Katie on her dog bed

I shared this photo (also on this blog two years ago) on Instagram yesterday as Facebook has been reminding me over the past three weeks about Katie's impending -- and then subsequent -- surgery and recovery. You can see where her IV was inserted, her incision, and the shrinking bruising area. A couple of days prior she had decided for herself that she wanted to go lie on top of her dog bed instead of the spare mattress we had set up for her to lie on as she recovered from her surgery. That's where I found her. At this point of time she was almost a week removed from her amputation.

It still pains me at times when I think about her now; I'll never get completely over it. I feel like that for Alex, Nikki, and Sadie (who died six months after Katie) who came before her, and I'll feel like that for Bean and Billy Bob (who came after her) whenever their time comes. But I look at all the pictures I took of Katie and I can better appreciate the nearly ten years she graced our household.

There are a lot of Katie memories, both good and bad, in those pictures. But Katie is in there, and that's really all that matters.

It's National Black Dog Day

To recognize this day I'll share this photo of Sadie that I took back in 2008. Here she was playing bitey-face with Katie.

Still miss these two girls a lot -- always will.

Some of my favorite photos I took during 2013 (part 1)

Bailee-Mae and Julie:

Andy:

Winston in Marsh Creek:

Tangerine:

Izaskun near the Peach Orchard:

Miami near the Peach Orchard:

Daisy wades in Marsh Creek:

Honda:

Duncan:

Axel, Janel, and Duncan:

PieSky:

(All shot with the Nikon D300 and D600 using the 18-35mm, 50mm, or 105mm lens; shot in RAW, converted to DNG and imported into Lightroom.)

Three months

It's been three months since Katie's death from lymphoma.

I think of her (and of our other two departed greys, Alex and Nikki) every day. And there are many days where I browse through some of the several thousand pictures that I took of her. She was with us for nearly nine years, and even now those thousands of pictures seem inadequate. Oh, most are terrible and not worth sharing with everyone, to be sure, but I saved them.

I cling to these pictures as a way to hang onto her for as long as I can. I won't say that looking at these pictures always brings me comfort — it doesn't. But when it does I go back and think of how well she recovered from her amputation. We were so pleased and happy for her that she gained weight during her chemo treatments because it can cause appetite loss and Katie was never really food-motivated.

I'm rambling now and I can't write a coherent train of thought, so I will leave you with this picture of Katie as she was back in 2008, a couple of months after Nikki had died:

 

I used light coming in through a window to get this. I added +0.7 exposure compensation because I didn't want the light meter to render her in a dull gray. She had this wondering look on her face as Sadie was standing in front of her. Katie's eyes were wonderful and I tried to capture that.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 and the 18-200mm zoom; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/4.8, ISO 1100 at shutter speed of 1/30 second; cloudy-weather white balance; +0.7 exposure compensation; normal JPG.)

An hour in the life of Pie

On Father's Day I met with the family who had won an hour-long session that I donated to photograph their three greyhounds. One of the three was Pi, who arrived from Caliente a year ago. I took several photographs of her because I loved her ears:

It was not long after this that she was found to have osteo in her left foreleg, which was amputated.

Despite having recently-discovered lung nodules which, thankfully, have not grown, Pi was in good spirits. We met at a local park that was bisected by a small stream. I had her pose on a wooden bridge that crossed the stream:

(Her leash was digitally removed.)

After crossing the bridge we walked a bit downstream and stopped in a shady spot. I took a few shots while she laid on the grass:

I had her go back over the bridge so I could get a shot of her ears:

She went back over the bridge a third time to lie down as it had become a little warm for everyone:

Her scar has healed nicely. I marvelled when I looked at it.

I grabbed a couple more shots of her with ears erect, then we called it a day.

Pi's arrival from the track and her subsequent osteo diagnosis and amputation had caught my attention more than most other greys that I've seen at other retirement days. I was glad to see that she was doing well.

How strange that this session foreshadowed what was to come for us, although none of us could see it: just two days later we started our own osteo journey.

Irish, Maia, and Midori

Friday afternoon at GIG was warmer than I preferred. I don't particularly like photographing dogs with their tongues dangling and with them panting, trying to stay cool. Some Greyhounds are not overly fond of warm weather, so I try to find shade wherever possible for them as I photograph.

Irish, Maia, and Midori belong to a volunteer of the Greyhound adoption group that ran GIG this year. I thought it might be nice to have the hounds pose by one of the numerous rail fences that cover the Gettysburg field. I had a certain image in mind before I had them pose, but it required a different time of day.

Anyway, the volunteer's father offered to hold the leashes while I photographed. I particularly like how all three Greyhounds are "smiling" and have their ears at half-mast; Maia (in the middle) is starting to tongue-dangle but not enough to be distracting. I knelt down below their eye level and tried to keep Sickels Road off in camera right out of view. If I had to do this over I would've asked for the leashes to be down on the ground and then threaded through the fence.

When I returned home and started processing the photos in this session I was amused by Irish's (on the left) expression -- almost as if he saw something funny was going to happen to me. I hadn't noticed this at the time I took this picture. I like their relaxed faces and how they're all looking in my direction.

Tintype and wet-plate post-processing is kind of an interesting effect at the moment. I had one preset to mimic 19th century film processing, so I applied it to this picture since we were in a Civil War battlefield. I am pleased with how this turned out overall.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 10-24mm zoom lens and SB-400 flash; shutter-priority with shutter speed set to 1/250 second; aperture set to f/14 at ISO 200; -0.7 exposure compensation; center-weighted metered; shot in RAW, imported in Lightroom and DxO Film Pack 3.)

Miami #2

I had hoped for more clouds in the western sky for a more dramatic sunset, but what the heck -- it's Gettysburg and there are so many places to photograph. I had Miami pose for me in the grassy fields north of the peach orchard. I added some fill in post-process because using a flash here would've made its presence too obvious.

The Sherfy barn, which sits next to Emmitsburg Road, is the red building in the background.

The leash was digitally removed in case you were wondering.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 10-24mm zoom; manual mode; 20mm, 1/60 second at f/4.5 and ISO 200; auto white balance; center-weighted metered; +1 exposure compensation; shot in RAW and imported into Lightroom.)

Miami

Another shot taken in a grass field north of the infamous peach orchard in Gettysburg, PA. during GIG 2013. I was attracted to how the setting sun acted as a rim light on his legs, brisket, and ears. I couldn't use fill flash here to lighten his body because the grass he's standing in would be illuminated in a pool of light from the flash. I elected to add some fill in post-processing, and used a graduated filter to the sky to bring out some of the clouds. His leash was digitally removed, too, so just know that he wasn't off-lead here.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 and 10-24mm zoom; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/5.6; camera set shutter speed of 1/200 second at ISO 200; center-weighted; +1 exposure compensation; shot in RAW and imported into Lightroom.)

Winston

When I went to the Greyhounds In Gettysburg event this year I flew to Baltimore a day earlier (on Wednesday) than I had done in previous years so I could meet up with Gretchen and her two English coonhounds on Thursday afternoon. We met at Sachs Covered Bridge and stayed downstream of the bridge. Downstream of the bridge there are a couple of footpaths that one can walk alongside Marsh Creek. We walked down one of those paths until we got to a place where we thought Winston might want to step into the creek.

It was clear to Gretchen that Winston was very excited just being outdoors and sniffing whatever new smells there were by the creek. Unlike last year the trees were late in displaying their spring greenery, so there was a lot more sun and harsh shadows than I preferred. Winston was just dipping his front paws into the creek when I tried to hold my camera down low and blindly pointed it in his direction, taking one fill-flashed picture with my D300 and the SB-400 flash attached to its hot shoe.

When I got home I thought I'd try using a Lightroom preset for a different look.

We walked back to the bridge and fortunately there were few people around while I took a couple of pictures of Gretchen and Winston.

Lately I've been trying to capture a bit of something that describes the relationship between owner and pet. Most owners beg off from being included in a picture, but I'm glad that Gretchen was more than willing to be a part of the picture. I think it makes for a stronger image:

(Shot with the Nikon D300, Nikon 10-24mm zoom (top picture) and SB-400 flash; Nikon D600 and 50mm lens; aperture-priority; center-weighted; shot in RAW and converted to JPG using Lightroom.)

Treasure (2001 - 2013)

Another of my Greyhound clients went to the Bridge yesterday: Treasure. I met her at Dewey Beach in 2011. Her owner asked me to get a close-up of her adorable front teeth:

I just saw Treasure and her owner at GIG a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't take any pictures of her then. I've always liked this one particular picture I took of the two of them during our session at Dewey:

I was trying to convey the closeness of their relationship by not only showing them walking together, but by showing their footprints as part of that companionship.

Your mom misses you, Treasure, as do all the people who came to know you.

Molly the Greyhound questions your sanity

 

I used fill-flash to partly fill-in the shadows on the left side of her face, but probably should have turned up the power a little more.

Greyhound head-tilts, like Greyhound ears, amuse me to no end.

Paquita opines about winter

I had my exposure compensation turned up, otherwise the light meter would've given her a light-gray face (like 12% or 18% gray). In doing so, I got her eyes to stand out more, which is what I really wanted to show. In the process, I've lost a lot of detail in her white fur, which I expected but didn't matter to me.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; shutter speed 1/800th second at ISO 200; +0.7 exposure compensation; matrix-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Alimony (2001 - 2013)

I only got one chance to meet her -- which was back in 2011 at Dewey. That one visit left me with some wonderful memories of the Mamadog of Sass.

Alimony came from Florida, and after her racing career she was a brood mama to a single litter. My good friend Aimee's husband was browsing photos on Greytalk when he came across this photo:

Photo copyright Jennifer Thomas

(I'm going to venture a guess that he turned into a puddle after seeing this because this is a pretty darn cool picture!)

They made arrangements to have Alimony transported from Florida to Tennessee, then picked her up and drove her further north to their home.

Having known Aimee a few years since I joined Greytalk, I've read the many stories she wrote about Ali. So when she said that she was bringing Alimony, Ali's daughter Flower (who might be the pup in the above picture), Dazzle (who I had met at Dewey when Aimee brought her in 2009), as well as her husband, I was pretty damned excited.

I tried to take a lot of Ali pictures. I doubt she had encountered someone so interested in  photographing her (besides Aimee), so if she was a bit curious (or a bit annoyed) about me I wasn't surprised by this look:

I will always remember her ears (remember, Greyhound ears always amuse me):

I think she just sassed me:

Late Sunday afternoon when we were relaxing on the beach and watching Flower hole-digging, Ali came over to inspect her daughter's progress:

I guess the hole-digging wasn't to Ali's liking ("You're doing it wrong!"), so:

Ali took over digging the hole:

I caught her with this look on her face late Saturday afternoon. I've always looked at this and wondered what she was thinking:

I also tried to get her silhouette during the sunrise:

This is one of my favorite pictures of Ali, along with Dazzle, Flower, and Aimee:

This photo of Aimee and Ali together is Aimee's favorite of all the photos I took of them:

The Mamadog of Sass left a lot of people with a lot of awfully good memories. I know I have some.

Minty (2003? - 2013) and Hoover (2006? - 2013)

Both taken before their time from smoke inhalation from an overnight fire at home last week.

Minty at Dewey Beach last year:

Hoover at Gettysburg last year:

(Minty: Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 18-35mm zoom at 18mm; aperture-priority with aperture set at f/4; camera set shutter speed to 1/1250 second; matrix-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.

Hoover: Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom at 70mm; program mode; shutter speed 1/250 second at f/8; -0.3 exposure compensation; auto white balance; shot in RAW and converted in Lightroom.)

On my photo bucket list

One item on my photo bucket list is to get a good picture of Sadie smiling. Now, let me explain: Sadie is sensitive. Sadie thinks she's in trouble when some of us talk loudly in conversation. She thinks this even though the conversation has nothing to do with her. So she will walk or trot up to whoever is doing the loud talking and start smiling and smiling. It's cute to see her do this, but we tell her that she's not in trouble and that things are okay.

So, one day (soon, I hope) I want to get a picture of Sadie smiling. I hope it'll be similar to this picture I took of Pistachio in Solvang a couple of years back:

We're not going to start yelling on purpose at her to try and get this response -- that's just mean. But smiling is part of her personality that I have yet to capture. So getting a picture of her doing this is on my photo bucket list.

What do you have on your photo bucket list?

Hijinks on hold

Sadie's developed a bone spur on her right hind foot, so until we get that sorted out she won't be running or playing around with Katie like this:

I am amazed seeing her facial expressions when she plays.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom; shutter-priority mode with shutter speed set to 1/1000 second; camera set aperture at f/4.8 at ISO 2000; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Other favorite pictures of mine from 2012

Some other favorite pictures of mine that I took during 2012...

Sadie licks her nose:

Katie stares at me while lying on our bed:

Tadeo the galgo waits for me to give him a treat:

Jen and Skye at Dewey Beach:

A crescent moon and a weather vane in Solvang:

JJ the tripod at Greysave's spring picnic:

Josie Bean at Oktoberfest:

Carson: