Looking Skyward

Dog Blog Post #225: Today was suppose to be Family Dog #3, but Mother Nature had a different idea, and the class was cancelled.

Boooo....

Of course, the fact I did not have to sit outside in the dark and freeze my extremities off did lessen the blow a bit.

On to The Daily Shoot:

Look upward today. Make a photograph with a low horizon and that emphasizes the sky.

I knew what I wanted right off. Really, there appeared (at least to me) to be few options here. As getting the golden's into the sky seemed a bit unlikely, some golden bit was going to have to serve as my horizon.

Yet Another stripes shot, insert here Just Because I Liked It

This was yet another one of those assignments that should have been done in a few pictures and a handful of minutes, that took me much longer and I ended up never quite getting what I was after.

What I wanted was a view down somebody's muzzle, which was pointed skyward, and had I been able to to this with just clear blue sky in the background, it might have worked. I could have used macro mode to focus on the tip of the nose, left the blue sky (devoid of trees or clouds) to go fuzzy, which of course no one would have been able to tell...

... it would have been a cute shot.

But my yard is surrounded by trees and the house, so that there is always going to be something in the background, and as soon as there is something, then you have to have it in focus, which makes the nose blurry, and the shot is ruined.

This leaves either having the top or the side of someone's head to be my horizon, and accept the trees in the background as the principle elements of the shot.

Which I did.

A bit of a yawner, except for the rather pleasing (to me) dark tones and the highlights on Henry's fur and eye.

It was interesting how many of you commented on your dogs popping up from the downs, too, yesterday. Not sure if I should feel pleased to be in such good company, or dismayed at that the state of down in dogdom! (Let's go with pleased-with-the-company, a much more positive spin on things.)

Missing Skill of the Day? Wow, too numerous to count. The winner was probably the total lack of any sort of command to get the dogs to raise their muzzles skyward. Which mean luring. Which put my hand in the picture.

Sigh.

Positive Thing? Zachary is getting better about following the cookie lure to get in place, even if it meant shouldering Henry out of place to do so.

Really, it was a Good Thing!

(And yes, Wendy, I made good use of the non-class time by working on the boys trick. Zachary is coming along beautifully. Henry remains a work in progress!)