Mitch (2007 - 2014)

Mitch, though he may not have known it, did a lot to heal Lynn's heart after she lost her previous Greyhound, Eric. But then Mitch was taken much too soon, having stayed for only 11 months.

 

He turned seven on 12 July.

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.)

Andrew (2000 - 2013)

"...He took my heart and ran with it, and he's running still, fast and strong, a piece of my heart bound up with his, forever."

-- Excerpt from For The Love Of A Dog by Patricia McConnell

Photograph of Andrew taken during his photo session with me at Royal Copenhagen Inn, Solvang, CA, at the Solvang Greyhound Fest in February, 2013.

Unexpected departures

Within the span of a week I have learned of the passing of two sighthounds that I have chanced to photograph: one Greyhound (Arrow), and one Saluki (Parker). Both died unexpectedly.

Arrow was a Greyhound that I met after he'd been returned to Fastfriends in 2011 because of food-aggression issues that became too much for his initial adopter (who loved him very much) to overcome. He was a striking brindle boy -- maybe I should say "half-brindle" because he carried most of what little stripes he had on his left side. His head was split right down the middle: stripes on the left half, nothing on the right.

He went to the foster home of a long-standing volunteer, who diligently worked on his issues. Eventually, the volunteer adopted him to add to her pack.

It was today when I saw a picture of Arrow roaching for the camera that in the caption were the words "final picture." I was puzzled at first, then I realized and understood what she was saying, although I did not (and do not now) know the circumstances of what happened to him. The suddenness of his passing took my breath away. His stay in his new home was much too short, but I try to dwell on the fact that he was home and with people who loved him.

Parker was a Saluki that I am pretty sure I had seen at a previous Solvang Greyhound gathering. His owner introduced herself to me last year, and reintroduced herself to me this year. She told me that she was writing a travel piece about the gathering for the website Dogster, and so asked me for permission to use some of the photos that I was to take during the Gathering. I had photographed Parker being blessed by Fr. Gerald Barron of Santa Ines Mission in Solvang during the Blessing of the Hounds on Friday:

Later that afternoon, at the pizza dinner, Parker and his owner sat close to us. I grabbed a few shots of him as he was curled up on the grass underneath the party tent where we all ate:

He was a little shy and kept to himself.

Towards the end of last week I was told that a few days after returning from Solvang, Parker had died from hemangiosarcoma. He was full of cancer, but he gave no outward sign that he was in trouble. His owner will still write her travel piece, only now it has turned into a remembrance story. Perhaps a couple of my pictures will accompany her article in Dogster.

I've been thinking tonight about these two. Perhaps there is some comfort in that their passings were short, but I think that it is small comfort nonetheless. There are two big holes in two different households now, and though there will be others to take their place, their holes will not be filled.

Love

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens and SB-800 flash; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/4; camera set shutter speed at 1/320 second at ISO 100; +0.7 exposure compensation; slow-sync; -1.0 flash compensation; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

A Greyhound's nightmare

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the Nikon 18-35mm f/3.4-4.5 AF-D zoom at 18mm; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/4; camera set shutter speed at 1/100 second at ISO 800; center-weighted metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

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?

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:

Behold the grace and beauty that is the Greyhound

 

 

So there.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom; shutter-priority, with shutter set to 1/3200 second; camera set aperture to f/3.5 at ISO 400; auto white balance; matrix-metered; normal JPG.) 

Romeo and Tadeo

Romeo and Tadeo are two galgos that I did a photo shoot with in Solvang. That Saturday morning it had remained overcast, the night before having been foggy. So with all that cloud cover the light was very diffuse and wonderful.

They live with two greyhounds. One day, soon I hope, I'll get to go photograph all four of them together.

I was really pleased with how their pictures came out (despite the white of Romeo's face getting blown out). It was probably the best light I had during the two days of shooting I did.

If you're not familiar with galgos, they come from Spain, are in the sighthound family (which includes greyhounds), and come in two varieties: smooth- and rough-coat. They are used for hunting game. It is because of what befalls to too many of them when they are no longer wanted for hunting that prompted a number of people to form adoption groups to get them out of Spain. Many galgos are adopted in Europe and in the US.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; top picture: camera chose shutter speed of 1/500 second at ISO 800; bottom picture: camera chose shutter speed of 1/2000 second at ISO 400; cloudy white balance; matrix-metered; normal JPG.)

Belle at Solvang

I was lucky enough to have several sessions to do during the Solvang Greyhound Fest at the end of February. One of those sessions was with a veteran of several Solvang events, Belle. If I remember correctly, she's 13(!).

She is a beautiful fawn. She was very patient with me as I tried to get different perspectives of her. I ended up pretty much repeating the same kind of head shot. The problem with using the garden at the hotel we stayed was that you didn't want to see the second story of the hotel building that surrounds the garden on two sides, or the wooden fence that encloses it. So you ended up standing and pointing the camera down at your subject. Belle was not interested in lying down so that I could get a different kind of photo. But that's okay -- I want my subject to be comfortable more than anything else while I photograph.

One picture of Belle in particular reminded me very much of a photo I took of our second greyhound, Nikki. In both pictures the girls are bright-eyed, and have big smiles. This is Belle's picture:

 

I ended up cropping the original frame after I had removed a number of spots, played with the tone curves a bit, and added a vignette.

She is a sweetheart; I'm glad I finally got to do a session after all these years.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f//1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set at f/2.8; camera chose shutter speed of 1/2500 second at ISO 400; center-weighted metered; auto white balance; shot in RAW.)

Payton and Cezanne

Rest well, you two. I didn't get to know you as well as I would've liked.

Payton (from Rhode Island, at Dewey Beach):

Cezanne (from Nevada, running in the Solvang Streak last month):

More stinkeye? Don't mind if she does...

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom lens set at 200mm; program mode; camera chose shutter speed of 1/30 second, aperture set to f/5.6 at ISO 1800; spot-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Would you like some stinkeye with your photo?

Sometimes you don't know how a greyhound will react when you point your camera in their direction. Many are fine with it; some don't like it when the flash goes off; others must investigate and plant their nose on your lens because you've knelt down to their eye level. Others are not sure what you're up to, and so you might get this:

This hound's eye color reminds me of a friend's greyhounds, Doolin and Minerva, who live in Massachusetts, or of Bunny, who I photographed at Dewey last year.

They're not called sighthounds for nothing.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm lens; program mode; camera chose shutter speed of 1/30 second at f/2.8 at ISO 800; spot-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG).

Before & After #1: Je T'aime

I've been asked by a few readers to show a picture before and after processing in Lightroom. So, before I bore anyone totally silly, here's my first before-and-after:

This is a photo I took of Je T'aime, one of the greyhounds I did a session with during the Solvang Greyhound Fest. Hardest of all the things for me to do here was removing the saliva bubbles on the lower lip. I guess I could've wiped her mouth before I started shooting but I'll have to remember to check for things like that when I do my next session.

Solvang Thursday

We spent this last weekend in Solvang, CA, for the 8th annual Solvang Greyhound Fest. The weather was great, and there were lots of greyhounds to see and meet.

We checked into our motel room Thursday. Later, at dusk, I stepped out of our motel room to walk over to Dascomb Cellars for their wine-tasting. The sky was clear. I spotted a crescent moon, just a few days past new, hovering over a weather vane that topped one of the buildings where we stayed:

Then it was a short walk down Copenhagen Drive and First Street to Dascomb Cellars. There once was another winery (Wilson-Bradford) at the location a few years ago that sold wine glasses with greyhounds etched on them (see following picture below), but apparently it was in business only for a short while:

 

Anway, here are a few pictures of the greyhounds at the Dascomb winery:

 



 

None of these are color-corrected, so there's way too much orange and yellow because of the lighting in the store.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; center-weighted metered; +0.7 exposure compensation; auto white balance; ISO varies; normal JPG.)

There could be streaking in Solvang

Greyhound-streaking, I mean.

The past two years we've not been able to let any Greyhounds run in the Solvang Streak because of the rain the night before. But last night, while looking at the extended weather forecast for next Saturday, I read that it would be sunny. That means I'll get to indulge a little in photographing Greyhounds on the run.

The streak is held at the local elementary school. A grassy area is enclosed in orange plastic fencing, and the Greyhounds (usually in ones or twos -- occasionally more) run from one end to the other.

A police officer with a radar gun clocks each dog, and the winners in various categories are given racing silks emblazoned with that category name at the Saturday night dinner.

Greyhounds were made to run -- it never ceases to amaze me every time I watch one do it.

(Shot with the Nikon D200 and D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom lens; shutter-priority mode with shutter set to 1/2000 second; camera picked aperture using ISO 800 to 1000; normal JPG.)