Creativity

I am not a creative person.  I'm really not.  I struggle to do things "outside the box" - even just a little.  But I'm trying.  My 52 week project this year has a different prompt every week. Some are harder than others. Some are hard to come up with an idea and others are even harder to actually implement. I'm finding myself trying to plan weeks in advance or else odds are, I fall flat.  I'm also finding myself having to create Plans A, B and C as nothing seems to go as planned.

Jack helped with the testing stage

This week though (the theme was messy) was relatively easy.  I didn't actually come up with this idea until just a few days ago once I realized Plans A and B weren't going to work (one required mud (and it's too cold for mud) and the other required holi powder which had gone mouldy on me). It was a simple idea, but it still took a heck of a lot of prep and a lot of it you can't even see in the end.  I had to clean up our bedside tables, put a bedskirt on the box spring so you couldn't see it, change the blanket and pillows, shop for a feather pillow, borrow Lorelei's flashes and CamRanger, dig the tripod out of the car, charge a million batteries, test the set up with multiple different lenses to see which one created the look I want and then hope and pray the feathers will a) come out of the pillow, and b) fly through the air and that Coulee will actually think it's fun.

Thankfully she did think it was pretty fun.  Although the original concept was for me to be in the photo with her having a pillow fight, I didn't like any of those so I went with one of her destroying the pillow on her own.

Lacey on the other hand again thought I was trying to trick her into "badness".  She was down in the living room during Coulee's session and I had to go down to coax her to come back up with me.  Once she was on the bed she refused to look a the pillow and would only roll around on all the feathers.  :)  Silly girl.

I'm pretty sure I'll be vacuuming up feathers for days.  :)

Too Much

You know how when you haven't seen someone in a while and you have so much to tell them that it becomes overwhelming and suddenly you can't think of anything to say?

Yeah.  That's kind of what happened here.

It's not like all kinds of exciting things have been happening, but now so much time has passed I don't know where to start, or what to say, or what to share.  So here is pretty much a photo a day...

Cuddles were had.

Coulee was tortured.

Stairs were attempted.

New toys were enjoyed.

Fun rescue dogs were photographed.

Baths were had.

New friends were made.

Toys were gathered.

Stairs were conquered!

Goodbyes were said.

Photos were taken.

Cold weather was endured.

Their Last Day Together

Yesterday Bernie and Leslie went off to their forever homes.  Amy is still waiting for that perfect match.  I couldn't resist the one last opportunity to take pictures of them all together.  They've really started to play more with toys together instead of just wrestling.

Leonard and Penny came for a quick visit before they all got picked up.  It was pretty cute to see how quickly they got into the groove and started playing together although most of my play pictures of them didn't look that great so instead you mainly get "dogs standing still".  LOL  Aren't they gorgeous?  Penny was a tiny little thing and Leonard had such a nice wide head.

Leonard and Penny could do stairs up AND down.  Ours were still struggling with the down part.  Poor Bernie ran upstairs to "protect" a toy she'd been playing with and then got stuck up there.  LOL

I'm really going to miss them but I know they'll be happy and loved.

Slowly But Surely

I'm starting to use Photoshop more and more.  Don't get me wrong, I still like Lightroom, but even with it's new cloning/healing tool, it still doesn't hold a candle to Photoshop's and I often want to get rid of something in my photos.  Lately it's been the staining under the puppies' eyes and Photoshop does a much better job.  It's a pain to transfer them in there, but worth it in the end.

I'm also finding I need to use it for my 52 Weeks challenges and am slowly learning more and more "tricks" each week.  This week's challenge was symmetry so I ended up cloning Coulee and flipping her around to create a more symmetrical image.  I chose not to make the background symmetrical as I found it too distracting. I wanted it to look a little more "realistic"... that she'd actually found her doppelgänger and was having a game of tug with her.

I thought her play bowing to herself was also cute.  She's actually bowing to Marlin who helped me out with the tug.

This was a cool little wall that had this half circle repeating along it, that I photographed as a backup plan, (I didn't know if I would be able to get the tugging thing to work) but decided I liked the closer view better.

Grand Plans

I had all these grand plans to blog more frequently this week but it just didn't happen.  These puppies sure slow down productivity!  I'm still taking pictures most days but never have time to do anything more than post a few to Facebook.

They had a busy week.  They met a family on Tuesday night, Amanda came to visit them on Thursday during the day and then Thursday night we went off to a pet store to meet a whole bunch more families.

It's really interesting to see how they respond in different situations.  Leslie is definitely the confident go getter.  Amy responded how I thought she would - she takes a few minutes to assess the situation then goes forth with confidence.  I was a little surprised by Bernie though - she did not enjoy the trips to other places at all.  And she never recovered the whole time we were there - both at the family's house and at the pet store.  Poor girl.  No one got to see her true fun-loving sassy attitude except for Amanda because she came to our place and Bernie seems to have no problems meeting new people. When Bernie is out and about though she reminds me a little bit of a black and tan dog I know.  ;)

Anyway, sorry about the photo dump... but they are too cute not to share.