Saturday, February 19, 2022

Welcome to the Family, Hazel!

I am so excited to share some portraits of our newest fur baby addition, Hazel!  This sweet, adorable little doll joined our family on October 16, 2021.

As I mentioned when I posted about Sylas, the COVID-19 pandemic and my current work situation made it possible for us to adopt puppies into the family.  I knew that I wanted to experience watching two puppies grow up together again after raising Zoe and Lexi together so the plan had always been to add a second one shortly after Sylas joined us.

I thought it might take us a little while to find the right match for Sylas but Hazel was only the second puppy we introduced to him.  He has a 'strong personality' and I wanted to make sure that whoever we brought in would be a good fit with him.  I wanted a dog that wouldn't be bowled over by his strong willed ways, yet one who was laid back enough that he or she wouldn't be challenging him at every turn.  He absolutely thinks he is the center of the universe and I needed a dog that ultimately was willing to let him be.

We truly found the perfect dog for our family in Hazel!  She is an absolute little darling.  She loves to tease and play with her older siblings and she can definitely hold her own with them!  At the same time, nothing really phases her.  She is the epitome of the phrase 'rolls with the punches'!  She is by far one of the calmest and most well behaved puppies I have ever encountered, and she is a huge love bug - at least with me.  Admittedly, she is a bit of a mama's girl, but she is usually pretty content snuggled up in my lap or next to me when she's not playing. 

Again, I wasn't specifically intending to get a second Frenchie and was open to other options.  However the experience adopting Sylas was a good one so we decided to start along the same path.  Since the two dogs seemed to click instantly, we didn't have to look very hard to find our second puppy and ended up with another French Bulldog.

So please allow me to introduce you to our sweet darling little Hazel:

How could you not fall in love with that face?...
I mean seriously, how cute is she?...
I have been trying to work out if Hazel has food allergies so there are only a few things that she is gettting fed right now. One of them is a treat that it takes her FOREVER to chew up. I always joke that she looks like an old man gumming his food when she does it. I really need to get a video, but here is a photo of her working on one of her treats...
Mmmm. That treat was yummy!...
Yes, I am adorable and I know it!...
She was definitely easier to get to hold still for photos than Sylas! She was willing to sit still and let me back up from her enough to take a few shots...
Look at that cute little profile!...
Licking my lips just thinking about getting another one of those yummy treats...
Oh, hello up there...
Man, I just can't stop thinking about those treats...
I think this is my favorite photo of her from the bunch!...
I ended up leashing her hoping maybe I could get her to lay down or to get a different pose out of her but instead she just wanted to walk around and test the limits of how far she could reach so I just got a cute photo of her little bulldog butt instead!...
The rest of these photos were taken on a different day. I wanted to see if I could get more variety of photos of her so I let Ivy, Olive, and Sylas out at the same time. I was hoping to get more photos of her running around and playing and I did! (Stay tuned for a few photos of her and Sylas playing!). I was hoping to take these first thing in the morning but got a later start than I should have and the sun was already too high. The lighting in some of these is awful but what do you do?

Of course, here she stops half in and half out of the bright spot...
Just exploring...
I didn't realize her nose is the prefect little heart until looking through these photos!...
Just exploring her yard. She's still working on house training so she goes out on a leash. She hasn't had much freedom to check things out yet...
Those separated ears! Hazel actually does this all the time so I am surprised I didn't catch her doing it in more photos!...
More cute little Frenchie backside...
Let's Run!...
If you made it all the way through and you're still here, thank you for stopping by and looking at photos of our sweet little Hazel!
 
Michele Whitacre used to be a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona.  Now she just takes photos for fun when the mood strikes.
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© 2022 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC

Thursday, February 10, 2022

Welcome to the Family, Sylas!

I'm super excited to be posting the first portraits of our new addition, Sylas! Our sweet, spunky boy joined us back on January 31, 2021.  The COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent quarantine, changed a lot of things for a lot of people.  One of the things that it changed for us was that Kevin was working from home for the first time in his career.  That new situation, combined with the fact that my current job allows me to come home on lunch daily, opened up the possibility of adopting puppies.

If you've been a blog follower for a while, then you are familiar with Zoe and Lexi. I adopted Zoe in November 2007 and Lexi a few short months later in February 2008. The two of them were about two and a half months apart in age and spent almost their entire lives side by side.  Raising them both from small puppies, and watching them grow up together, was one of the best experiences of my life and one that I knew I definitely wanted to repeat.  I just didn't know when I would have the opportunity to do so again. (Sadly, we had to euthanize both of them last year due to health issues -  Zoe in March and Lexi in October.)

Once we realized that our circumstances would allow for puppies to enter our lives, we began looking for the first one to add to our crew.  At first we were looking for a rescue pup, but puppies are hard to find in rescue in general, and the pandemic made it almost impossible.  I have always LOVED French Bulldogs but I never thought I would own one.  However, after spending several months searching for a puppy in a rescue with no luck, and knowing that we would be looking for a second one shortly there after, I decided to open up my search to other options.

It took us a little while but we finally found Sylas, and I am so glad we did!  He has been the perfect addition to our pack.  Sylas is your typical Frenchie.  He is sweet and loving, brave and curious, playful and silly, inquisitive and pushy, up for anything and afraid of nothing (well, except for carousels full of children, as I recently discovered)!

We simply adore this guy and we are so happy to have him as part of our family.  He lights up our life and brings a smile to our faces every single day.

So, please allow me to introduce you to our sweet Sylas:

How ADORABLE is that face?!...
When I took these photos, Sylas had the yard all to himself and he was so excited to get to run around and play! (Normally he doesn't have a lot of freedom because he goes out on a leash along with his new baby sister - stay tuned for photos of her! - since it's the only way I can keep an eye on both of them at the same time.)...
I love it when Frenchies spread their ears out like this! Sylas really doesn't do it very often so I'm surprised I caught a photo of him like this...
When we first brought Sylas home, he constantly picked up rocks from the yard and tried to eat them. It felt like a full time job to keep him from swallowing them. He has gotten much better and doesn't pick them up any more but he will still try to eat other things if given the chance. He was trying to get something out of the dirt just before this photo. I called him away from it and caught him huffing out a mouth full of dirt while he came running...
Sylas alwas puts his ears back when he runs up to someone for attention. I just love it, so expressive...
Mmmm. I think Mama has treats over there...
Sylas has the best little crooked teeth ever!...
Hi, Mama! I be so good. Can I have some treats now?...
Sylas is all boy and constantly in motion when he is outside! He's also stuck to me like glue 99% of the time. He's one of those dogs that gets up and follows me EVERYWHERE I go every time I get up. So, it was impossible to get far enough away to get any posed shots without leashing him. Sylas has actually been through an insane number of training classes and really is a good dog, but staying put when I squat down to his level is still outside of his skill set!

Someone with better photoshop skills than I have probably could have edited out the leash, but I'm not capable of it! I am good at editing photos but not altering them. As a general rule, it's not something I'm fond of doing so I just don't get any practice at it. So here are some posed photos of Sylas, leash and all...
Just look at that sweet, adorable face...
Mama, How long do I have to sit here?...
If you made it through to the end, thanks for stopping by! Stay tuned for future photos of this handsome boy, as I'm sure his cute mug will be on the blog again soon.
Michele Whitacre used to be a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona.  Now she just takes photos for fun when the mood strikes.
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© 2022 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Self-Portrait | January 2022

With my return to photography, I decided to resurrect my monthly self-portrait project!

When I first started the project, I struggled with it a bit and didn't love being on the other side of the camera.  However, over time I came to enjoy coming up with the ideas each month and using the photos to document where I was in my life.  I have liked looking back at them and remembering what was going on at that time. In many ways I regret giving them up and I wish I had photos and posts from all of the months and years that I missed.  However, I know that when I made the decision to step back from my photography it was what I needed to do at the time.  Life had become too crazy to keep up with everything I had going on and something had to give.

Things seemed to have settled down into a routine again these days, and I'm ready to resume taking photos a little more regularly.  I still have no idea what exactly it is I want to photograph, which seems to be the running theme for the past six years since closing my business, but I do know that I want to get back behind the camera again!  Hence, the decision to take the online photography classes I mentioned.

For January's self-portrait, I decided to show myself sitting on my bed with my laptop, since this is were I have spent an awful lot of my time this month.  I've been on my laptop while doing my first online class and also while working on some back blog posts that I never got around to finishing.  I've been doing it from this spot because it's warm and cozy and the evenings have been a little chilly lately.  I do usually have all four dogs piled in around me but that felt like more than I wanted to juggle for the self-portrait!
It feels like a bit of irony that I am starting back out with a self-portrait photo similar to the very first one I took, and for pretty much the same reason!  At the time, I was working on getting everything set up to reopen my business in Arizona and now I'm just returning to photography in general but it kind of feels like I've come full circle.

As a side note, man has blogger gone down the toilet!  It seems like every time I have returned to it for the past 6 years they have made more and more changes that make it less and less user friendly.  Thus far it is been easy and inexpensive to keep my blog hosted here but if I'm going to return to posting regularly I don't think I'm going to be able to deal with all the annoying changes for very long.  So, I suspect a new home for the blog may be coming in the near future!

Did you miss some of my past self-portraits?  Clicking here will take you to all of my self-portrait blog posts. Clicking here will take you to my self-portrait Facebook album.

Michele Whitacre used to be a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona.  Now she just takes photos for fun when the mood strikes.
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© 2022 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Hello? Is Anybody Still Out There?

How has it been so long since I have posted anything?

I'd love to blame COVID, but it would be a big fat lie if I did.  The truth is that since I no longer have clients needing my time or a blog and FB business page needing content, I have allowed my photography to take a back seat to silly things like cleaning the toilet.

Ridiculous.  I know.  But, I'm a stickler for that darn "To Do List" and have a hard time breaking away to have a little fun.

So, what's a girl to do?

Sign up for two online photography classes to get her back in the game, that's what!

It's taken a long time, but I've finally come to accept two things about myself:  1. I will now and forever be an overachiever who needs external validation.  2. I'm pretty good at honoring commitments I make to other people but not so great at keeping those I make to myself.

So, in that regard...

I am taking an online Nature and Landscaping Course and an online Travel Photography Course through New York Institue of Photography.  I have 18 months to finish the courses, and at the end I will get a certificate of completion for each one.  I am going to resurrect the blog to share my assignment photos along the way.  I am asking everyone who knows me, either IRL or online, to hold me accountable!  If weeks have gone by with no photos showing up on here, somebody start nagging me.  Seriously!

I am hoping the combination of signing up for official classes and publicly declaring my intentions will get my head out of the toilet, so to speak, and get me back to doing something that I truly love yet never seem to make time for on my own.

Stay Tuned!

Michele Whitacre used to be a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona.  Now she just takes photos for fun when the mood strikes.
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© 2022 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Remembering Sweet Baby Lexi

LEXI
12/2/2007 - 10/5/2021

We said goodbye to our sweet, silly Lexi Lou today.

Just like I did with Zoe, what I really want to do here is just create a space to post favorite photos and fond memories of her that I never want to forget. A place I can return to when I'm thinking about and missing her.  Again, I suspect this post will be fluid, with me returning to add things periodically.

For now, I just want to share a few photos of Lexi that never made it to the blog.  Again, these were taken at the same time as the ones I posted of Zoe.

Lexi, in our yard back in Indiana 10/23/2010:
Lexi, Rest in Peace, sweet baby girl. I am so thankful for the almost fourteen years I got to share with you, but it still wasn’t anywhere near long enough. A piece of my heart will always belong to you, my sweet girl. Your mama loves you, now and forever. I have no words for just how how much you will missed, Sweet Lexi Lou.

I can’t believe that both of my girls are gone. I didn’t realize just how much Lexi’s presence was somehow keeping Zoe here for me, too. Losing her feels crushing because it was the last link I had to the life I shared with them. Zoe made me a Dog Mama after waiting years for the right time to adopt one, and Lexi was the missing piece to complete our little family.

The two of them shared such a special bond. They spent almost their entire lives together: Lexi came home on 2/8/08 and we lost Zoe on 3/5/21 - more than 13 years as sisters! It was just the two of them for almost 10 years. Watching them grow up together and spend their lives side by side was so special. Wherever they are, I hope they are having a ton of fun and raising a little hell together again! Your Mama loves you and misses you, baby girls!
 
Michele Whitacre used to be a portrait photographer serving Phoenix, Arizona.  Now she just takes photos for fun when the mood strikes.
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© 2021 Michele Whitacre Photography LLC