Foxy Lady

    I rented a large telephoto lens for the holiday weekend. First I tried it out in the backyard. The hummingbirds have a favorite limb they like to rest on when not at the feeder and so I had some good luck with them.

    You might think that the larger songbirds would be easier. But they are not as predictable and therefore much harder to photograph.

    At daybreak the next morning I went out in search of  more wildlife to photograph. This lens is too heavy for walking through dense woods. It is like carrying a bazooka. So I picked a promising little clearing, settled down with my back against a tree, and promptly became miserable. One of my back muscles was not in a cooperative mood. This particular muscle pained and complained me no matter how I shifted or twisted. To complicate matters further, I was so sleepy I could not hold my eyes open. Even sitting up, I slept so soundly that I dreamed. I was tempted to throw in the towel and go home. But I spent a lot of money to rent this lens and by golly I was determined to enjoy it even if it killed me.
    Quite a bit of time passed and the sun was lighting up the green grass. Luckily I chose this moment to change the settings on my camera to match the brighter light. Hardly had I finished this little chore when I caught a gray figure moving quickly toward me on my right. I tried not to get too excited, telling myself that it might just be a cat out hunting. I thought of my own cat who had caught a nice fat lizard to eat the day before.
    I raised my weighty camera and watched. I could see a fox peeking under some lumber at the edge of the clearing! She must be looking for her own lizard. She swung to her right and trotted across the grass directly in front of me. I could not have asked for anything better.

     If you click on her photo she should go to full screen for you. Look carefully and you can see that she is nursing a litter.

My Big Fat Nocturnal Visitor

One morning this spring I woke up to find my broken bird feeder on the ground. Could this be the work of a bear?

I set up my game camera and captured this scary looking creature. 

A Yeti, perhaps?

As the creature grew bolder it bypassed the feeder, preferring instead to climb the steps to my back porch. There it could get the sunflower seed directly from the storage container. 

On the pollen coated surface of the container a clue to its identity emerged!

I decided to latch my container. My uninvited yet determined guest broke the latch and threw the lid aside.

 Finally I captured its photo. Judging by the height of the container she is about 12 inches tall.

 Wait! Who is this? My cat is securely locked in the garage each night!

 The bold visitor returns three hours later for a second serving.

Girl, look at that body!

  

Photographing the baby is harder than it looks.

Sometimes I think I need a baby wrangler.

   

   

   I let him play with a shoe lace in an effort to hold his attention.

   

Still, he tends to wander off in pursuit of other interests.

   

But when he comes back around the results are rewarding.

Adoorophobia

    Each morning before work I settle back on some pillows, hot cup of coffee by my side, to check my e-mail. On a recent morning I looked up from my work to discover that Kira was not in her usual spot.

    Kira's usual spot is as close to my spot as physically possible. Her goal is to make sure that not a molecule passes between us unless she allows it to happen.

    A little concerned, I rose to search for her. I imagined I heard her whine. I turned on the light to the upstairs to see if she was trapped on the landing, afraid to come down in the dark. There was no sign of her there.

    Now I definitely heard a whine. Kira is not a whiner and so I became more worried. Could she be outside on the porch? She loves to eat the crunchy spiders. What if one of them made her sick? I turned on the porch light and peered out into the darkness. No Kira.

    Walking down the hallway, I heard her in the guest room. Pumped with adrenaline, she had chased Little Kitty through the partly open door. Little Kitty is agile and wise. She easily lost herself in the clutter of our rarely occupied guest room. Kira's brain left cat-chasing mode only to realize that she was trapped! Kira will not go through a door that is ajar for fear that it will close against her shoulders. She found herself in the awkward position of being stuck in her own guest room until I came to rescue her.

    When released from her prison she galloped merrily into my room and jumped onto the bed, at great risk to computer and coffee. She celebrated her freedom with play bows and lots of eye contact, definitely wanting to share the moment with me. 

    Somewhere in the house Little Kitty was laughing.

Push Up!

    Grand Baby came over today! We had a wonderful time.

    First we played in the sandbox.

    Then we blew bubbles. He belly-laughed as the dog tried to catch them in her mouth!

    He was offered pizza but preferred an orange.

    Later we stood in front of the mirror and brushed his hair. He loves that.

    After a while he grew sleepy. Waving goodbye, he was buckled into his car seat. Sweet dreams, Grand Baby. I sure am tired!

Nightmare on Toddler Street

    I have been learning a bit about making composite photos. I have a great book, "Adobe Photoshop Masking and Compositing" by Katrin Eismann. She begins with the basics and provides photos for the reader to practice with.

    Still, it is not easy for me. Perhaps I didn't get some of those basics. While working on this composite my mantra was "this is fun, this is my hobby." Otherwise I would have thrown the computer out of the door and into the back yard.

    The first photo was fun to make. I took this one over the Christmas holidays. My camera was set to shoot several frames per second and in one of them he had the expression I was looking for.

    Then I searched around the house for an old doll. It turns out, we don't have many old dolls here. But I found this one and she possessed just the right amount of creepiness for my second photo.

    I placed her against a solid red background. It should be easy to "cut her out" from that right? Not so much. But I finally got the job done. Then I moved her onto Jake's photo, blurred her a bit, and here you have it, one toddler nightmare! If you click on the photo below it should go to full screen for you.

    Compositing (or Photoshopping) could be a lot of fun. Imagine Jacob jumping out an airplane for the first time. Or Kira visiting Buckingham Palace and meeting the Queen's Corgis. If you have a suggestion feel free to place it in the comment section below.

Smile!

    I have been thinking a lot lately about buying some portrait studio equipment. Strobes and backdrops and such. Not so much for human portraits. For my dog.

    This will come as no surprise to those who know me well. I am the one who had to stop myself just short of telling my grandson "Good dog!" today when he obeyed a command. 

    Correction. He didn't obey a command. He he did what I told him ;)

    I am also the grandma who has seriously considered clicker training my only grandchild.

    Speaking of clicker training, Kira and I have been working on "stay." Kira will do anything if I have the clicker and some cheese. She will stay several seconds now. It seems like a long time to her, but to me it felt as if I had to take this photo very quickly.

    Since I don't have any nice studio stuff yet I rigged up some things and took this (quick) shot last week. It's not perfect, but I like it.