Dogs & Cats

Navi & Mighty, to be exact - my most co-operative models!

With my new understanding of exposure/aperture settings, I decided to set up the studio for a bit more practice. Navi was first up on the stool since she recalled getting lots of cookies there!

I WISH this shot had not been blurry - it would have been awesome!

Later I caught a few shots of Mighty on my desk. This gave me a chance to play with exposure, and since she doesn't move much (unlike the dogs, who can't hold still), I could do some longer exposures on her (since the room was dim) and still get sharp pictures.

I used f/4.2 on this one and focused on the eyes to make the face sharp and the paws and body soft.

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Barclay and the bird

This morning the dogs alerted us to something exciting going on outside, and we looked out in the backyard to see Mighty slinking past the back door with a freshly caught bird in her mouth - one of those little purple swallows. Bad cat! We thought she was taking it to go eat it, but a few minutes later Barclay went trotting by with the bird in HIS mouth! Apparently the cat had brought it into the dog run, and Barclay took it.

So now Mr B was running around the house with a bird sticking out of his mouth. We conered him after a short chase, and I took him to the bathroom where we could discuss this without the other dogs involved. Dave brought in the best treat we had to offer - sandwich meat.

He held a big wad of sandwich meat in front of Barclay and said 'Ok, Barclay, drop it and you can have this. Who wants some lunchmeat?' and as if to say 'I do!' Barclay snatched the meat out of his hand - WITHOUT DROPPING THE BIRD! So now Barclay had a mouth full of lunchmeat and bird (which he was pretty happy about) Dave was standing there shocked and lucky to still have all his fingers, and I was laughing so hard I about fell over! Luckily when Dave offered him the rest of the lunchmeat, Barclay went ahead and dropped the bird so he could eat, and we snatched it away. Poor bird! But I'll never forget Barclay snapping away that lunchmeat without giving up the prize he already had in his mouth - what a determined pup!

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Lap dance

There, that title should get some hits ;)


Dave came in from mowing and sat down in the office, and immediately Mighty took up residence on his leg. Soon Navi jumped up in his lap, even though lap capacity is really only 1 max!

But that was ok, she just sat ON the cat!

 So they re-arranged a bit (Dave looks thrilled)...

 Hang on, we've almost got it...

 Purrfect!

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Cold rainy spring day - with chickens

We had a beautiful day a couple days ago. We can sit around wistfully remembering the sun and the warmth, because now it's all grey skies and rainstorms blowing through again! When is spring coming?! I spent a bit of time outside taking pictures of the chickens today, until the rain drove me (and the chickens) back indoors.

My 'feed store' chickies are off the heatlamp and have joined the rest of the flock. They can choose between hanging out in the shed or coming out to join the other birds, and they have been getting braver everyday about coming out.

The hens don't seem to mind them at all, despite the difference in size. I haven't seen anyone getting bullied.

Such a pretty bunch of birds!

Mama hen takes her six remaining chickies out on adventures in the tall grass of the chicken run.

Life is a big adventure for these guys

Mama points out a piece of squash!

Then she does a little digging...

And the chicks look for any goodies she may have kicked up.

When a breeze picks up and the rain starts sprinkling, Mam hen fluffs up and calls her chicks under her.

Like little kids, they can't sit still, one pops out, then goes back under...

Then a different one peeks out

I guess it's kind of crowded with six chicks under there.

When the rain really starts coming down, the whole flock heads for the coop. But hey, what's that in the middle...

It's orange, but it's not a chicken!

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Fun with my new Camera

I'm starting out playing around with the 'kit' lens - a 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G, which is supposed to be a pretty good lens. I'm still figuring out what all the settings on the camera do, but I'm hoping to have enough of a grip on it to try and take a shot of the sky tonight - if it's clear.

For now I just practiced on whatever critters out in the yard would hold still for a minute:

Barclay

Navi

Mighty

And the evil 3 Musketeers - I just had to make sure they didn't spit on my camera while I was concentrating on getting the shot.

These were all taken with a fence between me and them!

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