Nosy!!

I believe I've mentioned that I volunteer at Balanced Dog training services several times a week. Yesterday, I got a chance to hang out in their day camp with the daycare dogs. Took along my camera, of course, but this time thought I'd try a different perspective, so I limited my lens choice to my 16-35....

Meet Vito - he's got a face you can't help adoring.


Don't know this guy's name, but I called him the nose
cause he kept sticking it into my business...


Then there's the tongue, who thought she should make
sure my lens stayed clean...


Lucy - sweet girl, a bit shy of both me and my camera.
With a little patience and positive association I got
her to not freak when the camera clicked.
Lovable girl!!!


The world's longest dog - part Dachsund, part Airedale
and part nose!!!


See, got the name right, didn't I?!

Horsin' around

So, there's this property I pass all the time on my way to the freeway. It's a large property with horses, but I wouldn't call it a ranch. Unless, of course, any property with horses and a barn constitutes a ranch.

In which case... there's this ranch I pass.... ..... ....

Most times when I run across horses they're too far away for my 70-200 zoom lens. Yesterday morning I got lucky - they were right next to the fence. Parked far enough away to not spook them, then sidled over.

Most times when I see horses, all I get are backsides and sideways glances. Can't get close enough, they wander away. THIS group didn't seem to care that I was there. As a matter of fact, one of them seemed downright happy to pose for me. Here's a few samples of what we came up with...

A profile....

A Head Shot...

And Stretching Excercise!

Hope you enjoy...

Shooting in Denver - pt 1.

A promising young clothing designer from Albuquerque N.M. came up to Colorado to work with a couple photographers to add his latest designs to his portfolio. He liked my portfolio and asked my help, so we got together in downtown Denver to take advantage of some cool locations there.

I get there just a little ahead of schedule, and his entourage gets there just over an hour late, so I had some time to kill. I wandered around, capturing shots of potential shoot locations, and just stuff in general.

We planned to start at the courthouse that I'd shot the last time I wandered around downtown (there should be a country song there somewhere). On my previous visit, there was a wedding party doing portraits on the south side, so I had to wait till now to get this shot:


I really like the symmetry here - and the lamps really stand out against the marble columns...

At one point I ended up on the 16th St. mall stretch, and happened upon a cool reflection of a building across the street. Seemed cool to include the building across the alley too...


Took lots of shots of textures for playing with photos during post-processing. Can never have enough of those, but by themselves they're nothing special, not worth sharing here. So, I'll end part one with this shot - which I could argue is one of the best shots of the session with RJ. Meet his younger sister Miranda!


Stay tuned, got some great shots of RJ's outfits coming!

Hope you enjoy....

it's all in the angle....

Sitting on the couch watching History channel and glanced over at my girl Skittles. She was anticipating dinner time, early as usual, and was laying there waiting patiently for me to get up and feed her.

She had her paws in so tight to her muzzle I couldn't pass up the shot. Tried a couple different angles, and when I got them into the computer was blown away how different they are!


I bent down over the arm of the couch for this shot, and she didn't move her head, just raised her eyes to look at me. And of course, like us, her eyebrows lifted when she did. The intensity, coupled with the post processing really gives her an intense look. Those that don't know her will likely see a mean, angry dog.

I got down on the ground, and for a change, Skittles didn't get up and come over to visit. Might have something to do with me saying "Stay", but that usually doesn't work. I took a couple shots, and this one had the best emotion. Looks like she's sad, resigned, bored or something...


Like I tell the models I work with: making a small change with your eyes and mouth can make a tremendous change in the emotion captured in the image.

Hmmm.... maybe I should show them these 2 shots......