't quite have the lighting I would like, etc, but in which my dogs are just so funny looking I can't help but share.