Day 229; Sherman (Again)

It's been a while since you guys saw any pictures of our puppies. Actually, since the last photo (here) we've sold Sherman's brother and sister. But Sherman has stuck around. Today while I was out trying to take photos of flowers, Sherman kept vying for attention. He especially likes belly rubs, which is what I was doing when I snapped this shot. The sky has been really overcast all the time lately, so the original out of camera shot was rather dull. To fix this while editing, I increased the saturation in the grass and lightened the exposure so details in Sherman's dark coat could be seen.

Day 206; Muddy Tonks

This afternoon was the first time in a long time when temperatures were well above freezing. As such, all the snow we've been accumulating melted leaving lots and lots of mud and slush. Tonks, the mother of our adorable litter of puppies, managed to find some of this mud and apparently thought it would be a good idea to play in it.  Here she is resting on a bed of old feed sacks in one of the barns. When I took this photo the sun was beginning to set with some windows letting in the bright yellow light and causing the patches behind her.

Day 202; Sherman the Puppy

I'm so sorry I haven't posted for so long - life distracted me. Since my last post I've turned 16 in addition to my regular obligations for school and 4-H. Not to mention we've still been sick. In any event, I haven't been posting and now I'm going to change that. Today's photo is of Sherman, one of the three puppies we're the proud owners of. This photo was actually taken a few days ago, and the puppies have all grown a lot since then. I used the Holga effect from picmonkey.com to give a more artistic look to this snapshot, mostly because I didn't care for the red color of the coat in the background. I didn't realize until I took this picture with a flash how shiny the puppies' coats are.

Day 198

Happy Valentine's Day! I don't have a Valentine this year, but my mom planned a pretty awesome day by buying tickets to a concert. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go because of road conditions, but we still had a great time shopping. So instead of spending today with a boyfriend I spent it with my mom and (dramatic pause) our new puppies! That's right, we are now the proud owners of 3 adorable puppies. All three puppies are black with white spots on their tummies, so when they're nursing as shown in the photo you can't really see them. Their mother, Tonks, is a stray who showed up at our house a couple months ago. It soon became obvious that she was pregnant, and late Tuesday night she finally had her puppies. Most didn't make it because of the extreme cold we were facing, but these three did and I don't know how my parents are going to ever be able to convince us to sell or give them away. I used a slight Dusk effect to bring out some of the warmer hues of Tonks' coat.

Day 167

My dog Lupin is not always the best subject for photos because he is constantly moving. The vision behind this photo was a nice, traditional portrait with him looking at me. That didn't work out so well because he was distracted by something to his right, but I think it still was a pretty good image with colors and texture. When I was editing I thought this photo needed something to make it really stand out. I used a black and white focal effect, so that Lupin and the surrounding area would be in the original color with the snow on the edges of the photo turning grayscale. I also added a thin black frame, as I thought it really gave the photo a finished look and complemented the dramatic lighting going on.