Saturday, May 1, 2010

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture


Sort of a Stalin-era statuary / high school senior picture kind of "looking toward the future" vibe with this one. I like it. It's fairly hard to make Nina look like she's thinking or emoting.

(In actuality, she was just looking up at me and/or the camera, trying to determine whether to run away.)


As difficult as it is to get a picture of Nina that looks like thinking or emoting, it's even harder to get a picture of Sheba that's not blurry with motion. She actually spends a fair amount of the day like this, waiting for something to happen, especially on days when I'm not watering. (When I am watering, she can just follow me from the computer to the watering station to the plant shelves endlessly, which is apparently more entertaining than it sounds.) I sometimes feel guilty for not spending more time playing with her or whatever, but the husband has quite sensibly pointed out that she gets a lot more entertainment during a given day than a lot of dogs do. It's probably just the whole big, brown, sad-looking eyes thing that's getting to me.


9 comments:

Blueszz said...

Thanks for both pictures! Sheps get easily bored ;-) Mine could 'work' all day long.

Do you like your new camera?

mr_subjunctive said...

Blueszz:

When it works, it really, really works, and when it doesn't work, it's still passable. It's also very difficult to get pictures of intense reds and oranges, though that was also a problem with the previous camera.

The biggest remaining issue I have is the display, still. The camera comes with about seven or eight different settings for the type of light being used (incandescent, sun, cloudy, three kinds of fluorescent), and then a different setting controls the overall lightness or darkness of the picture, with about fifteen different options there. I can play with the hundred or so different combinations of these two settings until I get a picture that look like what I want on the display -- but then when I take the picture and upload it to the computer, it's all wrong anyway, and of course it took me half an hour of fiddling with the settings to choose the ones I got, so I don't remember anymore what those settings even were, to try to do it differently. So until I learn how to correct for the specific way that the display lies to me, I'm going to be kind of frustrated. But other than that, yes, I like the camera.

Liza said...

I would love to see your high school photo!

Nancy in Sun Lakes AZ said...

Your picture of Nina is fantastic ... the best one ever to me! And Sheba is just so beautiful. Just think that so many dogs are all alone all day and she has you to watch and follow. She IS a very lucky girl!

CelticRose said...

Love both pics! :)

And, yes, Sheba is lucky. Too many pets are left alone all day. When I had cats, I made sure to get 2 so they could keep each other company when I was out.

Mae said...

Oh yes, very Stalin-esque of Nina! Love it! And Sheba looks very content.

Blueszz said...

Last year I got myself a Nikon DSLR. It makes great pictures but as with most camera's intense red's, orange's and purples are difficult.
It takes a while before you can use the camera blindly (and fast), without having to think about where to find the settings etc.
They only thing I can recommend is use it a lot! Play, practice, experiment :-)

Give Sheba a hug from me and if Nina likes one too, don't skip her ;-)

Unknown said...

I'm lucky enough to work from home and I get to spend all day with my dog. I sometimes feel bad about sitting here and not being able to "play" with him, but he LOVES having me home. He gets treats, tummy rubs, and kisses all day and alot of dogs don't. Reading your post made me feel alot better about not "playing" with him! Thanks!

Hippolyta said...

Add my me-too to the dog comments (both by Mr. Subj. and Jana). I am home most of the day with my 2-year-old Labrador mix, and have to fight off the guilt feelings while she lies there waiting for something to happen. Yes, those big brown soulful eyes are hard to take! But also, yes, she gets much more attention and activity than many dogs.
Thanks for the Sheba pics and updates!