Ghost Story

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

" 'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door —

Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; —

This it is, and nothing more."

-- Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven

Dog Blog Post #220: Today was my first repeat assignment on The Daily Shoot:

Make a photograph using hard light today. Feature the crisp and strong shadows as a major element of your photograph.

Some people grumble about repeat assignments, feeling perhaps their best efforts went into the shoot the first time, or that it's hard to get inspired the second time around.

I can tell you that I was seriously unimpressed, as I had found this to be one of the hardest assignments so far. I don't have any interesting light sources other than the big one on the sky, and my "models" wouldn't fit on the kitchen table like a still life, even if I did!

PLUS

It rained most the day - eliminating even that big orb in the sky.

Scary Light on Wet Dog Ear

(Fine, I did manage to find a few micro-seconds of sunlight, and I did take a few pictures, but they looked way too much like last time's shots to be satisfying.

We then decided to go for a walk, got caught out in the pouring rain, called my son to pick us up, discovered we (hubby and I) had both sets of keys with us, and ended up trudging home in the pouring rain - which stopped 2 houses before we made it to our own.

Henry was unimpressed.)

So there I was, wandering aimlessly around the house, trying to conjure up light from darkness (yes, candles would be cool, but flambe-of-dog? Definitely not cool.)

And then it hit me: The Maglite - that 4-D Cell behemoth, which you definitely do not want hitting you at all!

I closed the Slider curtains, took the dogs to the darkest part with hardwood floors, and took a lot of really bad, really blurry, really uninteresting shots. But amongst all that, was the shot at the very top.

I love it at once.

I have no idea if that's what's meant by "hard light", but I don't care. I think it's a great shot of Zachary!

(And really, how can you go wrong leading with Edgar Allan Poe?)

(... from the Communication assignment - just because I like it!)