Dogs In Motion

My two girls, Phoebe (yellow lab) and Bailey (All American Mutt) love to play fetch.  Bailey gets down right crazy about it.  She will be so excited that her jaw will actually click.  Usually our ball sessions last about 10 or 15 minutes and my arms get really sore from throwing.  I stand on the deck and throw the ball and they fly down the stairs and fetch it.  If Phoebe gets the ball, she runs up the stairs and tosses at my feet.  If Bailey gets the ball she brings it back up the stairs, places both paws on top and "shoots" it to me by popping it out from under her paws.

A few weeks ago, I got this great idea to get my tennis racket and hit the ball out to them.  I can hit it way farther than I can throw it and the girls love it.  I can also last longer so our sessions are closer to a half hour.

I love how they look when they run...I live vicariously in their motion.  We could all learn from the simple happiness of a dog chasing a ball!

Is Photography Art or Indulgence (on my part!)

So my Pentax K-X is a perfectly fine beginner DSLR camera...and mine is red! But as much as I liked my red beginner DSL I felt like I needed something with some advanced features.  So I got myself a Canon T2I -- 18.2 megapixels, shooting capability in "the RAW" (still not sure what that means yet except that it will be better to manipulate in Photoshop), and a bunch of other features that I'm still working through.  Photography is an expensive habit!  I could take a second mortgage out just on the lenses that I want!


But in addition to my new camera, I also invested in Lens called the Lensbaby.  This is a very cool lens kit that "bends" the image providing a lovely sweet spot of focus and feathers out the rest of the image.  There are multiple optics you can add to your Lensbaby.  I bought the "Composer" and several optics and special effects.  Check out their website and gallery for some very cool examples in their Gallery Lensbaby.

My favorite, the fish eye optic!

But as I struggle with the new equipment, I also struggle with photography as an art form.  I've always like to take unusual angles of things...more interested in the composition of a picture than documenting an event.  But what makes my shot better than someone else's?  I mean, if I get a great picture is it because of my artistic insight or is it because I have a great camera?  I struggle with this...

So here are some photos that are what I call my Seinfeld Series -- pictures about nothing...but I like them!  What do you think?

Macro 10x and 4x together

Macro 10x and 4x together

Double pane optic

Double pane optic

Macro 10X

Double pane optic

Double pane optic