Same Clothes, Different Outfit

One of the reasons I take photography classes is to force myself to step outside my comfort zones and look at things differently. It's easy, and tempting, to colour in the lines I already know - my dogs, and their canine buddies, do cute and/or funny things often enough to keep this blog full of material forever and a day. But coming up with new ways to take photos of the same old things is one way to make myself better at what I do. And when I'm better at what I do, you get more bang for your buck.

So, for example ... those of you who've been with 3WAAW for the long haul know that I like to take photos of wet dogs shaking. I especially like to take photos of wet Tweed shaking because he makes the funniest faces EVAH. But traditionally it has been difficult to take photos of Piper shaking because Piper only wants to shake while she is standing on the tips of my beach boots.

Most photos of Piper shaking turn out as a shower of drops with the following commentary from yours truly "Oh for f*ck sakes Piper, you got the lens all wet - oh HEY! Stop that! Christ! My pants are soaked-NOT-THE-CAMERA, NOTTHECAMERA!" etc.

To me, behind the camera, Piper Shaking often looks like this:

Tweed, OTOH, stands a reasonable distance from The Food Lady and tries to shake downwind. So today I snuck up on him a bunch of times and took photos of him shaking up close and personal. Turns out, he still makes The.Best.Faces.Ever no matter where you stand to take the photo.

Better:
ha ha!

During photo class, we often wander around the island and take photos of stuff. I somehow always end up getting photos of someone's dog (shocking, I know). Today's subject was the one-eyed wonder known as Patches:

Someone else shot this happy little guy, but not with a camera :( He's a good soul though, and doesn't hold it against anyone.

He's a rescue pup. And rescue pups are the bestest, as we all know (plug plug plug).

When you take a photo, you are framing a moment in time.

Border collies are smart, and do the framing themselves. If they had thumbs, they'd take their own damn photos, thanksverymuch.
(Also, they'd each like a Venti-no-foam-vanilla-soy latte while I'm in there. Kthnxbai)

And then there's Mad Teeth (tm). Piper still has them, but she likes to lend them to Tweed these days. Tweed likes to use them on Very Big Dogs.

Sometimes you just have to look into the light and shoot. Sometimes the results are magical.

And sometimes one of your dogs turns 8 years old and you take advantage of that occasion by buying that dog a cake and then taking mean, evil photos of No Touching and Cake Anticipation and the like. Sure, you've done it before but it's still pretty damn funny.

Check back later in the week for photos of such a criminal event.

Lastly, this past week we said goodbye to Buster, a good rescue dog who lived a long and happy life with his mum Wendy, and who will be greatly missed.

RIP Buster.