Odin was born in North Dakota and spent the first three years of his life with me in New York. Snow just isn’t a big deal to him, and he let his feelings about it be known. Hiro will run into the house at the first chance, so I think he was trying to be brave and agree with Odin about the cold.
As much as I never wanted to see snow again, there is no denying its pristine beauty. This storm gave a solid coating of ice before changing into snow in the course of two days, making this morning almost fairytale like in its crystaline beauty.
Walking around through winter's brown and gray, it takes a lot of stretching of the imagination to find something, well... picturesque. While color always is an eye-catcher, when there is none, the focus has to shift elsewhere. Not to be discredited even in the most colorful of settings is the interaction of the subject with its surroundings. My animals gave me subjects today as I experimented with mid afternoon light.
After chasing Saki and Hiro off the round bale, Odin stood there to strike the same pose. I have no idea what all three animals were looking at off yonder…
On A Bumpy Path, I wrote a story about how Saki (left) will run around and taunt the other dogs and Odin. Today, Hiro caught up to him, albeit a bit late, and managed to join Saki on top of one of the round bales. That round bale is 5 feet high! The dogs dug in with their nails and literally climbed straight up the side of the bale to get to the top. I think they struck this pose just so that I could note their satisfaction with themselves.
Odin is enjoying the reprieve from the hard freeze too, and when I came home yesterday, he joined the dogs in running around to greet me. My camera was with me, as always, but I wish I could have whipped it out of its case faster. Odin had run through water, and then took off toward the front of the pasture. Then, he headed right toward me. It was good to see him feeling good.
My camera finally came out of its bag today as I enjoyed an incredibly warm day after weeks of deep freeze. After errands, I took the scenic route home, and this time, I did stop to take photos. One part of the trip takes me along the top of a mountain, and looking down, I can see the entire area for miles. The top photo is the road continuing on, and the second is just to the right, showing the incredible view.
I was thrilled to capture these two baby squirrels one day, just having themselves a ball playing in the branches of the tree right outside by back door. The one in the first photo didn’t mind a bit that I kept getting closer and closer. He knew he was well out of reach. The second baby had me holding my breath often, worried that he was going to fall out of the tree.
Though I still haven’t found the straight-off-the-camera files to work with, I did find a few more of my favorites taken with my first digital camera.
Taken the same day as Lift Off, the first photo is one that I named “Take Off.” I remember running through all the balloons readying for flight, hoping to capture a few good angles.
The second photo I consider to be one of my first successful photos. It’s not that I managed to capture a subject or focal point, it’s that I managed to capture a mood.
I couldn’t have planned that third shot if I wanted to. That, in a nutshell, is the excitement and action of a horseback sport called Team Penning. It’s as much fun to do as it is to take photos of.
I took this photo before sunrise today. Supposedly, this a "blue moon," meaning the first of two full moons in one month.
Happy New Year!
