Immortal

I haven't had much luck with High Key of late, so after Henry was done I reset with a black background for Zachary's shots.

Dog Blog Post #949

Photography Assignment

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle; easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we would still live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."

-- Irving Townsend

Our first dog Beau (darker dog in the second image in the right sidebar, above, the lighter being a young Zachary) passed away suddenly and quite unexpectedly a few years ago.

It was the weekend and our regular vet was closed. So we drove to the 24 hr Vet in the next town so we could have our beloved boy cremated.

A few days a later a lovely card arrived, compete with a tenderly worded hand written message of condolence, of considerable length, from a vet I had never met.

Included on a slip of paper was the quote above, which I added to the bottom of my blog as it gave me great comfort at the time.

A few weeks later we brought home baby Henry, just 8 weeks old, the son of Beau's half-sister.

I remember watching the puppies play at the breeder, hoping Beau would help us pick the right pup to join our family.

The Big Dog didn't let us down.

Daily Dog Challenge "458. Undying Love"

Our Daily Challenge - Jan 31, 2013 - "Immortal"

Behind the Scenes

I'm still working on off-camera flash high key shots. These certainly came out much better than my last efforts (which you never saw - yes, they were that bad!) but I'm still not there.

It didn't help that I forgot to turn off the overhead (incandescent) kitchen lights, so I had to do Color Balance Battle back on the computer.

(sigh)

Today I positioned the CFLs, with their umbrella's, to either side and just in front of the white background, pointing AT the background at about a 45 degree angle.

They gave a nice, even, bright wash over the background, which seems a definite improvement over my first botched effort.

The flash was sitting near center, in front, on a stand, and bounced off the ceiling with the bounce card extended but directing the flash away from Henry. This seemed to eliminate shadows on the background which plagued my first efforts.

At least I remembered to off the overheads when I switched to Zachary (and white to black).

Oh well, there's always next time.

Best of the Rest

"Four score and seven years ago...."

"Cookies, please?"

"Ooooohhhhhhmmmm "

(sigh)

I miss my Big Dog.

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