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.

Je t'aime (1999 - 2014)

I had known Je t'aime ("I love you") from seeing her run in the Solvang Streak for a number of years (she had attended the West Coast Greyhound Gathering every year since it began in 2005). It wasn't until two years ago that I got to the chance to do a session with her in the Secret Garden of the Royal Copenhagen Inn. She was a beautiful brindle girl:

She was twelve at the time. There's something about a Greyhound face grown white with age that's so wonderful.

In April of last year (three months before Katie's amputation) she had a rear leg removed due to OSA and bounced right back.

This year will be the first Solvang gathering where she will not be there. She crossed the bridge on my birthday.

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.

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.)

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.) 

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.)

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).

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.)

Solvang Thursday at Carivintâs Winery

We arrived in Solvang, CA, last Thursday afternoon after a two-and-a-half-hour drive for the 7th annual West Coast Greyhound Gathering. After unloading our stuff in our Royal Copenhagen Inn hotel room and walking about the town a bit, we stopped by the Carivintâs winery before a special wine-tasting (just for the gathering) started at 6pm.

Carivintâs, as part of their way of doing business, donates a portion of their profits to animal shelters and support groups. For Greyt Legs (the non-profit organization that helps newly-retired greyhounds with leg injuries get needed medical care, and who also puts together the West Coast Greyhound Gathering) whippet-owner Paul Ramos (who is in the second picture) of Carivintâs created two special greyhound-labeled wines (which featured Tennile, one of the first greyhounds helped by Greyt Legs, on the back label).

A percentage of proceeds from those two wines would be donated to Greyt Legs. So if you are ever visiting Solvang, with or without your pups, pay them a visit -- they're wonderful.

Here are a few pictures taken during the wine-tasting:

(All photos: Nikon D300; 18-200mm zoom; SB-800 with diffusion cover and light bounced off the ceiling; auto or flash white balance; exposure compensation +1/3; normal JPG but for the wine bottle, which was shot in RAW. Note also about the bottle picture: flash mode was slow-sync to exposure the background properly. In most of the other pictures, the flash mode was the default.)

Solvang Streaking

The West Coast Greyhound Gathering will be held in Solvang, CA, this coming weekend. It's three days set aside where people and their retired racing greyhounds can socialize, go to seminars, shop, and participate in events. One popular event held on Saturday morning is the Solvang Streak. A grassy area within the Solvang elementary school is fenced off, and the greyhounds are allowed to run, either one at a time or in groups (provided they're muzzled), from one end of the enclosed area to the other. The local police clock each hound's speed; the winners of various Streak categories are awarded with racing silks embroidered with the name of the category at the Saturday night buffet dinner at Pea Soup Andersen's.

While the run is not long enough for the hounds to reach their top speed, I'm still amazed to see them go as fast as they do. I'll set my camera to shutter-priority, set my shutter speed at 1/2000 second, ISO at 800 or higher, and then shoot as the hounds pass by. Depending on what model of Nikon DSLR you have, you'd either: (1) turn the exposure mode dial atop the camera to "S", then spin the rear command dial to the shutter speed you want, or (2) on my D300 you'd press the "Mode" button, and while holding it down, spin the rear command dial until "S" appears on the top LCD panel, then release the "Mode" button and spin the rear dial to the desired shutter speed. The camera then picks the appropriate aperture for the correct exposure. I happen to use 1/2000 sec, but if you've never used shutter-priority before, try one shutter speed, shoot a few frames, preview them, then adjust the speed if necessary until you get something you're happy with.

You could end up with pictures like these: