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.

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.)

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.) 

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.)

Rooing on Solvang Sunday

Our girls don't roo. A pity, really (but they're very, very good at bitey-face). At the end of the Solvang gathering on Sunday morning, all the greyhounds that could or would roo, did.

(All taken with the D300 set to slow-sync mode; program mode; SB-400 flash; flash compensation set to -0.7; auto white balance; 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: