I am excited by today’s Daily Prompt, Menagerie. I was just playing with a photograph of my two puppies. Well, strictly speaking they aren’t puppies. Sophia is 9 and Garibaldi is 5, but I will always think of them as puppies.
Puppy Love
They are not very obedient. They like to bark. A lot. But they are also sweet and loving with our little children. We love them, too.
You might also enjoy Tongue 1 and Tongue 2.
This week’s travel theme on Where’s My Backpack is all about trees in honor of Arbor Day. I grew up cold northern areas with lots of rainfall, and tall lush trees. Some areas were lowland deciduous forest. Some were filled with towering evergreens. Moving to a desert landscape was quite a shock. For one thing, you have to worry about irrigation. Irrigation? I’ve always lived in areas where the rain falls often enough you barely think about watering the grass.
Now, I live not just in the desert, but in an area with citrus trees. Citrus trees are watered through an irrigation system where the area is flooded. It is almost magical to look out over a citrus grove and see a small lake where there were just pebbles before. Especially in the desert, where water is a symbol of wealth. When my husband and I first moved the desert, we noticed that every upscale place had fountains, as a symbol of their status and prosperity.
Also, the citrus trees have such interesting branches and shapes to them. A perfectly healthy tree might have a dark and gnarly branch reaching out from lush and green boughs. And in March, their fragrant blossoms fill the air for weeks with a delectable perfume. I love that day when I step outside and every breath holds invigorating scents.
On this particular day, not only was there irrigation, but rain as well. Hard downpours alternated with sprinkling drops, creating ripples on an otherwise serene reflective pool. I loved seeing two different sources of water interacting to create such a beautiful, peaceful picture.
Happy Arbor Day!
You might also enjoy Travel Theme: Freedom.
To amuse myself while I am sitting and nursing my baby, which is a substantial amount of time throughout the day, I’ve been reading some photography tutorials to learn how to take better pictures. I want to have the skills to take awesome photographs of my children, of my travels, of pretty much everything. This post isn’t really about travel, except that I would like to take better travel photos. But, I think it is amusing, so please read on. Last week I came across a tutorial about how to take action photographs of dogs. I decided to give it a try. Here is one photo of our male dog.
This is the kind of photo that the tutorial was discussing. It’s a fun photo. I love how insanely puffed out his fur looks while running. I swear they could make stuffed animals that looked just like him, and children would go nuts over them.
Now, we have two dogs, a male and female. They love to lick babies. Love, love, love, love, love, love, love it. Especially our female, Sophia. My husband and I joke that for the first few months of life, our children know our dogs only as Tongue 1 and Tongue 2. Their soft, luscious fur remains elusively out of reach to our tiny baby. But their tongues can cover a huge amount of distance! Our dogs are also kind of mischievous like Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Dr. Seuss books. They are not the most well behaved dogs in the world. Anyway, one of the pictures that I ended up with was this.
This is Tongue 1. If you love dogs you probably are laughing right now like I was when I saw this gem among the other dog photos. I love how her crazy, flipped out tongue is the most in focus of anything else in the picture. It just really captured her personality, a little neurotic, very loving, and very mischievous. So laugh away, and maybe try taking some photos of your own dogs.
Here is a link to the article about taking dog action portraits for your enjoyment.
http://digital-photography-school.com/6-tips-for-photographing-dogs-in-action/
Enjoy, and have a great day!
little travel bugs 