The Painters

... and for today...

Editor's Note: As we're going wordless, you'll have to click on the image, above, to see what the challenges were!

Dog Blog Post #584: -- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us! © 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

The Camera Game

Dog Blog Post #583: Today's Daily Dog Challenge assignment was...

91. Who's Got Game" Does your dog have a favorite game? Be as creative or literal as you want to be!

Yes, believe it or not, playing to the camera is, indeed, one of the boys favorite games.

They have no idea what I'm doing, of course. All they know is if they "do the right thing" then they hear a soft click (the camera) and they get cookies.

A year and tens of thousands of pictures later, they have come quite adept at "making the camera click" with their antics.

This also takes care of ...

Our Daily Challenge - Jan 30, 2012 - "Shine" (on the paint cans)
112 Pictures in 2012 - "#3. Bright and Colorful"

... as the boys got it in their heads to trade their plain white walls for something bright and colorful.

Hmmm…

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Precious Puppy

Dog Blog Post #582: Family outing today, so time for thinking about today's Daily Dog Challenge of...

89. Dream Photo - What's a photograph you've wanted to make for a while but haven't for some reason? Shoot it today!

... was a bit short. That said, I'd been meaning to try out the new lights to create a hi-key picture, and while they didn't turn out quite as I'd hoped, I do like the pictures I ended up with.

PLUS

Our Daily Challenge - Jan 29, 2012 - "Begins with P"

Precious Puppy, of course!

112 Pictures in 2012 - "#63. Simple"

No costumes, no props… Just Henry.

Scavenger Challenge January 2012 - "9. Resistance is futile! Photograph something irresistible." (spare)

Well, I find him irresistible. :)

Zachary can do irresistible, too!

He can also be a bit of a Pest, which is Perfectly aPpropriate for Mischief Monday...

Panting

Penitent?

Puckered

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us! © 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Puppet Pals

Dog Blog Post #581: Today's Daily Dog Challenge was...

89. What's Your Angle - Make a slightly off angle photograph of your dog today. Use the angle to emphasize your pup!

PLUS

Our Daily Challenge - Jan. 28, 2012 - "Craft"
112 Pictures in 2012 - "#76. Young or Youth(flu)"

Since the boys were feeling puppyish today, they decided to pass the time making paper bag puppets.

Henry: "How's this thing supposed to work?"

Scavenge Challenge January 2012 - "20. Find something odd, quirky or weird. Keep it cute and amusing, please."

How many dogs do you know who make paper bag puppets?

Zachary: "He did it!"

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© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Ice is Nice

Dog Blog Post #?: Spent waaaaaaay too long trying to capture the only non-dog picture in this post, which had nothing to do with today's Daily Dog Challenge assignment of...

88. Patterns - Take a photo of your dog that includes some kind of repeating pattern.

AND
Our Daily Challenge - Jan. 27, 2012 - "Repetition"

The pattern of whisker holes (what ARE those things called?), the pattern on his nose, and the repeated shapes of the…

Scavenge Challenge January 2012 - "21. Ice is nice. Summer or winter, I'm sure you can find some."

…

112 Pictures in 2012 - "#18. On the Ground or Floor"

Here's a few that didn't quite make the cut.

Zachary was too busy dropping his Lacrosse Ball at my feet and nudging my arm right before I snapped the picture (of course) to show up into today's shots.

So what did I spent the rest of my time on?

The last picture for Scavenge Challenge for January - "17. Photograph a liquid in a clear glass or goblet. Watch out for "hot spots!""

I must have tried a dozen things and taken 80 shots!

I think I'll stick to dogs in laundry.... speaking of which, here's a few more from that shoot. :)

Zachary: "Next time I get to fluff and HE has to fold!"

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us! © 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

The Back Side

Dog Blog Post #579: No deep thoughts, no elaborate attempts at sets, no mischievous shenanigans today. Nope, today's Daily Dog Challenge assignment of...

87. The Back Side - Show us a part of your dog from the side we rarely see, the back!

... was as simple as can be.

Proice Te. Reducam.
You throw it. I will bring back.

At least until it plunked into the pond...

Poor Zachary.

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Seemed Like A Good Idea...

Dog Blog Post #578: I was given my marching orders by..

Scavenge Challenge January 2012 - "22. Who's ignoring housework for photography? Go tidy something up and take a picture!"

But doing the laundry falls squarely under the category of…

112 Pictures in 2012 - "#94. Something You Don't Like"

So I decided to have the boys take over for me.

Sadly, while…

Daily Dog Challenge "86. It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time…"

… it clearly was not.

Not even the pleasing…

Our Daily Challenge - Jan. 25, 2012 - "Geometry"

… of the holes in the laundry basket,and the squares on the towels could salvage the situation.

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us! © 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Let Sleeping Dogs...

Dog Blog Post #577:

Daily Dog Challenge "85. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie - See if you can capture a photo of your dog asleep or at rest today!"
112 Pictures in 2012 - "#107. Calm and Peaceful"

Our Daily Challenge - Jan. 24, 2012 - "Rooftops"

Editor's Note - as I've had several complaints requests: "Proice Te. Reducam." = "You throw it. I will bring back." - at least, so says Google Translate" (pick Latin). :)

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us! © 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

May the Force...

Dog Blog Post #576: Today's Daily Dog Challenge assignment was...

84. The Blues - Rainy days and Mondays always get us down! Take a photo with blue in it today.

... which, when combined with...

Our Daily Challenge - Jan 23 2012 - "Pollution"
Scavenge Challenge January 2012 - "15. Create a photo with a futuristic or science-fictiony look."
112 Pictures in 2012 - "#10. Silvery"

... left me with: "Zachary using the Force to cause an evil star fighter to run into a wad of silvery space pollution."

Yeah, I know. I tried too hard. (sigh)

The background is a sheet from a set purchased to help "stage" our house for sale years ago. For whatever reason, my son didn't care for it, and now I have a nice starry prop piece.

The LEGOs came from same son's room, a relic of years ago. It's hung from the top of the backboard using dark thread looped over a butterfly clip.

The, uh, "outfit" outfitting Zachary was my first choice for "chain mail" for yesterday's King Arthur shot. I think it looks better in the future than it ever would have looked in the past, anyway.

The foil came from the kitchen. :)

A small flashlight is shining on just the foil, helping to bring it out just a bit. If only Zachary moved an inch in practically ANY direction, perhaps I would have liked the shot. As it was, it seemed the lesser of a stack of evils...

Hey Zachary, look DOWN!

Uh, Henry - shouldn't you be keeping an eye on that crashing space ship?

Ah, well. There's always tomorrow. :)

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Once and Future King

Dog Blog Post #575: Today's Daily Dog Challenge was...

83. Royalty - Our dogs all get treated like royalty in some way. Show us how your dog is royalty today!

How fun!

And then I read the assignment for Our Daily Challenge: "Net"

... and came up short. Mentally, that is. At first glance, those two didn't seem to fit very well together.

Now, I knew I needed:

Scavenge Challenge January 2012 - "18. Depict something mythological or legendary in an image."

... and had settled on "King Arthur" as my legend a week or so ago, and made the crown (yellow pre-fashioned foam and a $4.99 bracelet I cut apart and glued on) and sketched the shield, and I was just waiting for the right challenge to use it. "Royalty" certainly fit the bill, but what to do with "Net"? I did some google searches ("king arthur net" sort of things) and came up empty. Then searched the dictionary definition of "net" to see if there were any meanings that would be helpful.

I briefly toyed with idea of switching to King Midas and have him totaling up his "net" worth, when I did one last search on "king arthur costumes" and it suddenly hit me that the "net" in question could be chain mail.

The rest was pretty straightforward. A trip the fabric store, an extremely lucky hit on some black mesh fabric (like you might store balls or laundry in) that inexplicably had a silvery cast to it (I can't imagine what the fabric makers thought people would make out of the stuff), my son's old sword (yup, raided his room again) and ta-da! I was ready.

Alas, as the afternoon wore on, and weather got lousier, and my sniffle got snifflier, and my football team lost (don't get me started!) I found my interest flagging.

But the shot must be taken, so I whipped out the set, the pillow, the fabric, and watched Henry hop on board. Gone were thoughts of both dogs together sporting tunics and belts, with the "chain mail" underneath, I just wanted a shot.

Any shot.

So I draped the chain mail over Henry, laid the sword and "shield" in front, plopped the crown on his head, grabbed the remote, and tried to get the camera to fire. Alas, I was standing on the wrong side of the camera, and the remote has a hard time seeing the sensor from there. So I moved farther away from the camera (to get line of sight) and then snapped it.

Henry was looking up at me longingly (for the cookies).

It wasn't until I uploaded the picture that realized I had stood in a perfect spot to make Henry look, well, majestic! (And so manly, that it qualified for 112 Pictures in 2012 - "#27 - Male or Masculine")

Sometimes luck just happens. :)

(Mischievous look, if I ever saw one!)

For the curious, his motto (sadly left off his shield due a shortage of time) is:

Proice te. Reducam.

The really curious will have to go google translate to see what that means. :)

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us! © 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Rain Rain...

Dog Blog Post #574: I had No Idea what I was going to do with today's Daily Dog Challenge of...

82. 1/21 -- Words - Show us some kind of association between words and your dog in a photo!

(Which just so happen to align with Our Daily Challenge: "Words of Wisdom")

I had No Idea when I first saw the topic last night. I still had No Idea this morning. And the theme of No Idea continued through the morning routine and the Walk of the Day.

No Idea.

It had rained quite overnight - the first real rain since... oh... forever? Months? Last Spring?

(Ok... perhaps not that long. But it's mid-January, the hills are still ugly brown, and it's one of the driest winters in recorded history.)

But the morning was relatively nice and the walk was dry (and did I mention I still had No Idea?)

Until right after we got home, and it decided to rain again. The boys lined up at the slider to watch the raindrops fall, then begged me to open the door. Rain being fairly rare around here (and really rare this year) I decided to oblige.

Zachary took one look at it and said, "Yup, rain." Then turned and trotted back in the house.

(There's a reason we call Zachary the Bright One!)

And then there's Henry, who did this...

... and then this...

... then gave a quick shake...

Before decided discretion was the better part of valor, and came inside. It seems that while Henry enjoys getting wet, having the wet blowing in his face just wasn't his thing.

The quote I chose came from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem:

The Rainy Day

Written at the old home in Portland

THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

And seemed quite appropriate to me.

Time spent on today's assignment?

* 30 seconds for the pictures.
* 5 minutes to find the quote (Brainy Quote is a cool site!)
* Done!

This also satisfied:

112 Pictures in 2012 - "#7. Rainy Day"

And unexpectedly...

Scavenge Challenge January 2012 - "6. Something magical is the subject, and you may interpret as freely as you like!"

... as with any luck, the rain will work its magic and turn the hills to green!

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us!
© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Waiting

Dog Blog Post #573: Today's Daily Dog Challenge assignment of:

81. Soft Light - Take a photo of your dog using soft light today.

PLUS

Our Daily Challenge - Jan. 20, 2012 - "Oriental"
112 Pictures in 2012 - "Souvenir or Memento"

... was the perfect opportunity to try out a Christmas gift - a studio in a bag. All in all, it went well, although would it have killed them to provide a few words of instruction???

Nothing.

Not a scrap, not a hint.

Nothing.

Thankfully, assembly was idiot proof (as I was able to assemble it) but correct deployment? I admit to being totally lost. So I nudged things here and shifting things there until it kinda looked like my mental picture of what such a setup ought to look like, based on... well... nothing, really.

Probably pictures seen on the odd photography web site I might have passed through at some time.

Of course, I still have no idea if it really is.

I must stay, though, it did create lovely soft light. For all pictures here, I also added the Speedlight on the camera with the Black Foamie Thing and pointed it at the ceiling. Camera was on the tripod, fired using the remote.

For every shot, except the ones right above and below of Zachary, I added +1 EV (upped the flash) to brighten things up.

And if you made it this far, here's what the setup looked like.

The bag came with a black and also a white backdrop, and a cool stand (some assembly required, of course) to hang it from, but I can only tackle so many new things at one time and I didn't want to freak Henry out with Yet Another New Thing.

Oddly enough, the boys showed no signs of caring about, or even noticing the umbrellas or the stands.

Thankfully, the lights are CFLs and put out almost no heat, a boon for the summer and one less safety hazard to worry about around the fur-kids.

-- Like the idea of a daily prompt? Click on Daily Dog Challenge and join us! © 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved