The fact that I am posting these photos over a month late speaks volumes about the insanity that has been my life the past few months.
(So does the severe lack of blog posts lately, but let's not talk about that.) With the temps cooling off, my shooting schedule is starting to pick up a bit. I've been busy editing the law student head shots that I took in August and September. And, I've been picking up as many extra days as possible at my day job because I have my sights set on purchasing a house here in Phoenix in the not too distant future and I'm trying to save as much as I can for a down payment.
All of that craziness added up to poor Zoe having to wait to celebrate her birthday and then these images sitting on the memory card in my camera for another few weeks until I finally had a few minutes to pull them off last night.
If you've been around for a while, then you know what is in store. If you're new, then let me explain: Our dogs are spoiled rotten! We celebrate their birthdays, Christmas,
and sometimes other holidays too, by wrapping toys and treats in tissue paper for Zoe and Lexi. We then put them in bags and let them tear them open. They love it, and it is an absolute riot to watch! One of these days I need to skip the photos and record a video instead, but as you can plainly see I opted for lots of photos this time.
When I went to take these photos, I wanted to kick myself, though! I only own one memory card that has a decent enough write speed to keep up with the dogs tearing around the house with their toys. Sadly, I had just used it a few days before for a client session for no reason other than it was the card in my camera and I was lazy and didn't change it before the session. I NEVER delete client photos off of my memory cards until the photos have been delivered so I had to settle for using a different card. As a result, I couldn't capture as many action shots as I usually do because the darn card couldn't keep up with my camera's continuous shooting speed.
What can I say? At least it was the kick in the pants I needed to make me order another memory card with a decent read/write speed, so hopefully the same issue won't happen again.
Our pets are the only grand babies on both sides of our families, so Kevin's mom and mine love to spoil them. Both of them sent gifts for the girls to open for Zoe's birthday this year, and between all of their gifts I decided that I didn't even need to give them most of the toys I had purchased. So, I tucked them away for Lexi's birthday in early December.
Here's a photo of all of their loot before we gave it to them...
Sitting patiently, waiting for their first gift. They look calm, but once that bag hits the floor all bets are off!...
Zoe's favorite part is destroying the bags. She tears them apart until there's nothing left but tiny pieces...
Ever since she was a puppy, Lexi has been in love with little pom-poms on toys. When I first brought her home, one of her toys had a Santa hat on it with a pom-pom on the end of it and I think that started her love affair with them. My mom bought a huge bag of them a few years ago, and she will sew them on to the toys for Lexi, like you can see here.
(Did I mention our dogs are spoiled)...
All that playing tuckered Lexi out, so she had to take a break, while using her toy as a pillow...
It depresses me how little time I have spent behind my new camera since I purchased it this past spring. I haven't had much opportunity to really test it out and see what it can do. So I used these photos as a chance to test its ISO limits a bit and set it to 6400. Most of the photos look pretty decent, but you can really see the noise in these next handful of Zoe. I don't mind it with the black and white edit, but I wasn't too fond of the color versions of these. Either way, it sure beats the heck out of my old camera!
This series of photos of Zoe tearing apart this tissue paper and then getting it stuck in her mouth had me cracking up while I was culling these images and decided to include all of them. I hope you get as much of a kick out of them as I did!...
Lexi the little toy hoarder...
Mine!...
Some of Lexi's faces were cracking me up too!...
Even the kittens decided to get in on the action and check out what all the fuss was about. I've been surprised by how un-intimitated
(yes, I think I made that word up.) Daisy and Gatsby have been by the dogs. They don't let the dogs push them around or scare them off very often. Most of the time they stand their ground when the dogs get in their faces.
Gatsby's not quite sure what to make of the commotion, but she decided to check it out...
Apparently this toy was a big hit with the kittens, as it attracted both of their attention. First Gatsby...
And then Daisy a few minutes later...
Daisy's watching the dogs act crazy, and she's not sure if she should run or join in...
If you made it this far, thanks for stick with me for this long winded post!
Michele Whitacre is a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona and the surrounding area.
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