Oh Snap! A little Mixer

I had the opportunity to visit the other part of Denkai - their animal sanctuary an hour east of Windsor. Felt a little like Oz - Horses and pigs and goats - Oh My!!!!

But first, an homage to Art Wolfe: In a recent Creative Live workshop, Art shared some pictures from a project of his called "Vanish Act" where there's something hidden to for you to find in his pictures. I thought of him and his project when I shot this.... Can you find the hidden treasure?

(click images to see larger versions)

Here's a hint - a burrowing owl that, oddly enough, isn't burrowing!

Be sure to visit Art's web site, you'll be amazed!!!

And now, on to our regularly scheduled progra..... er.... images!

Spent quite a bit of time with the horses, am still working my way through the results and will have them on my flickr site shortly. In the mean time, these were my favorites....

Is this guy flirting with me?!

 

I like these kind of perspectives

A little artistic license...

Two herds - the Arabians in front never mixed with the rest...

These 2 beautiful Arabians were always in sync.

This guy had one brown eye...

And one blue eye!!

One of the few white patches in his mane.

And Finally:

IN A PIG'S EAR!!!!!

Next time I go there, there's a black-faced sheep with dreadlocks I'm dying to shoot - and if the fiesty rooster leaves me alone I might just get some good shots of him too!

Hope you enjoy....

The dark side of working with Dogs

Besides my photography I do dog rehabilitation and owner training. I volunteer at Denkai Animal Shelter, working with some of the most wonderful dogs you could ever hope to meet. And last Tuesday I was blessed to meet 13 more. Unfortunately, it wasn't under the best of circumstances.

Forgive me if I get the details wrong - a shelter director in Wyoming contacted Denkai about a breeder/hoarder (not sure which) that was giving up about 17-18 puppies, ages 2 and 6 months. The Wyoming shelter took charge of all but the 13 that came here. Now, I've seen worse cases on shows like "Animal Cops *******" (name your favorite city), but these poor things (12 males, 1 female) had it bad enough.

I was asked to photograph the intake, documenting each step in the process, from bathing and inspecting to spaying and neutering once they were cleaned up.

You can view the complete set of pictures on my flickr site, but here's a few that touch me the most. This experience has borne a mixture of feelings, from compassion for these poor things, to joy that they're in good hands, and finally outrage that we as a species have within ourselves the capacity for such cruelty.

A couple things, in case you didn't know: when dogs get real frightened, their eyes will dilate till they're almost completely black, and they tend to shut down and stare straight ahead. Given the trauma these little guys have gone through it's no wonder...

With my deepest respect:

We're supposed to be the smarter species...

The Rainy Season

Those of you that live in northern Colorado know we've been getting a ton of rain lately. Yesterday I heard a rumor that the Poudre river, which runs through part of my subdivision, was 8 feet over the flood line.

Not knowing what a flood line is, I thought I'd have a look, so we took a stroll to see what we could find.

Uh... Wow!!!

Click to view larger

This first image is a pano covering a corner of our local park. It distorts reality a tad, as I stood in the center and rotated 90 degrees as I captured this body of water. Nonetheless it shows how the Poudre overflowed it's boundaries. Here's the fun part: the water has already started receding. You'll notice (in the larger view) a white line showing the highest the water got.

We walked around the east side of the water and got as close as we could to the soccer goal. I would have preferred an angle that put the tip of the nearest diagonal post right in line with the front leg of the other, but there was a tree in the water I could get around.

While we were there I did this pano (only cause I just had my 100-400 with me) of the offending tree...

Our walking path takes us under this bridge. When the water is at it's normal level, there's about 9 feet of clearance as we walk under. Here, the water is only 3-4 feet below it. The city closed the road to keep traffic off. The power of water is pretty strong, and it wouldn't do to be driving over it if the middle pillar is taken out.


Hope you enjoy