Getting Greener

Compared to 2 weeks ago anyway.  The trees could still use some leaves.  But we are getting there!

Spring Like

Yesterday felt almost Spring like. So does today.  Let's hope it lasts this time. I had a pretty good day. I spent the morning doing some work, some housework and a little bit of relaxing and then headed out around noon for a walk with the pups.

When swamp water makes your dog this happy, how can you refuse?

And once she's wet and dirty, you just gotta go with the flow.

I tried to get them to pose together but there was something interesting on the other side of the fence, so I cut my losses and moved them along before they went off in search of it.

It might have felt like Spring, but there sure wasn't much evidence of it yet! I think the only green things in the photo below are the fence posts!

 

 Then we stopped to visit with puppies on the way home!!!  It was mid day, bright sun with black pups who liked to cuddle so not many photos were taken but I couldn't not take ANY...  They are 4.5 weeks old right now.

Almost a Year

I've been planning to do a post to commemorate Lacey's one year of being cancer free but a friend found out yesterday that her dog has cancer and I no longer feel like celebrating. We truly had the best experience one could have with this kind of diagnosis - 2 weeks and 2 operations later, and it was over and done with.  Most dogs aren't that lucky, but I hope things turn out OK this time too.

It's Been a While

Yikes.  A month. I think that is the longest I've gone without blogging.  I'm not going to try and catch up as that isn't motivating at all.  I will tell you about the conference I went to last week though.

Lorelei and I went to the PPOC Conference in Winnipeg.  It was good.  Really good.  We went out a day early and took a session offered by Chris Morris on using speed lights. This was the session I was most looking forward to as it was mainly about using lights in "sporty" situations - which means they couldn't be big or bulky or too heavy.  He started from the basics and worked his way up.  Turns out I was missing a key piece of information to get my borrowed lights to work properly and basically everything I've done to this point has been a fluke.  Ha!  So that was nice to clear up and then to learn more on top of it.

I'd say my second favourite session was a surprise. It was a talk by Deasy Photography.   They have a very interesting way of doing business and it was definitely food for thought for most of the people in the session.  I might eventually try and incorporate some of their practices.

There was also a great session on website content by Jenika at Psychology for Photographers. I'll be making some changes for sure to my website.  In fact it might get a complete overhaul. It's been quite a few years since I've done much with it.

I also had a portfolio review done by Paul Wright.  It was good - he was complimentary, had some advice and gave me some things to think about in terms of my future direction.

The PPOC is an interesting organization.  I've never seen so many members so enthusiastic about their membership. It was great to see but I'm still not sold.  We'll see. I might change my mind in the future.  Lorelei has signed up and I'll definitely be asking her how she feels about it after a few months.

And in the spirit of always learning, I bought a used large black cloth backdrop right before we left.  I finally had time to try it out this weekend. I LOVE it.  It's huge so the dogs can move around and it is so big they don't need to be squished up against the back of it.  We had some fun taking some "serious" photos for a change.  Chewy was my assistant and helped to turn Lacey's head for me. :)