Random Excellence, Dog Lovers' Edition

Wayne Pinney, Sally on the Woodpile

Got a note from a reader named Wayne Pinney a little while ago:

Your blog entry of a few days ago concerning winter photography inspired me to hunt down my old Contax G1 (burried in the 'closet') with the idea that I am going to put it back to use and start firing away. To my surprise, the camera was loaded with a partially exposed roll of black-and-white film. I made quick work of the roll and dropped it off for processing. When I recieved the image disk a few days later, I was delighted to find a shot of my old rat terrior Sally. The remainder of the exposures were just failed attempts at being a 'serious photographer.' To the best of my recall, I just snapped this one when I heard Sal jump up on the woodpile. I wish the focus was better; but, focus aside, it might be the best photo I have ever taken. Every time I look at the photo it gives my dear old Sally back to me.

It was your blog post that inspired me to dig out the old G1 and discover this treasure. I can't thank you enough for the time you take in providing your blog. Sally had to be put down earlier this year due to disease. She was my buddy and was rarely more than ten feet from me.

"Every time I look at the photo it gives my dear old Sally back to me." I love that. It's what photography is best at, when you get right down to it.

A nice way to say "hope you have a great weekend." Enjoy the weather—where I live, the sun set later than 7 p.m. for the first time today, and it won't set before 7 p.m. again until September 17th. I'm gonna give my dog a hug and a long walk!

Mike
(Thanks to Wayne)

P.S. If you have a photo like this that's really important to you, don't forget that a good photo retoucher can work wonders with it. Here's my quick 'n' dirty effort with it:

It's a little easier to see at the file size of the picture as Wayne sent it to me (click on the image):

The key would be to not overdo it (my motto)—just take the unsharpness down a tad so that it doesn't call too much attention to itself, then don't make the print too big. —MJ

Comments

[David S.]

Love that Contax G1. To this day there's nothing like it, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the X100.

[Wolfgang Lonien]

Mike - have you tried RL deconvolution instead of an unsharp mask? It works wonders IMHO. You can try it and play with it for instance with Raw Therapee, which is free and open source software for Linux (perfect) and for Windows (tricky, needs replacement of a DLL or it'll crash).

[Ben Rosengart]

Nice. It's amazing what one can do when one's mind gets out of the way.

[Adrian Malloch]

A great reminder about what photography is really about.
However, I couldn't resist rising to the implied (well, actually inferred, but lets not point fingers) challenge so had a go at my own version.
Perhaps if readers also had a go with their own renditions from which Wayne could choose the best example and of course conditions of entry is that the winner is then obliged to work up the original scan file for Wayne to print from.

___not for publishing__: Mike, you can see and download the file from here: http://homepage.mac.com/adrian_malloch/Sally_Adrian_print.jpg

[charlie]

What a nice surprise.

[Bob Rosinsky]

I like the photo too. Time to take my doggie out for a walk. According to all that I've been reading about canine behavior, dogs do not like to be hugged. Hugging is something that primates do to show affection. Dogs prefer to be stroked under the chin, between the ears or a tummy rub. Lately, I've been watching how dogs react when they are hugged by humans. Typically, they get a blank expression and just seem to tolerate it.

[phil]

A great example of how photography should be about subject and memories more than the quality of the image. Something that seems to be forgotten when you look at photo forums and the number of people in the equipment sections compared to the image sections.
I think we forget photos are primarily for ourselves (unless you're a Pro.), and with the instant internet access to the world's images it is easy to get disillusioned.
My own favourites wouldn't win prizes but mean more than those I might enter for a comp.

Thanks for a great site.

(Posted while watching cloud arrive to mess up the full-moon rise).

[Walter Glover]

I have long upheld that no matter how the good the kit is or how skilled the photographer might be, happenstance (or serendipity) from unexpected quarters is often a major factor in making a good photo great.

Here we have a charming photo, a warm story and a flow of events resulting in a delight that is far greater than the sum of all the parts. Aren't we all blessed??

WG

[Wayne Pinney]

Thanks for all the kind comments. Thanks also for the sharpened image. I recently purchased Photoshop Elements 9 and the book by Kelby and Kloskowski. I will use the file as my first attempt at photo editing.

Wayne Pinney