Tag Archives: Spirituality

Rescued dogs

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This past weekend we visited our son and his family.  They had adopted a German shepherd puppy a few months back and it was time for us to visit Axl.  His mother is a white shepherd and his father most likely a black and tan.  White shepherds have especially large ears as you can see with Axl.  If he were running into a headwind, it would be a good idea to trim his sails; he’d probably pick up three or four miles an hour.

Axl was one of nine puppies that Echo Dogs White Shepherd Rescue had taken in.  Well that’s not quite accurate;  they took in his mom who was pregnant. Axl and his brothers and sisters came along shortly after that.

We had lost our dog in the mid ’90’s and were dogless for a long time.  But then our friend Joyce, president of Echo Dogs, visited us with Powder, a white GS who had been rescued from a puppy mill and who was down to 43 pounds before she was saved.  Powder made quite an impression on that and many later visits, some at our house and some at Joyce’s in Downers Grove, IL.  At Joyce’s, Joyce would sleep in her bedroom with Powder and another dog, Jazz; my wife Ellie slept in the guest bedroom and I slept on the couch in the living room (it is rumored that I snore).  All these rooms are close together.  When Joyce would get up in the middle of the night, Powder would visit her good friend Barry on the couch.  This would be around 3:00 AM.  I would wake up with a very earnest nose about two inches from mine and Powder would be telling me that we needed a dog too, preferably a white shepherd, and more preferably, one that was up for adoption.

For one reason or another, we ended up getting Prince from a breeder but he was bored after a year or so and we got him a brother who was a white GS rescue.  This is Prince (on the ground) meeting Tuck for the first time.

So we have followed Powder’s recommendations in two generations of our family.  Ellie and I have Prince and Tuck while our son and his family have Axl.  And we still have our friend Powder.

If you are looking for a dog, please consider your local rescue organizations.  They have some great companions for you.

And it’s for free!

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Ever since I started in photography many years ago, I’ve wanted to create a “painterly” effect.  That is, an effect that is more a poetic expression of a scene than a literal recording of it.  I’ve talked about this before.  The Corel Painter products I have now are very good but rather complicated and expensive unless you are really dedicated.  I haven’t achieved the skill level I need to show you much with those programs but I recently found free photo sketching software that I find exciting.  I want to show it to you, and if you are also interested in a painterly effect, you might want to try it too.  It is simple to use.  This software works on Windows computers but not Macs.


This was a shot at Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge in southern Indiana year ago November.  I liked it without the painterly treatment but I like it even more after running it through FotoSketcher.  I don’t know why David Thoiron, the developer of the software, hasn’t charged even a nominal amount for it.

If you try it you will find there are many choices in painting styles and variations within those styles.  I find it liberating.

Try it, you’ll like it.

Macro photography: Come closer

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Yesterday I talked about a recent program on macro photography at our camera club.  I prepared for that meeting by putting my macro lens on the camera and going out over a couple of days to get back in practice with it.  The lens I use does not permit focusing any closer than about a foot away.  We won’t be doing insect retinography with this lens because it can’t get that close but it does offer other possibilities at this kind of middle distance that I prefer.

What struck me  was relationships between flowers.  At an objective level there is nothing more there than the juxtaposition of two flowers.  But images tell stories.  We, as observers, become co-authors with the photographer in developing those stories.  What stories do these images tell you?

Flowering tree

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Do scenes or images of scenes communicate with you?

Our camera club was meeting last night at the Indianapolis Art Center and the topic was macro or close-up photography.  This was as much workshop as lecture and a lot of people were inside taking close-ups of small objects.  This is a great technique for seeing what is very small and not at all obvious to the eye busy with other sights.  They were using flash and other artificial lights because it was rather dark in there.   Because I don’t usually like to shoot with anything but natural light, I got out of their way and went outside.  They were having a good time and doing fine work.  I would find my good time outside.

I can’t tell you what kind of flowering tree this is, there are many species at the Art Center.  But I did find it hugely attractive.  At the time, it said “Japanese garden” to me.  Getting it home and seeing it on the screen brought out  a larger story.

I had started reading Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine” the other day and this image contributed one understanding of what Mr. Lehrer was talking about.  His book is about creativity.  It brings in neuropsychology, personality, “mental illness” and many other areas of research in trying to better understand this most precious and human capacity that, truly, is so dimly understood.  One of his points is that it’s not  just the case that creativity can take any number of paths but that there are many kinds of creativity.  Let’s leave it at that for the present so we can get on with this post.  Read the book.

When I first saw the tree I thought I would eliminate the building and just show the tree with perhaps some flowers at the bottom.  But the more I looked at it, the more I thought the building was contributing to the image.  The horizontal lines in the wall and the vertical drain pipe form a frame for the tree.  But while most of the tree fits within the boundaries of the frame, some of it doesn’t.  And that is one part of what a lot of creativity is about.  It fits to some extent in the conventional frame of reference but at the same time is moving out of the frame.  If it catches on with the populace, the frame might expand.

This was not macro photography but it was made with a 100 mm f/2.8 Canon macro lens.  This translates into “good lens”.  More on macro work tomorrow.

Each look, the first

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In his poem ‘A Guide to the Field’, David Wagoner writes

‘Our first strange steps
On a path that leads us down on a path to its end in water.
Each look, the first.’

‘Each look, the first.’  That’s the way it felt this morning as I went out to shoot.  Aside from the trip to Gary last Sunday, I haven’t been out with a camera in some time.  So in a way it was ‘Each look, the first.’


I didn’t go far, just to the azalea bush out front, to start.


And then along the driveway.


Winter is supposed to be drab.  That’s not what I saw.


There’s a lot of color if we just look.


‘Each look, the first.’  But I won’t wait so long for the next outing.

Gary First Methodist Church

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The competition topic this month at the Photo Venture Camera Club is ‘Spirit and Place’.  Having spotted an old Methodist Church in Gary that is beyond disrepair, three of us decided to go see if we could find spirit in the place.


The construction of this church was underwritten by US Steel back in the mid-twenties and at one time had thousands in the congregation.  At its highest point it is nine stories tall.


But the congregation is gone.


Not much is left.

Nature is taking over.


Is there still spirit here?  I was reminded of the Apostle’s Creed, especially the line that says “He descended into Hell and on the third day he rose from the dead”.  With this in mind, the title for the next image


is “…and He left his cross behind.”  Yes the Spirit is here.