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!!!

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.

Vintage wooden cross-country skier toy photographs

I love vintage toys. I've got a heap of them all boxed up and ready to either display in some really cool way. Or they may be on their way through the eBay auction process. Take this one for example. I absolutely adore this guy. I have no idea what this type of toy is referred to. I just knew I had to have him about 10 years ago at a garage sale. I've named him 'Carl the cross-country skier'. He's vintage for sure and still has some sweet moves. Cute Carl in a unique winter scene!

Cute, Handsome and distinguished Christmas Pets model Dream Pets!

My wonderful pets decided it was okay to model some Christmas scarves for a Santa test shoot. All pets were well behaved even under harsh indoor perfect temp conditions. Forcing to model a seriously uncomfortable non pet attire. Life is RUFF. I scored the charming 'dream pets' reindeer at the Goodwill for a hefty .99c. He is in excellent condition and appropriate for x-mas photos!

New Pet Photography Price Page PDF

 

Aaahhh. The joy of feeling utter satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. This project took me a solid 2 days to complete. It's a price sheet in PDF. Yeah. I know. I should figure these photoshop projects in a couple of hours. NOT a couple of days. I was having a heck of a time figuring out my freakin type tool. Converting to paragraph text from point text. Justification. Hyphenation. Resetting characters. Numbers. Plus. Minus. Etc. Etc. Yuck. It was stuck and I was so stuck and ready to quit PS altogether. So simple. Well, it turned out okay in the end. Thank God. I'm so happy it's done (and I stuck with it!!) and I can finally display this on my website. And send off to clients if so needed. It's good for 2012. One more month! Then I gotta update it! I will have 2013 complete in a minute. I swear I know this photoshoppy thing preee good now. All good thing come to an end. Stylish and simple. A very professional layout imho.

Warm and Fuzzy Pomeranian Holiday Pet pix!

Since the holidays are near, I've been asked to shoot a 'Santa pet pix' at this Omaha pet service business(will post more info on that upcoming event very soon!!!). I recently purchased a ring flash for a separate event (Mulhall's Ladies Night anyone??)and tested it on Furby this afternoon. Using available north window light, at 4pm, 50mm lens, ISO1600(yikes-I know right!!!) f/1.4, 1/800, ring flash set to lowest for that added pop of light. You can see the window and a tiny ring reflection on his eyeball right? Doesn't look artificial at all to me. (but the noise is killin me). I'm so excited to be able to use this for just a bit more light for indoor shoots. (winter is brrrish to be location shooting). This Polaroid ring flash is affordable AND easy to figure out. LOVE it! Isn't he darling in his winter sweater???

Cute pet photo event at Mulhall's Nursery

What a wonderful turn out at the Furtastic Friends day at Mulhall's. We had a nice assortment of big dogs and small dogs, some in costume plus 2 cats!  No chaos or mass hysteria, just happy go lucky pets and wonderful pet owners who took the time to come out to visit, make a donation to the NHS and get their pet photographed by me for free! Thank you soooo much!!!

Precious Pekinese Dog Fall Photos in the Park

Miss Bebe the darling Pekinese Pup was a wonderful model one fine morning in the park. She may have paid a lot of attention to her mommy and the wonderful smells everywhere, but I think I was still able to capture her lil precious personality. One of these shots will be chosen for a 20X30 canvas to be displayed at Gentle Doctor Hospital on 156th and Maple. I'm so excited and can't wait to see the final piece of art on the office wall!!!

Darling kids October portrait in the park

I don't normally photograph kids but this was a benefit for a good friend of mine and I felt I needed to post a super sweet October kid portrait in the park. They are DARLING imho. It was quite chilly, but you would never know from this photo. Check out those baby blue eyes! Seriously!!!