Fashion around West Lake

Here we have a classic summer look. It's hot, so wear shorts and roll up your t-shirt for maximum air flow. You need to look stylish though, so wear your black dress shoes with white socks.

This white poodle had a fluorescent orange tail and ears. Poor little guy doesn't even know he looks like a traffic cone.

During the summer, many dogs are shaved like lions (to keep cool, I suppose.) They leave the head furry so that it looks like a lion's mane!

Seagulls

All of these photos were taken from the cruise ship with my Tamron 70-300mm telephoto lens. After getting a camera upgrade, I realize how mediocre it really is.

Örebro Castle

In Örebro, we also visited the castle. Instead of a traditional tour, they made the tour into a play of sorts. It was much more interesting than hearing a guide rattle off dates!

A person walking over the bridge is reflected in the moat.

I think this little ducky was laying eggs in this flower pot.

Ultrasounding cattle

This is probably my last post from South Dakota photos for a while! (Until October, anyway.) When I was home, Jason and dad spent a couple days ultrasounding cattle. Not to check if they were pregnant, but to determine their back fat and marbling and the date they would be ready to sell.

Monkey Island

I felt a bit bad participating in photographing these monkeys - these little guys are kind of exploited. They get thrown some fruit (and the big rotting piles of peels attract lots of nasty bugs), and then people leave their trash on their little tiny beach. I just can't believe how people will throw beer and soda cans on a little tiny beach on an uninhabited island. Who do they think will pick it up??

October 12 - Bridgewater

Jon and Megan invited us to Bridgewater to sit by the fire and drink beer.

I definitely was missing America....


And what will they think of next? Budweiser came out with lime-flavored beer. Maybe they are trying to compete with Corona (which is the beer that should always have a lime in it.)

This is Blaze - she's a really sweet Rottweiler.

Jon got a new camera, the SD1100IS. It has a pretty good macro mode and also takes time lapse videos. (I will post some eventually.)

John and Megs

October 5th - Close ups of bugs

October 5th - Wiener dog races

Deadwood was holding their annual Oktoberfest celebration that weekend. It included Wiener Dog races!

First there was a costume contest:




Then the race! There were several heats. Most of the dogs didn't care too much about being the first to the other end - they were more interested in each other.

This guy won! He'd been in a few competitions before. His owner's secret was to have a T-bone in his pocket, let him smell it right before the race, and hold it so the dog would race to the bone. It worked!

Birds at the wharf

Alcatraz is in the background.

Moses and Carol 

The Spader Family

Macy and Micah with the pony 

Spaders with their horses 

Lilly feeding the ducks at the zoo.

The kids loved feeding the ducks and geese.

Bumble Bee

When I was lying on the green taking the photo below, this bumble bee landed on the clover. Perfect timing!

Cheetah 

Flamingo again... 

Flamingo - I was going to enter this on DPC but I realized my camera's date is set wrong! Argh! 

Lemur - they are fun to watch. Someone needs to invent clear fences. 

Squirrel Monkey - they are super cute and FAST! I couldn't get a clear shot ever. 

Gilv and Jon. We had a lot of fun at the Zoo day! Gilv is obsessed with monkeys....

Mallard Duck

Mallard Duck

Ducks

Ducks at the DC Booth Fish Hatchery

Prairie Dog

Prairie Dog at the town near Devil's Tower

Who let the dogs out?

I need to stop taking quite so many photos per shoot - the shoot with Gerdie, Dudley and Winston was proof of that. I ended up with so many good photos I have no idea how anyone could choose a best one. Here is their slideshow. http://www.emilyminor.com/Dogs/Slideshow.html

I did have a really cool Flash slideshow that played "Who let the dogs out?" by the Baha Men, but it was HUGE. I couldn't actually get my site to support anything even close to that big. So... slightly different version instead. (no music.)

Winston, Gerdy and Dudley

Three shoots today!! Crazy!! First Seth brought his mom and dad over with their three dogs, Winston, the bulldog, Gerdy, the Chow, and Dudley, the pittbull. That was crazy!!

Bunny Rabbit

I worked from home today to be able to concentrate on a few things. This bunny was outside by our deck. Nice shot with the 300 mm lens, I think!

More George

George is a fat cat with a little head. He is incredibily lovey too.

Cat Eyes

George has pretty eyes too.

Georgie Porgie

George again - I wanted to do a photo session with him. http://www.emilyminor.com/GeorgeWeb/george.html

It isn't working out with him and Boots. She is too used to being Queen and living by herself, and he is trying to rule over her. Our friend Molly has been wanting to get a cat for her dog Chief, and George loves big dogs. Chief is a really chilled out dog and could use the company when she is at work. So she is going to try taking him for a while to see how things work out. Tomorrow she is going to pick him up to introduce them. I really hope they like each other! He is such a nice loving kitty, he has to go to a good home.

Stay....

I had three guys with treats trying to get all of the dogs to pose - it was pretty chaotic! This is the best one. Bailey, Blaze and Loci. Chief refused to be in the photo. I wish Bailey didn't have her head back so far, but I took what I could get at the moment.

Loci

This is Loci - she has really grown up. She was just a puppy the last time I saw her.

Blaze

She is such a sweet rot. She is friends with everyone.

Georgie Porgie

George came home with us today. His mom Robin had to give him up because she is moving in with her fiance and he is severly allergic to cats. George is pretty pudgy and he thinks he's a dog. He drools and rubs and loves everyone. Our cat hates him so far.

Fishy

I ordered a 50 mm f1.8 lens from Amazon last week. It finally came today. I am looking forward to using it during weddings and other no-flash situations. This fishy turned out pretty well with it.

Chief's Collage

This is what Chief's collage will look like, approximately.

Good Doggie!

Such a nice doggie!

Steak?

Chief was a lot of fun to shoot. Molly thinks it looks like I was dangling a steak for him in this photo.

This is Chief. (His full name is Chief Clancy Wiggum.) He is Molly's dog and she asked me to take some photos for her.  

Chief

Chief's photo session- This is Molly's dog Chief.

Aaron & Bailey

Today I put my new studio to good use. Aaron kindly agreed to pose for me - good thing he has a lot of patience as I tried to work with my new lights. :-)

Crystal, Karl and Rocco stayed over last night - we had a huge meal at the Olive Garden. Delicious. Rocco is adorable! 

Rocco

This is Rocco - Crystal and Karl's dog. They just announced their engagement - CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Bailey's Fan Club

Curns claims that Bailey has a fan club. He claims that my site gets more traffic when Bailey is on it, and that he has people asking when I'm going to take more photos of Bailey. (I think he was half-loaded when he said this.) If you visit the site mostly to see Bailey, please leave a comment!! You don't have to have an account to leave a comment on my site.

Grandma Creta & Baby Butterfly

This little butterfly left his cocoon about 3 minutes before the photo. Grandma is about 45.6 million minutes old. (Give or take.) Crazy, huh?

Red Butterfly

Thought I would try something a bit different. The red in the flowers was about twice as vibrant in the original shot but I think it looks better toned down.

Big Flower, Little Butterfly

More butterfly photos - I like this purple one! Happy Valentine's Day.

Butterfly

I took about a hundred photos in the Sertoma Butterfly House today. It was about 85 degrees in there - what a great break from the SD winter! The butterflies were just beautiful! I will probably post more photos later. It was an awesome place to spend a few hours with hundreds of beautiful butterflies floating around our heads in a green, tropical environment.

Geese

The dark water and winter background made these geese look pretty bland, so I thought I'd try them in black and white. Shot with my 300 mm lens.

Aaron & Bailey

Thought maybe you'd want to see Aaron, Bailey's owner. I know, it's an awful background but Bailey would not sit still!!

Bailey 6

OK, this really will be the final one. I think it is better than the first one, so this one will replace that one in the series when I get them printed out. First Curns has to have the money to buy a few frames. :-)

This will be the final photo in my Bailey series. She was fun to shoot! I hope I have enough variety and show the various "emotions" she has. 

I love this photo - the look on her face is great! She was letting the ball drop out of her mouth - too funny! If I have this in a series of five black and whites, do you think the bright yellow tennis ball is OK? Thanks for the comments! 

Bailey - Sad Eyes

This was at the "will you please stop flashing that light in my eyes and just throw the ball?" stage.

Bailey - BANG!

Bailey is doing her "play dead" trick. She loves showing off. She doesn't look very dead though. I had to get rid of part of a bookshelf in the top left corner and I am not sure I am too happy with the results. Any suggestions?

Bailey

Bailey is a springer spaniel. She LOVES to play fetch with a tennis ball and absolutely will never stop retrieving the ball, no matter how exhausted she gets. She knows several tricks. The newest one goes like this: She sits and lies down, then you pull your hand out of your pocket and use it to mimic a gun. You look at her and shoot her, saying BANG! Then she'll roll over on her back with her paws in the air. Pretty cute. Her owner is a friend of ours, Aaron. They moved in a few months ago four houses down the street.

I'm going to be taking more photos of her, I'm sure. Typcial bachelor, Aaron doesn't have any photos or art on the walls. I want to do a series of Bailey to hang across a wall (about five 8x10s, I think), and tonight I may have taken enough photos of her to accomplish that. This photo doesn't look too great in the small size, but her eyes are in perfect focus and they look at you with the look only puppies have.

Plecostomus

I wasn't feelimg well today so didn't shoot anything exciting. I really do like the mobile blogging aspect of blogger! This is our plecostomus in his 55-gallon aquarium. We've just planted live plants there, after my husband built some really strong lights for them. I suspect as we add fish they will appear on my PaD too.

Snowy

This is our new fish Snowy. It is almost impossible to clearly capture a moving fish underwater. I really wanted him peeking out of the plants but he wouldn't cooperate. I settled for "not fuzzy" over semi-interesting. I do like the depth of field with the rocks though.

One of my goals for this week is to get out of the house and take some photos. It's hard because I commute an hour each way to work, so I leave in the dark and get home in the dark. Yuck. Gotta love SD winter. Another goal is to take a self-portait.

This was taken while dogsledding in Kiruna, Sweden.