It's a gray area....

One thing that's frustrating for a photographer who's passion is animals is shyness. And I speak mostly of Journey. Ok, Skittles is kinda shy too, but not as bad. Then again, Clyde is too so.... .... (sigh)

I typically try to keep a camera at hand no matter where I go, cause if I see my Puddies doing something interesting and get up to grab a camera, they stop. But shortly after I started keeping a camera at hand they started noticing when I pointed it at them. In the beginning, they'd come over to have a sniff. NOW they just stop and walk away.

Mainly Journey.... .... (sigh)

I just finished a 3 day live-feed workshop over the internet. Yesterday during lunch break, I decided to take my chances. I grabbed my camera, lay down in the corner and commenced giggling from the endless kissing from Skittles and Journey cause they immediately came over to visit. Clyde did too, but he wanted to play.

And that was my hook: he enticed Journey to play with him. Was it perfect? No - seems they wanted to jump and bump and play right on top of me. But hey - they were playing!

Skittles stayed with me, lubricating my neck and face so I could stay fluid and follow the action. With her slobbery help I finally caught the more playful side of Journey. I've been waiting for this for a long time!

All shots were made with available light and no modifiers. I did have to crank up my ISO a bit and shoot a slower shutter speed than I wanted, but I just timed my shots to catch them at the peak of their action. Been practicing that, and yesterday I did pretty good!

This first shot is in 2 parts. The first is the original. That blurred thing on the right is Skittle's leg. I'm trying to decide if it helps explain the story I'm trying to tell - Journey watching her, hoping she'll come over and play:

It's a bit distracting, but does add context. What do you think? Here's the cropped version.

Check out his eyes in both images. In the first, it seems like he's looking up at the owner of that leg. In this cropped version, it seems more like he's looking at us. Journey's eye's don't track each other always: I think the term is cock-eyed. However, it's subtle and you don't notice it often. I do see it here however: Skittles' leg helps draw my attention to his right eye first, and that one is looking at her.

So it seems that the cropped version tells a different story. Here he's inviting us to come play. That's cause the first thing my eye is drawn to is his left eye, clearly aimed straight out at us.

By the way, this is the class I just took - having a vision for my photography, and telling a story with each image I create.

There is a contemplative side of Journey. Or rather, a lot of his postures could encourage a primate to decide he's contemplative (sorry Patricia). I love this shot for it's story - the idea that he's laying there contemplating his surroundings, or maybe a playmate just out of view, or maybe he's just hoping I'll drop a bit of that muffin I'm eating (or would be eating if I wasn't playing with my camera!).

Clyde got tired of being ignored and decided to plant himself right smack in front of me. This is a lucky shot, cause he kept scooting in so close my lens couldn't get him in focus. Nudge him back, back up against the wall real quick and snap before he can decide to crowd back in. Rinse, repeat.

In one of my old computer programming language books, if you look in the index for the word recursive, it says "see recursive". An infinite loop in programming parlance. that's what shooting Clyde feels like - a never-ending loop of placing him then rushing to reset myself, quickly frame and focus and shoot before we start ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!!


Hope you enjoy....