52 Week Project | Brick

The theme for this week’s 52 Week Project was brick.

A quick back history: Paynesville MN. Established in 1867 in central Minnesota with a New Paynesville not far away (the current town site), a slow growing town with railroad lines and one of the “prettiest” lakes in Minnesota.  In 1904 the two towns were merged, the New part of the name dropped and the town continued its causal growth into the future and present day. Many of the older buildings in town were revamped to modern businesses but still sport their lineage with walls of brick.

Bender was volunteered as the model, and we meandered on a walk from home towards downtown. He’s a photographer’s dog and isn’t afraid of telling me what he thinks of having his picture taken for the bazillionth time…

At least the classic brick is very pretty (it use to be a grocery store, then was a junk store, not sure what it was prior to slinging groceries). 

We continued to meander around the alleys and back sides of town. The side wall where the little bakery use to be (their mural is still there, huzzah!) is a side wall of lovely brick and filled in windows (prior to the current residents of a quilt shop, cluttered cozy book store and assorted store, the building housed a Ben Franklin Crafts store – they had quite the candy selection! Not sure what the building was home to even earlier in its days)

Bender is very notorious for not wanting to look at the camera, not having ears or holding a sit for only the span of 1 second before walking to me to be thisclose. Typically the plethora of sounds I have that work with other dogs hold no interest to get his ears up. Today I found a new sound – a pthbbt buzz that I’m not even sure I could recreate – but it caught his attention…

And the novelty wore off and Bender went back to his “I don’t have ears” old man look. (At least he’s looking at me!)

From being “earless” he went into the “don’t look at mom with the camera” mode and looked around at the brick. Luckily he has adorable ears (and a very dirty collar….). Snagged a couple images and we meandered in search of other brick.

The mesh of new red brick with old yellow brick in a hasty put together job was found at the corner of one of the buildings. There was an ancient pole next to the building, seemingly held together by the rusted staples and nails that covered its surface, that was called into business as a hitching spot for Bender. The business behind the alley was open and a pair of people moved behind me doing their activity – perfect! One of the easiest ways to get Bender’s attention and ears up because he is mega NOSY!

We shifted slightly down the alley to a hastily filled in door space of contrasting bricks. No idea what the building had been in its day.

We continued to meander, finding brick on nearly every building downtown. One of the more interesting buildings is a tall yellow brick structure that once was the Merchants Hotel (built early in the 1900s – the building is still standing and now functions as an apartment building). On the backside of the building an entrance/fire escape crawls up the brick. Upwards we adventured, the structure rusting but solid, with only a minor give to the steel plate at the base of the second set of stairs.

Downward to continue the meandered quest for brick. A mashup of old and new…  a spot that always is overgrown and has a slight creepy factor to it.

Ending at batch of  textured brick of a former auto repair place, sporting browns that matched Bender perfectly.

Next visit Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area to see the brick she found!


 

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52 Week Project | High Contrast

This week’s theme was high contrast. High contrast images contain strongly contrasting elements with an emphasis on strong darks and lights.

Axle & I adventured out towards downtown to find some stronger, contrasty, “bad” morning light. The light was just past the cusp of sunrise and wasn’t as harsh as I wanted it to be but Axle’s blackish coat added to the contrast and his “high fashion” modeling (think snooty, don’t look at the camera looks) made everything come together.

High contrast can involve color as well. Axle looks regal, as does his shadow and the contrast to dark to light is sharp. Here you can tell that Axle is blackish – he actually has a black mask and darker legs while his coat is similar to a sealed brindle with ticking in the hairs (it makes him look more brown). He’s been getting more “brown” as he’s been aging.

Next visit Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area to see how she captured high contrast.


 

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52 Week Project | Orange

Fall is here and so are the colors! We have a solid plethora of yellows and a couple of pockets of orange, or at least in the St. Cloud area! The Twin Cities is slowly gaining color as discovered by the set of Short & Sweet Sessions that I did at Theodore Wirth Park this past weekend. Only two of the dogs had real orange colors!

** By the way these are super sneaky peeks! You’ll have to wait to see the rest!

The first Short & Sweet Session was with Koda the elkhound. The weather was grand, minus the rain that showed up at the start of the session and ended at the end of the session.

Did Koda have “real” orange in her images?
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Second up for the Short & Sweet Sessions was Jazmin & Maggie May. Jazmin is a stunning pittie who is a stellar therapy dog and Maggie May is her spunky sidekick.

Did we find orange leaves for this duo?
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Next up was the MEGA adorable bouncy 8 month old springer puppy Gus!

We found a giant tree that sported a whole batch of ORANGE leaves! Plus his mom brought a wardrobe change so he was also wearing an ORANGE collar!


After Gus was the stunning golden Reilly! He was a total slobbery food hound and wanted to be as close to the treats as possible. We did manage to capture his sophisticated side as well.

Real orange or …..?

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Last, and certaintly not least was Chewy the golden doodle. The light was waning on the evening when we stopped by the same tree I had visited with Gus. Chewy was happiest within reach of the treats so the tree looks a little different – that’s the difference in a wide angle and telephoto lens!

I had a blast with these Short & Sweet Sessions at Theodore Wirth Park!

Next visit Linda of DogShotzPhotography, serving the Indianapolis, IN to see what orange things she found!


 

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Suzi & Ellie | Minneapolis

A warm, perfect weather day had me in the GINORMOUS Theodore Wirth Park for a session with the lovely Suzi & Ellie. We meandered around the trails, stopped by the Wirth Pavillion, found a pocket of backlit dandelions and an adorable bridge (Suzi didn’t believe me when I said there was a dinosaur there…), ending the loop on the beach with an amazing sunset.

Their mom is a MEGA awesome human – she works at the Animal Humane Society! This is where she met the abused shar pei who was nearly to the point of giving up. Time and a ton of love has allowed Ellie to blossom into a wonderful dog. (Ellie is the cover dog on the website – that image is one of my favorites!)

And Suzi the puggle as the matchmaker for her mom and dad! She also sports an amazing head tilt at the mere mention of food – and is also very serious about food haha!

Two amazing dogs with a ton of character! Plus these two are super mega ADORABLE!


 

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52 Week Project | Eyes

This week’s theme was eyes.

My parents cats were happy to help (Snuggles is a camera snob, while Lilly is a camera hog and little bit of a creeper… and Toostie is just a big kitten).

Pretty sure Lilly never blinks… she has a knack for staring at cameras without much of a blink or break in focus. She may be waiting for reflections (she chases light reflections) but she is just a bit of a creeper with that stare hahaha! (She does it when I’m sitting at the table eating too!)

Attempted Snuggles, who gave me her a little bit of a snub. She is famous for not looking in a direction you want her to no matter the method for attention getting. Her ears listen, her eyes look elsewhere.

She sure is a cute kitty though… even if she doesn’t look at the camera!

 

Miss moose Tootsie was the next subject I directed my lens to. She’s a mover and a shaker and likes to be thisclose to me for pets or playing, which makes using the 135mm a little tricky. Luckily there was a random toy nearby that I used to catch her split second attention.

And because it’s hilarious, one last picture of Lilly…

Next visit Linda of DogShotz Photography serving the Indianapolis IN area to see the eyes she captured.


 

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