Sunday, October 20, 2013

Precious Kali and her handsome brother Domino in pretty fall Omaha dog portraits!



SNEAK PEEK photos of a couple of bfff's and their gorgeous mommy show off their charm and sweetness at the local park on a crisp fall morning. Shot during mid week with no distractions! No kids, traffic or other pets, except for a jogger and some scary leaves... They were tricky to wrangle at first but, mom showed off her superpowers and handled them perfectly! No tilt of the head, but with a tongue like that hangin out of that slobbery cuteness of a dog face, who needs it! Thank you Amanda for being SUPER patient! They were a delight!!!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Darling Blonde Pomeranian looks Spiffy in October Halloween Jingle

October first is finally here and the leaves are a changin! This is my absolute favorite month of the year. I am in love with the chilly mornings and blazin sunny days and crispy nights! Sweatshirt weather! Shadows are super tall and the orange sun is setting earlier and earlier. I tend to drink a lot of coffee to get my creative juices flowing from Fox Hollow this time of year. The flavors are delish! Hallmark has candles in a luscious flavor named pumpkin butter! MMM.
Furby is FAB in this jingle gettup. What a charming young man he is. Poor guy has had some serious puppy bottom issues and yet can still ham it up in his photo shoot! What a champ!
BTW, I'm shooting pet portraits at Mulhall's on Saturday, Oct. 19th from 11-2pm.
This is what you get:  Tasty Treats from Nature Dog Omaha,  Free fab photo from Puppycat photography, donations to NHS, and a FURTASTIC time at a beautiful nursery! Dogs AND cats are welcome!!! You can't beat it!!!

Monday, September 23, 2013

Young Brussels Griffon Puppy is charming model in Omaha!







What a charming young puppy dog 'Rupert' was for a day. He was cuteness all rolled up in a ball. Puppy's are great models to shoot. Brussels are laid back with a punch of spazziness. I love it when dogs can go from 'no ears' to 'ears' at a squeaking moment! Cute, charming and a handsome little fellow. Rupert was truly a blast to photograph!

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Enjoy Yummy Fox Hollow Coffee and Cool Pet Photography Gallery in Omaha


Fox Hollow Coffee Shop BEFORE...



Fox Hollow Coffee Shop--AFTER!









Fox Hollow Coffee on 115th and Blondo in Omaha has my pet photography art on display at their shop! So while you relax in a cozy coffee shop with your yummy goodness (or wine!), you can enjoy and admire the cool and fabulous pet art on the walls! I asked my wonderful pet owners to send me their story on how each pet came into their lives and transformed them. Each canvas has a special story about them to read. Muppy the black German Shepard mix, Clovis the white St. Bernard mix, Stella the tiny brown Yorkie and Furby of course, my precious blond pom Furby. These are my STARS of the shop. And they will be available for viewing till October this year!
Before I installed these at the shop, I had to take some close up detail shots of the canvas. Fine art canvas gallery wraps are the COOLEST. Printed on museum quality canvas with archival inks, then wrapped around a stretcher frame. Ordered from Bay Photo Labs-They look AMAZING! Beautiful art that will last a lifetime! Thank you Cindy at Fox Hollow Coffee for this wonderful opportunity!

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Pet photography session giveaway WINNER

Congratulations to Pet owner Amanda S and her 2 doggies Kali and Domino! They were the lucky winners of the pet photography session giveaway with Puppycat Photography! She also wins a $50 gift certificate from Nature Dog! Her story about her dogs Kali and Domino truly touched my heart! Thank you to all of you who took the time to send in sweet and heartwarming stories. I loved reading about how much your pet means so much to you! It was tough to only chose ONE winner, and I plan on having more fun contests like these in the future! Stay tuned for our winning session photos of KALI and DOMINO coming soon!!!

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Keep pets SAFE and HAPPY on 4th of July!

An oldie but goodie. Felix the smooth coated collie as a puppy held by cutie petutie Leia. During this time of year it's interesting how some dogs don't have a care in the world for loud explosive noises. They are free spirits, totally mellow and absolutely calm and content with their happy little lives at home. And then there are super panicky types that are the complete opposites! They pant and slobber. Run around the house hysterically searching for an even better hiding place than the space under your bed. You can feel their poor little heart beats racing like crazy. No matter how much you hold them to try to calm them, it's no use. Fireworks are constantly exploding next door and shaking the house down the week before the 4th, and even a week AFTER the 4th! I walked my doggie this morning for a good long doggie walk around the neighborhood. Wore him OUT! And then he took a siesta today. Maybe if I keep him awake and continue to wear him out all day it may force him to sleep tonight. I doubt it. We pet owners can only do the best we can. Keep it normal and don't make a fuss over the noise. If he wants to spend the next week under the bed, then let him feel safe and secure there. Let's all celebrate our freedom and be thankful we don't live in a war zone country. God bless our pets! And God bless America! Have a SAFE and HAPPY 4th!!!!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Pet Photography Session Giveaway! [CLOSED]

It's the first day of summer and Nature Dog Omaha has teamed up with pet photographer Kim Widmark of PUPPYCAT PHOTOGRAPHY to offer you a chance to win a pet photography session of your beloved pet! To enter the contest, simply tell Kim about your pet and why you'd love to have him/her photographed!

One lucky winner will receive: 
Pet photography session with Puppycat Photography!
Time and talent of photographer to professionally edit up to 20 images!   
One 8X10 beautiful standout art mount of best photo! 
Collection of 5 digital files with print rights!
A fabulous pet photo experience with lots of treats!
$50 Gift Certificate from Nature Dog! 

Just launched the Summer Pet photography session giveaway that starts today-First day of SUMMER! And runs for a month through JULY 21! Simply email Kim on why YOUR pet is SPECIAL! 
Visit Naturedog of Omaha for the best natural pet food in town!

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

COOL black dog on Harley Sidecar road trippin Anaheim, California

While road tripping out of Anaheim, Cal., Leia and I stumbled across the coolest part of our trip. An awful cool dog riding sidecar on a Harley Davidson! She reminded us of our black lab Kenobi we just lost a couple of months ago and we couldn't help but think of how much he loved to go for car rides and we would describe this experience as getting the 'window treatment' for dogs. It was the last experience he had before he crossed over to doggy Heaven.
On our journey, we came across gas station dogs, rest stop dogs (a fawn Pomeranian that resembled Furby), 'seeing eye dog in training' at Disneyland (no joke-a grey Pomeranian), a Beverly Hills girly fluffed Chihuahua tucked neatly in a fabulous Coach pet purse, and yet ANOTHER leashed Pomeranian walking casually with it's owner INSIDE a Hollywood MALL (yeah, I know, right?). Oh boy! Californians pamper their pets! But ultimately, this Harley dog took the cake, the mother of all cool west coast Cali pets! Evidently Emma enjoys the open road and travels quite a bit with her owner through California and even has her very own website emmazen.com with a sweet heartwarming story! Emma is truly one lucky dog.

Monday, March 25, 2013

A Buff Puff Omaha Pomeranian in his first movie!

I'm so excited to finally incorporate moving images in my photography business! It's something that I've always wanted to learn and with the brave assistance of my model dog Furby and the editing talents of my daughter Leia, this super short (and cute!) first ever movie was possible! (not bad for my first try!) The technical aspect is pretty easy, however, the idea of filming something moving is very different from just shooting still shots. Similar, but much more involved. I do spend a lot of time scouting out the perfect location, but for this it's about capturing every element in the location and much more attention to detail. Perhaps this will push me to absorb more of the negative space in my surroundings. I don't know! I just know that I love it and love the idea of including this in a collection. This moving memory of my cherished puppy dog will be treasured forever! Who wouldn't want that?

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Adorable Chihuahua pet portraits Council Bluffs, Iowa




Been playing lately with my watermark lately and can't make my mind up. But, here is a sweet and adorable collection of two chihuahua siblings. Lola and Booboo. Besties for life.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Photographing pets. Why I do what I do.

An adorable black lab rescued from a litter of yellow and black lab puppies back in the summer of 2005 was what Leia and I needed to get through the grieving process. Kenobi will be his name. (appropriately named by my 11 year old daughter-princess Leia-who was also a huge Star Wars fan). He was goofy, unruly, rowdy, obnoxious, hyper, naughty. All the time. And yet, silly, sweet, adorable, affectionate and gentle-believe it or not. When he was about a young immature pup, he ran 27 laps around my ginormous backyard (must have been the greyhound in him). And for Christmas dinner, he jumped on the kitchen table and gobbled up an entire box of Norwegian chocolates. (called the vet, and Dr. D explained what to do to get him to up chuck the chocolates!-on Christmas!) Food was his life and my counters never looked better! On walks with his blond 5 pound pom brother Furby by his side, they would bark and get into play attack mode when anything moved on the other side of the street (could have been one of those dangerous baby strollers). When I called him and his bf to come inside I would holler: 'cookies and milk!' this meant you could expect some serious treats if you came in NOW! He got me motivated every morning. He made me giggle. He pissed me off. He made me cry. He was a handsome model. He was my doofuss black lab and I loved him with all my heart. My routine was set for life with him. 2 weeks ago he started acting weird and I didn't think nothing of it. Peeing alot. Drinking alot. Visited Elkhorn Animal Hospital(Dr. Dritely and Dr. Ravensborg are the BEST!) and they prescribed antibiotics. He stopped eating for an entire week. Zero appetite. Slept for 23 hours in the day. At the vet they took a picture of my poor best friend and saw cancer. Nothing prepares you for cancer in a young dog. I have a beautiful collection of photographs of Kenobi. From a pup to a grey faced old man lab. And this is why I do what I do. Every photo of Kenobi warms my heart and makes me smile! They lift my spirits and throw away the stress. I have treasures that I believe everyone who loves their pet as much as I do should have! They say dogs live in the moment. I believe they do that because they know they are only here on this earth for a short time. And Kenobi truly lived in the moment. RIP my friend. You are gone, but never forgotten!!!

Friday, January 18, 2013

Ez to watermark your photographs in CS5


Happy New Year! Yes, it's a brand new year and I have been teaching myself all kinds of new tricks! It's a season of down time so I finally took time to learn a new skill in photoshop. I've been meaning to learn how to watermark my photographs for the past year! I've had this 'logo' for almost a year now, and it's been growing on me-needs some fine tuning-but I'm happy with it for now. Watermarking your photographs is a good thing for all artists out there making an effort to protect their images on the web. I personally am not too anal about it, people right click and copy almost everything on the web. How can you truly protect yourself? I mean, it's your art that you put a ton of heart and soul into creating and people wanna steal it for fun. I think most people are simply clueless and mean no harm. Then there are a few folks out there that will blatantly steal-no hesitation. So as artists, we do the best we can to copyright and right click protect, whatever. And that's pretty much all we can do, is the best we can because it's like a cesspool of no respect in a way on the web. So, I'm not too worried about it, but if I can watermark as many images I have out there, the better and with my name clearly marked in a nice fashion for all viewers, the more exposure. So the time in CS5 learning actions (finally!) was time well spent. I'd like to credit a terrific website that I frequent often called http://parttimephoto.com/.  He offers tons of useful info for the emerging photographer. These photos are a typical 8X10 cropped and that is the size for the horizontal watermark. And if I choose a different size size such as 8.5X11 or 8X8 I need to record a different action because it will cut off the bottom and not be visible. Note to self! Automating and spending less time in photoshop as a part time photographer, the more money in my pocket.