Photo Experimentation

I fear that I’m horribly doomed to take boring photos. I really should take a class, of some sort, but I’m not sure that good photograph composition is something you can learn or if it’s just one of those natural gifts…like spelling. However, I have fun with it, and I have fun playing around in Photoshop. Yesterday, I found out that The Pioneer Woman released a second set of Photoshop Actions. These actions are used to make quick, all-in-one adjustments to photos. They are very customizable and I’ve been playing around with them, this morning. The Fiance thinks that actions, in general, are ridiculous. Ten times out of ten, he prefers the straight out of the camera image. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I think a photo can look nice with a different effect or needs to be trued up to what the eye saw and what the camera captured. I offer the following as evidence.

This picture of our monster dog, Guinness, is just fine as it is straight out of the camera. The composition is pretty bland – subject centered, etc., but it’s okay.

For the edit, I used PW’s “Warmer” action. See, this is where I think I suck at photography. Before I ran this action, I never really even though about the warmth of the SOOC shot. But, look at the difference! I also cropped in a few different ways and wasn’t happy with any of them. Here’s what I ended up with, though. I was going for vertical thirds.

See the difference in color? Maybe not, but I see it. I see the need for more learning in my future!

Snow Days and Site Visits

We woke up this morning, late. The Fiance’s carpool ride was already outside and we were still snuggled in the bed. Good thing that it was super ice and snow day! We both called in for vacation day, afraid of what the days’ weather would be and not wanting to be out driving in treacherous conditions. So, we popped in some movies and vegged.

When it appeared that we’d both go a little crazy if we stayed in the house, The Fiance suggested a little outing. Cars seemed to be moving along with relative ease, so he suggested we take the big dog out to take some pictures at a local park. We bundled up in our Cuddleduds and UnderArmor, boots and hats. I looked at Guinness and thought, “The poor dog is going to freeze out there!” Quickly, I whipped up a little jacket for him. Well, as little as a jacket for a Great Dane can be. I grabbed some fleece and Velcro from the stash and did a quick measuring/sewing job.

We headed out to take some pictures of the river and the snow and ice. All the snow had a nice crusting of slick ice on the top. Guinness cracked me up trying to run through it. He’s clumsy as me!

What was most exciting about our outing was that we decided to walk through the gardens at our wedding site. The Fiance had never really been through the gardens, there, and I was having a hard time remembering the layout. It was fun to envision where we’d have the guests sit, where we’d perform the ceremony and how we’d work out the logistics. The Fiance came up with some good ideas, and we’re going to go back during the summer to see it in bl

oom and finalize our plans. I can see the appeal of a winter wedding with a blanket of snow underfoot, but it would never work in Kentucky!

Mommies and Babies

I don’t understand pet people. That probably sounds weird since I am now part-owner in four pets. The last sentence says it all, though. I am part-owner. I am not Guinness’s mommy, nor is he my son. His mother was another dog. I have no children. I am no one’s mommy. What’s the deal with applying human relationships to the owner-pet relationship? I don’t get it.

A lot of people would be very quick to tell you that a pet is a member of their family. I can understand that. We tend to assign personalities to our dogs. The Boyfriend and I even have a little thing we do called, “If Guinness Could Talk.” We have our own little Guinness impressions, just as we do for The Little Dogs. It seems very natural to do that, to me. I think it would be hilarious if our big ol’ dumb dog could talk. Creepy, but hilarious.

It just seems very un-natural to assign a dog the status of child. Someone said to me, the other day, “Oh, your son is watching you, how sweet!” It freaked me out, big time. First, this was a function with lots of religious people. For a split-second, I thought she said, “The Son is watching you.” Yeah, like The Man JC. Watching me. Creep-o. I’m sure I had a dumb look of confusion on my face because she then pointed to he dog and said, “See?” The lightbulb flickered on above my head and I realized she had just called my dog my son. That’s just way too weird for me. He’s a dog. He’s not a child. There are huge differences.

Maybe I’m in the dog-owner/mother minority, here. Maybe I’m the one that’s weird. What do you think?

(Stay tuned. Hopefully there will be some new dog pictures, soon!)

Guinness Update

Long time, no post.

Guinness’s world hasn’t been very complicated or busy, but mine has. An update, though, is in order.

Last weekend, Guinness weighed in at 48 pounds. He measured up to about 23 inches. That’s a four-inch growth and about ten-pound gain since he came to live with us in early February. Tomorrow, he’ll be five months old.

In the meals and entertainment department, Guinness is living it up. He’s eating right at 5 cups of food a day. His favorite foods are Iams Large Breed Puppy Food and Purina One Adult Dog Food. The Little Dogs both enjoy these, as well. That is a very good thing.

Guinness is notorious for losing his Kong. “It’s big and red, where can I hide it?” seems to be his purpose in play. Right now, it seems to be lost, forever. In reality, it’s probably only lost until one of us picks up all the furniture to check for it. In the meantime, though, Guinness got a new toy. He seems to like his Nylabone but loses interest quickly. He’d rather chew on Jack Russell heads than a plastic bone. Who wouldn’t?

Yesterday was not only Guinness’s first celebration of Peeps, it was his first day to go off-leash and play for a long time. Of course, he’s off-leash in the yard and he plays some, there. This, though, was a big open field of front and back yard with other dogs and lots of kids and EASTER EGGS! He seemed to really enjoy it. He would come back, periodically, to check on us and make sure we weren’t in the middle of the road, or anything. He liked getting in the way of basketball dunks, too, it seemed. I was really pleasantly surprised that he did so well with the pint-sized ones patting his head and shooting him with stick guns. He didn’t nom any chocolate, but had a small piece of ham that he seemed to enjoy. A good big crowd test for our guy – away from home, he seems to know when to be rowdy and when to be quiet.

There’s your update. I’ll post some more pictures, soon.

Learning to Walk

This weekend was one of beautiful weather. We haven’t seen the 50s, much less the 60s, in weeks. I decided it was the perfect time for Guinness to learn how to walk. On a leash, I mean. We’ve been out for walks before and he never did very well. He wasn’t one to pull, but he wanted to check out everything, walk between your legs, tie you up in the leash, etc.

On Saturday, we took a relatively short walk – four short blocks, eight long blocks. He did really well! I credit the new Gentle Leader Easy Walk Harness that we got for him. The leash clips in the front, which makes it more difficult for him to pull (in my opinion). I also found that walking during the day really is better for him than at night. I suppose that he can see what’s going on during the day and doesn’t want to stop and investigate every.single.little.noise as he does during night walks.

We took another walk on Saturday night with The Little Dogs. That was interesting. The Little Dogs aren’t leash trained. They’ve had collars on, before, but The Boyfriend doesn’t leave them in collars all the time (I make Guinness wear a collar, all the time. The harness is only for training and walks.). We collared and leashed them up and set off. Guinness and I walked in the front, with The Boyfriend and The Little Dogs trailing. Of course, Guinness was constantly wanting to turn around and check out what they were doing. We didn’t get far.

Sunday was another beautiful day and Guinness and I took a walk up to and around the Capitol at dusk. That was a nice walk. We kept a good pace and worked on his always staying to the right of me. He responded well. It also surprised me how well he did when other walkers either caught up to or got passed by us. He’d slow down to check things out, but he didn’t jump or lunge at them. I was pleased.

On both solo walks, we encountered other dogs. Guinness continued to impress me by being well-behaved. When he was allowed to go check out the other dog, he was polite and mannerly — no snapping, no pawing, lots of sniffing and a little licking.

He’s shaping up to be the friendliest and most mannerly member of the household (besides the bird, who is saying “Hello!” regularly, now)!