With his grey trimmed eyebrows and ears Luke appears quite grandpa like. And in fact, had it not been for a minor operation he had performed many years ago, I’m sure he would have had been a proud papa and grandpa.
Luke seemed to enjoy his portrait session. Perhaps he is smiling because of the short respite from his normal job of guarding the yard from invading squirrels and birds, perhaps because of the treats and opportunity to sit on the couch, or more likely, because more than anything else, he wishes to please.
You can see some of my other pet photography here.
Roxy sat for her portrait this afternoon. She did a great job. All she asked in compensation was to receive a few pieces of cat food as treats. There is something really special about cat food. Especially if you are a dog.
Here is an extra bonus photo from Roxy’s portrait session.
This photo sorta goes with my last post (Sir Jack;Old English Bulldog). Amos was sitting in the window the entire time Jack was having his portrait done watching the whole process. I’m not sure if Amos was Jealous (I doubt it since cats always know they are really in charge) or simply waiting for his close up.
Jack is an Old English Bulldog that was in need of a formal portrait. Due to his very busy social schedule I only had a short period between state functions to shoot his photograph. Despite his rather professional demeanor I found him exceptionally charming and quite warm. (I probably shouldn’t spoil his “tough guy” image but he was quite friendly & greeted me immediately with repeated wet slobbery kisses.)
This cute guy’s (or girl, it’s difficult to tell from this angle…) ancestors were no doubt partially to credit for us having National Parks. Theodore Roosevelt visited this area to hunt buffalo (bison actually,) when he was young and fell in love with nature. Later during his presidency he created the first National Parks to help protect and prevent development of our unspoiled lands. It was quite a new and controversial concept.
We recently attended a wedding in North Dakota. As first time visitors we really had no idea what to expect. We were quite pleasantly surprised by beauty of the badlands. We stayed in Medora which happens to be the location of the South Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This guy (and many of his cousins) greeted us as we made a morning drive through the park.
Amos lives in Fairbanks Alaska. This particular day it was in the mid 70′s, quite beautiful outside and Amos REALLY wanted to go out and play. He spent the majority of his photo session looking out the French doors and doing his best to express his desire to be let out. I pretended to be a stupid human not understanding a single meow while clicking away at my shutter.
Ok, by special request, here is another Botswana Image… The sun was going down as we floated down the Chobe river in the Chobe National Park in Botswana. (Actually, the other side of the river is in Zambia.) It’s a great time to observe wildlife because they tend to go down to the river in the evening.
By design, I do not have music play when you open the site. You may however feel free to whistle “Elephant Walk” as you view this image.
I truly wish I had been taking copious notes of all the various wildlife we saw during our Botswana safari. In particular, I wish I had notes on what all the birds were. For the ornithologist among my readers, please feel free to post a comment as to the name of the birds. In case you are not aware, you can click on the image to go to my Flickr site & choose “All Sizes” to see a larger version.
I’m back… Beverly & I just spent the past couple of weeks discovering Botswana Africa with what began as a couple of guides, three friends & family & eight strangers & ended up as a group of fifteen friends. The trip was very cool, both literally & figuratively. As I am writing this it occurs to me we were able to be in all four seasons in two weeks. We left Austin in the spring, arrived in Africa in the fall, left Africa in the winter & arrived in Austin in the summer. Needless to say, we shot thousands of images during our adventure. I can’t wait to start sorting & processing my selects. I’ve done a fair amount of traveling but I have never been anyplace remotely so removed from civilization. We would drive for hours down four wheel roads (really just tracks) and never see another vehicle. It was an amazing adventure we will never forget.
One photographic tip from my first Safari; You are going to wish you had a longer lens. Typically my favorite lens is my 14-24 f/2.8. and my ‘long’ lens is a Nikon 70-200 f/2.8. The great majority of my photos were taken on the 200 end of my long lens & the great majority of those will need to be seriously cropped. Our guides were shooting with 400mm lenses (on their cropped sensors that’s actually 600mm equivalent) and most of their images will need to be cropped as well.
