Tag Archives: dog

Frosty Dog Walk.

Photography, , ,

The last few days have been even colder than previously. We’re at the same latitude as Fort McMurray in Alberta, Riga in Latvia, and Novgorod in Russia. But we have island benefits – which means permafrost is rare.

Grass covered in ice crystals on the dog walk.

Permafrost.

Permafrost does happen occasionally though. Years ago when I stayed in a remote cottage we went through a really hard spell of weather with four feet of snow. It stayed that way for a while. Our water supply was from a burn up the hill. The burn froze. Then it froze harder Continue reading Frosty Dog Walk. →

Dog Walk – wet and dry grass.

Dog Walk., Photography, ,

Today on the morning dog walk it was wet. A relentless gentle drizzle (Scotch mist) made worse by the leaves of the trees aggregating it and turning it into plonking showers at each and every little breeze.

Water droplets on red grass seedheads.
Droplets on the grass seeds and stems because the rain was too gentle to dislodge them. The droplets only grew to run off and then regrow again.

Yesterday though, it was dry with the grass waving in the sunny breezes and the mumbling background sound of the commentary at the Forgandenny horse trials wafting across the valley.

It’s amazing that it takes less than twenty minutes to walk the dog from my city back door to a hill top like this where I can sprawl in the sun on the grass.

Lying in the long grass, waving in the breeze, in the sunshine.
The feet of me lazing in the sunshine in the long grass which was waving gently in the breeze, the hills in the distance and the sound of the commentary from the Forgandenny horse trials across the valley barely heard.

Continue reading Dog Walk – wet and dry grass. →

Dog-walk Sketching: Stress.

Dog Walk., Drawing, , , ,

It’s stressful sketching an old log with with my dog about. Debarking wood is one of his hobbies, which means he could make the log worthless as a sketch subject in moments, any second.

Dog leaping rotten birch log in the woods.
I’ve finished the sketch and he’s just leaping the log to get me to put his stick into action. The log remains in the wood with its bark intact.

Sketch stress of having the dog.

Potential doggy destruction of my subject is one stress point. A constant pitiful whining if he’s bored is another. And having to regularly pick up and throw his stick is only a mild stress point since I can lose my ‘place’, but in return it gives me reasonable intervals of peace. Digging on the other hand… Continue reading Dog-walk Sketching: Stress. →

Dog-walk photographs 01

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A life saver.

Dog walking saved my life. Walking the dog in green spaces sustained me and kept me going long enough to recover from depression. And it was in these places that I haltingly began to draw and take photographs again.

This cat sat amongst the branches smugly watching the dog going ballistic trying to scent out where it had gone.
This cat sat amongst the branches smugly watching the dog going ballistic trying to scent out where it had gone. Can you see the cat?

Miserable git

Miserableness was accompanied by apathy and even though I forced myself to carry a pocket camera I struggled to be bothered to use it. However bit by bit I started to take the odd photograph and slowly I even began to sketch again.

Great locations.

I was lucky in that I had two beautiful woods riddled with paths a ten minute walk and a ten minutes drive away respectively. I had no excuse not to take the dog for a walk. For hours at a time Continue reading Dog-walk photographs 01 →

Blundering on photography.

Photography, ,

I’m starting a journey to get good at photography again. Writing about my blunders on these pages gives me a way to look back and measure my progress.

Some of my OK images from the days of film.
Some of my OK photos made by accident rather than by design, from the days of negatives and viewing transparencies on a light table. At least 12 years before the design studio computer never mind digital photography.

Blunders are the best way to learn. The bigger they are the bigger the lesson. At the beginning they will be huge and I expect to learn lots. But when my photography gets to being OK the blunders will be harder to find and I’ll begin to Continue reading Blundering on photography. →