I snapped this shot a while back of a gull that was preening some feathers.   Always liked the curves in the shot and that piercing eye staring back at me…

These next four were all taken downing Homer, AK.  Now when I say these needed during off, they really did.  When I went on this shoot my Mark IIn was all of about 4 days old ( I was still reading the manual the night before the first day of shooting ) and like any new camera it was plauged with what I call break in dust.  Every small bit of dust that was shaken loose in that new body found its way to the sensor.  At the time I had no earthly idea how to clean a camera, so most of these shots originally looked like the Balds were flying in a volcanic fallout.  But thanks to some time and the healing brush said dust be gone and now I have some images again.

Well this is going to be a bit of a plea for help. Today I had to do one of the hardest things photographically that I have ever done. I am used to the peaceful landscapes and wildlife, but today I got a call to come photograph some puppies. Now this isn’t something new as of late. I have been photographing the rescue dogs for Marley’s Mutts Dogs Rescue for a while now, but this call was a different one. I was asked to come down and photograph 4 small puppies who were the survivors in a structure fire. At first I thought no problem but then I heard the rest of the story. These puppies barely made it out alive there were horribly burned in the fire and were in need of serious medical treatment. I was asked to come photograph these little girls to document the extended of their injuries. It was difficult to say the least. Each one is fighting for their life and with extent of the injuries they have I couldn’t believe that they were still alive. But they are and they need a lot of help, and if these little girls are willing to fight as hard as they are in their condition then I was going to help out as well to do what I could do. So there is a donate widget here that will allow anyone to make a donation to Marley’s Mutts rescue that will go directly to help these 4 little girls.

There are also images of them after the break. I didn’t want them posted in plain view because they are graphic. If you are queazy or in anyway weak stomached I am not going to suggest you look after the break. I would also ask that if there are kids in the room that you don’t click after the break.

Any help you can give these little ones I know would be greatly appreciated…

Thanks for taking the time

So as I mentioned a few posts back I have been sorting and re-sorting and filing and categorizing all of my old files.  Something that was long overdue and greatly needed…  One thing that I found while comes through the files was thin image above.  Granted it looked nothing like this when I started because back then I was all about experimenting and tweaking Settings and White Balances and when I looked at this shot when I got back to the computer IT SUCKED!!  It was a drab mess of a white balance that was set so cold that the whole image was a lovely shade of purple  So back when I first saw this image I said forget it, and it has sat for the better part of 4 years on a hard drive taking up space.  Now 2012 roles around and I am sitting at my desk and I see a file that says Lessons Learned..  A file that I started a long time ago with images that were pretty much the bottom of the barrel, I screwed something up somewhere, or I was temporarily insane at the time of shooting.  But, I kept this file around so I could look back and see where I have been and what mistakes I had made so that I wouldn’t repeat them again.

Long story short I come across this images and think to myself:  This was shot in RAW I can change whatever White Balance I want!!  Ok, before the jabs come out with the “DUH josh you could have done that back in ’08″ I was younger and not so level headed (or at least that is going to be my excuse at this point)

So long story even shorter.  I dropped this into Lightroom 3, adjusted the White Balance to something I liked.  Even then the color image just didn’t work for me so I went with my favorite tool of choice Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2.0 and went to town on this image.  A few sliders here and there a touch of structure and BAM!  an image that I though was at the bottom of the barrel is no one of my favorites and is already sitting on my wall in a nice 24×36 frame.

So lesson with all of this rambling?  Keep your images, hard drives are cheap and you never now what you will find when you go browsing…

With all the things I have been involved with lately and all the time I have had on my hands being stuck at the house.  I did the unthinkable and went and completely reorganized and sorted all (YES ALL!!!) of my images to date.  It took the better part of 3 days, lots of coffee and tea, as well as the better part of my sanity.  However, I was able to complete this task and in the process I found images that I had completely forgotten about.  Some of these images were from a study of light that I did on flowers a few years back.  Others just good old fashion macro photography of flowers out in the wild.  One thing that I noticed was that while the colors are rich and wonderfully please in to the eye.  I wondered what would happen if I decided to shift the spectrum of color a bit, say to the Infra red side of things.  So I gathered up a set of images and Jumped into Color Efex Pro 4.0 and had a little fun with it.  The results are below.  Turned out pretty neat I think…

Well it has been all too quite around here on the blog and I thought I would swing in to give an update on things.  Lately things have been a bit rough.  An illness I have has slowed me down greatly and made it difficult to do much of anything at this point, but I keep pressing through it where I can to keep the sanity.  So to keep my sanity I get to go outside for brief stents of time and photograph the amazing animals you see up above.  These are all rescues saved by Marley’s Mutts Dog Rescue up where I live.  And you may have noticed they have branched out into rescuing horses as well.  I am doing what I can to help out here and there but capturing the images of these guys really is something that keeps the spirits up.  The Gift of Giving Gallery that was posted in December has been doing really great at raising money to help buy supplies for the rescue to keep things moving forward.  Many images have been added along with 2 whole new collections of some of the dogs that have been rescued along with the horses.  So if you get a chance got take a look, and if you need a print snag one from there  All the proceeds are going to help the efforts.

Hope everyone is having a great new year so far

Hey Everyone,

With the holidays approaching and inevitable question of what do I get for [Insert Name Here] lingering in the air, a thought came to me as I was sitting in my office with the newest furry member of the family Wiggles laying at my feet.  In the past months I have started helping out a great dog rescue in the town I live in.  The organization is called Marley’s Mutts I have blogged about it a few times before (it is where we were lucky enough to find Wiggles), and the place has become near and dear to my heart.  My good friend Zach Skow ( @ZachSkow ) who runs Marley’s Mutts has done amazing things to help wayward dogs find a second chance in new homes. And then I came up with an idea.  A photo gallery to help out called a Gift of Giving.  I have put together this gallery where prints can be purchased for that special someone and  100% of all the proceeds from the sales of the prints will go to help out the dogs in need like the 4 you see up above.

The gallery has a wide collection of images and more images will be added in the upcoming days.  You can follow me and Zach on twitter to get updates when new images are put into the galleries.  Also, if there is an image that you have seen in the past on my blog that isn’t in the gallery email me using the contact tab above and let me know what the image was and the date it was posted and I will see if I can get it added for you.

I have placed a permanent tab in the top navigation of the blog that can take you directly to the gallery.

Please spread the word about this and while you get a gift for that special someone, give another gift of a second chance for man’s best friend at the same time.

Head over to Marley’s Mutts Adoptable Dogs Page to see some of the dogs you would be helping out…

Thank you and Merry Christmas to everyone…

Hey Everyone, well I am dong something a bit out of my norm and I am asking for your help in helping out a buddy of mine who runs a great organization called Marley’s Mutts.  It is a dog rescue that takes in any breed (size is no problem) and takes care of them until they can find a new home for man’s best friends, who may have lost their way. 

Marley’s Mutts was selected in a competition by Dr. Marty Becker as one of the top 50 in the final round to potentially receive a 1st place prize of $20,000 to help out the winning organization.  You will need to have a Facebook account to enter the contest so please give it a go and vote for Marley’s Mutts.  I know these folks would appreciate the time and effort that you would put into vote and I know the all the dogs would appreciate it as well.

I appreciate the work the Marley’s Mutts crew does because, I was lucky enough to find our family’s newest (furry addition) Wiggles there and as you can she from the photo above she’s content hanging out with us.  

So please take 2 minutes and click on the Dr. Marty Becker link above and vote for Marley’s Mutts and help out a great casue that has found over 300+ dogs new home in just the last few years .  With your help there can be many more happy endings.

So if you see this on the twitter feed please re-tweet it and get the word out. 

Thanks

Josh

The pano was shot using a free Microsoft iPhone app call Photosynth.  It is pretty user friendly and process images quickly.  I dropped it into Photoshop and did some quickk editing with some SEP 2.0, some Dfine, and finally Sharpener Pro 3 to pop the rock just a bit, and presto…

I know I didn’t do Half Dome justice in this pano, but it was that amazing sky that was stealing the show that day for me.

Pretty neat what that little camera can do with some great apps behind it