How to Talk Dog

Like many, most of my life I have lived with dogs.  They have been my most favorite  part of my photography for over 30 years.  I love watching animals talk and wanted to share some of my observations ...

The native language of dog (outside of smell which I have no clue about) is body language.  Voice / sounds are used for getting the others attention and at communicating attitude, but not so much for conversation.  If you want to talk dog it starts with carrying on a conversation using your body.  I am not saying don't ever use your voice, dogs can learn language and meaning.  Just know that dog language starts with body language.

The base body language conversation is about relationship - attitude.  Safety, confidence, expectations, acceptance, understanding.

Your body is your first level dog voice.  The direction you are turned in relation to the dogs position.  Which direction your head is turned and the angle of your head.  Whether you are staring or have soft eyes.  Standing or sitting.  Walking towards or away.  It is all a conversation.

Want your dog to get used to coming? walk away.  The next time your dog barks at someone you don't want them to ... don't say a word, walk between your dog and the someone and turn and look at your dog, see how it changes things.

For me, listening to dogs includes with watching them communicate with each other.  When two dogs greet for the first time the noses touch or come near each other.  In a split second the angle of the heads and eyes in relation to each dog communicates the degree of friendliness and acceptance.  Watch that first touch and turn, it is a fascinating conversation.

I don't know all the answers, every dog is different.  The joy of this way of thinking is I don't have to know in order for you to learn, I learn everyday.  Your dog is the teacher.  As long as you continue to do different things with your body to see how the dog reacts your dog will teach you ...being a dog talker always starts with being a good dog listener.

Photo Restoration from Mount Lassen Family Vacation

Last June we scheduled a family vacation / celebration for my wife Joan, to celebrate her 70th birthday.  We booked a rental cabin in the Mount Lassen Park area months in advance with deposits and everything - and we were told by the people renting that they would contact us for the final payment a week before.  Well they didn't, and I emailed and I called and I sent text messages and heard nothing (later found out that were stuck in Nicaragua, sick in a hospital - they made it fine and contacted me when they landed in the US and got the messages).  So the day before our trip I got on the web and finally found someone who had a cabin we could rent (daughter and son-in-law flying from Florida, vacations ... schedules and such we just had to make this happen) - and they were super sweet and the place was fantastic (and even dog friendly, we had scheduled to bring our dogs)  ... Info Here

And yes, Joan had a fantastic birthday vacation, but on to the restoration story ... There are family photos all over the house, all are in great condition except for one unique 11x14 photo hanging in the master bedroom.  I kept looking at it thinking, gee, if I was home I could fix that color, and having just enough vacation time on my hands I called the owner and asked if I could take it off the wall and copy the photo to see what I could get out of it.  I grabbed a couple of chairs and a board and made this home mode copy stand ...

No job? Volunteer!

Every time I hear a story on NPR about the economy and those without jobs, I want to climb through the radio and yell volunteer!  Now I know it sucks not to be bringing in money - and the instinct is to spend all of the time job hunting.  And as someone who has never lost a job I feel like I am totally back seat driving, but I just have to say out load somewhere - so I guess it is here - what I think the advantages to volunteering when out of work are, they are as follows ...

• If I was interviewing potential employees, the one that was volunteering would stand out big time!
• Jobs often come from relationships with people who you get to know ... all of the people who you come in contact through your volunteering will know that you are looking for a job ... and they will have there eyes peeled because they will believe in you (because you are volunteering).  And they will be able to talk about you because they will have the story to tell about your volunteering!  That is a lot more assistance than everyone who is just putting in job applications is getting.
• It is hard not to get depressed looking for work ... but if I was spending x amount of time looking for work and the rest of my time being productive as a volunteer, then I would stay in a pretty positive state of mind from working and helping other people.

I realize that the instinct is that the most direct way to get a job is to look for work.  I think the most direct way to get a job is to impress the most people who want to help you get work.  And you don't know who knows who ... the grandma of the biggest firm in town could be your favorite fellow volunteer ...

You can follow your passion for who you want to help, or experiment with different volunteer environments to learn about yourself (like teaching your trade to others, when you have never taught), or you could go totally analytical and volunteer doing basically what you want to do when you are hired.  Regardless, there is a wonderful energy in keeping busy and productive. 

I really hope this idea is a help to someone :)

What A Wedding!

Chantel and Greg ARE MARRIED! They are off honeymooning - don't know where - not supposed to know - that is OK ;). We hired Chantel 9+ years ago - little did we know she would knock our socks off with her talent and sweetness and become our business partner (me and my sweetie, Joanse). We have become family, and Sunday I had the pleasure of photographing their wedding ... such a different experience when it is family ... teary eyed behind the camera and all :) ...

It has taken me forever to choose the photos - I keep adding in family photos that are sweet and then - 'if they are in the blog, I should add this family too' - reminder to self; this is not their wedding album and I want to get this online before they get home! ;) - so not so much family, just some of the the day and the two of them, mostly ...

...I actually was able to get a photo ... :)

The irony of quality

I did a copy and restoration for a new customer which was picked up last Friday - I did a wonderful job, and the customer asked - is this a good job? It took me off gaurd. It was a wonderful job from a very difficult original - superb. I would post the before and after here, but I didn't ask for permission ...

But, the point of this is it got me to thinking about perceptions. What I think is obvious isn't always obvious. Unless the customer had the same job done by someone else, and then compared the jobs, they might never know. And on the other hand if they had the job done by another who did not do as well, they would still never know how good it could get... quality is something we do. But quality will not guarantee that we get the business and lack of quality in others will not necessarily bring us business.

OK, I realize and I am thankful that this isn't every customer, and I do feel like I am ranting a little (would have much rather had the customer say 'oooh this is good'). I just wanted to share this little life reminder - one of those many ironies of life ...

I like ~crazy~

And I like photos to be a little 'off' ... Photos that are overly posed feel fake to me. A little bit of imperfection brings more feeling, makes it more real and honest. The reason I pose is so that the light and the setting works and the subjects of the photo are in a good place and are flattered, for when the good stuff happens.

Every situation has in it the opportunity to get something unexpected - even what appears on the surface to be the simplest session can have magic moments in the session if I can find them. It is that illusive possibility, that is the challenge and what keeps it exciting and fun for me.

I did a photo session the other day which included two hyper Labs that got me to thinking, I realized that there was no stress with the session - I was happy! Crazy subjects means that random things are bound to happen, and when random things happen photos happen that I could never pose - and could never repose. For me that is magic! My secret is that it doesn't take any patience to handle the real crazy situations ... in truth I am relieved that I am sure to get something unique and special, I just have to be aware and there ...

~Roger

WOW ~ Happy Holidays

For us, holiday bliss is finishing up all of our customers orders on schedule before Christmas ... then showing up at the studio for a few final things on Christmas Eve and finding no phone messages! This means nothing fell through the cracks and everything is taken care of with lots of happy customers ... big sigh and smile ...

Chantel, our business partner, graduated on the 19th of December with a degree in marketing from CSUS - this last semester she was caring a very full load - and a few days after graduating, Chantel and her sweetie Greg, celebrated by leaving on a 3 week trip to Europe (yes we are jealous!) - Way To GO Chantel - both for the marketing degree with all the hard work that went with it and making it to Europe.

In the midst of all this, we had a real good Christmas season, considering the recession, and loads of happy customers, we have been working a lot of long days to stay on top of everything - and I now have a real holiday glow on...

So, for all of our customers, and you know who you are ... THANK YOU!

Three Dimensional Objects - Download and Hit Print

Wow - You have a photo printer and can now download a photo and print it yourself - so what about if you need a screwdriver - download the design and print it yourself on your 3D printer - or use your 3D printer to make another 3D printer for a friend ... here is the blog post that I ran across ... amazing.JHG Blog: Print Yourself a Chair ... and Have a Seat-Rr

So we took the dogs to the mountains ...

Monday we took the dogs to the mountains. We have a secluded spot we like to go where we hardly ever see anyone else and I really wanted to see how the dogs (Katie and Joey) would do off leash.

So we packed up and I brought a long rope and a bag of their favorite treats just in case ... we first stopped at an open park like area with no underbrush just in case the little one went crazy (ten years old - we have only had her with us 6 weeks). So we started walking and the dogs went ahead 50 ft. - I turned and went up the hill on a dirt road and clicked for them to follow ... and they did :-) so we went up the hill and back and they were good.

Now off to our little spot ... did I mention we brought our hammock?


Well, Joan wanted to read and was feeling a bit like I was sitting there watching her - so she suggested I take them for a walk ... I started off into the woods, they would get to spots that were hard for them to walk through - they would slow down and figure it out - this photo is when I looked back and saw them saying 'you really want us to walk on this' - (I turned around and backtracked the way we came - and going back they went a lot faster because now they knew the way ... dogs are pretty darn smart).


So we went out to the dirt road and up a long hike to the top of the hill ...


And yeah, it was warm :-)

I was thrilled, the whole hike, only a couple of pats on the leg for them to follow when they were distracted by something ... really felt like pack leader :-)

Katie can look so dam regal ...

We let the dogs wander where they wanted (keeping a sharp eye) - I was there to learn them, Katie prowled around a bit and stopped in the light like a deer ... wow ...


It was getting dark, we are reading and the dogs are resting. A real wonderful day and I am saying we should go - Joan is saying just let me read a bit more - neither of us wanted it to end - we finally pulled ourselves out of the revere and headed down the hill ...


This will be one of those favorite days - thanks for letting me share it with you!
-Rr

Jodie becomes Joey - our new Cairn Terrier

So this really nice lady came into our studio on June 25th (Eleakis & Elder Photography - shameless SEO plug...) with this cute dog to take advantage of our Chow for Charity promotion (A photo session and 5x7 for pet food that we then donate) so that she could have a portrait taken of her dog - so she could find it a home. She is having back/health problems where she can't bend over and couldn't take care of Jodie any more - a real heart wrenching decision for her.

I took a look at Jodie and spent a few minutes to get to know her and said we could skip taking a photo - I could take her if she thought that would be OK. Jodie is ten years old and is a real sweetie and is working out great and gets along super with Katie, our Kerry Blue Terrier.

Joan (my wife) had a problem with the name Jodie (I have a cousin named Jodie) ... but Joan's cousin Joey said to name her Joey - so she's Joey now ... :-) ...

...and here she is in our back yard ...

-Rr

So you want pickles with that do you? I'll give you pickles!

A client came into our studio the other day for some tutoring. She had some questions about Photoshop Elements, and she wanted to see if I could help her with a problem ...

The Problem

Her family had gone to another photographer for family photos (who I won't name) with the understanding that they would be able to purchase the digital images (some of the family members are amateur photographers). The photographer said yes, and then sized the finished images for 8x10 and told the family that they wouldn't work for making 11x14's, which is what they wanted.

Well, this led to a discussion between the family and the photographer, who finally decided to wash their hands of it and give the family the 'original images' ...

The Photographer's Solution

The photographer gave the family a disc with, what they said, were the original images. For the photographers out there, each image was in tiff format and the long edge was 40 inches at 300dpi ... 240 MB files each! The image files were so large that the family thought that something was wrong with them because they couldn't get them to transfer to their computers.

So you said you want pickles with that do you? I'll give you pickles!

Our Solution

We created 11x14's sized images in the highest quality jpegs, our software did the conversions while we talked Photoshop - for non photographer's that means usable quality images. So we end up being the heros - not something I am ever prone to argue with ... this just goes to show (and remind us once again) how meeting expectations and good communication are the key to happy clients.

-Rr

Obama and Politics

I am not a political person - never have been, and I don't feel guilty about it, although I feel pressure from those that are political. I think we are hard wired for the kind of things that interest us and that there will be a percentage of the population who are political, want to teach, write music, do math, etc. - everyone should do what they can and not feel guilty otherwise.

Most who write about politics are political ... so I thought in contrast, it would be interesting to share my uninformed impressions. For the record I am a white guy (german, french, scott-irish, english welsh) ;-)

I don't think Barack Obama won the Presidency because he was black, or intelligent, or spoke well, or religious, or has leadership qualities. All of these helped to gain support and win, but I think the one thing that made all the difference, that made him such a favorite, is presenting a balanced awareness and perspective. This was lacking from the previous presidency and it has become required for us in the USA. Yes, the country was ready for a black president, but much more importantly our country was looking for someone who radiates perspective.

I love the phrase ... 'you don't know what you don't know', which is the perfect phrase to represent the importance of perspective. Bush didn't seem to lead with that quality - I am excited for the future to see Obama leading plays out.

-Rr

What to do with this new blog ...

... this blog thing is a stretch for me, I am private, love being with and helping others but need time to myself, love having life puzzles to solve, am a cynic an optimist and a smart-ass, am a bit of a perfectionist and haven't really had writing tendencies ...

I think a blog should be honest, not a glossed over commercial for the studio like many photographers blogs that I have seen ...

not everything about me is everybody's business and I don't want what I write to be a waste of your time ...

so this will be a learning experience and thank you to anyone who tags along :-)

-Rr