Friday morning means a new Project 52 post for you to feast your eyes on.  Some of the members of the Beautiful Beasties Network (a professional pet photographers’ forum) are taking on the challenge of doing pet-related photography, with a theme that changes every week, for an entire year.  The goal is to start shooting outside the box, to challenge ourselves as photographers and to expand our vision and talents.  So far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my participation, and I have learned to look at my dogs and their accoutrements in a different light (and at a different angle).

This week’s theme is the dogs in our lives, based on the poem by Paul Fersen.

DOGS IN OUR LIVES:

We aren’t house-proud.

If we were, we wouldn’t abide the scratches on the door-frame, the holes in the screen, the darkened shine of worn spots on the chair.

We would wince at the mottled carpet and fret at the hair clinging to our clothes.

We don’t.

If anything, we lovers of dogs are a tolerant lot, finding greater value in the unabashed affection of our friend than immaculate sofa’s.

Shoes can be replaced, but heroic retrievers are timeless.

Without dogs, out houses are cold recepticles for things.

Dogs make a fire warmer with their curled presence.

They wake us, greet us, protect us, and ultimately carve a place in our hearts and our history.

On reflection, our lives are often referenced in parts defined by the all-too-short lives of our dogs.

 - Paul Fersen, Orvis Associate

The meaning in those words is profoud.  And below I try to show evidence of the wonderful dogs in my lives.

Now that you’ve seen some signs of the dogs in my life, please head over to Pittsburgh pet photographer Nicole Begley’s blog to see the animals in her life.  If you keep following the links at the bottom of each blog, you’ll go through a blog ring before ending up back here.

As always, thanks for taking the time to visit my blog.