Tag Archives: equine photography

Putter mode

January 19th, 2010 | Posted in Judy Wood





I seem to have achieved my usual eclectic mix of images for this week. At this time of year when I’m not shooting as much as usual, I sometimes wonder what I will manage to come up with for the weekly blog shots. Invariably something always bobs to the surface despite my occasional anxieties over the whole process. We’ve been a bit short on horse shots of late, mostly because I haven’t been generating many. The horses I have regular access to are either blanketed or muddy (yes! in January! in Saskatchewan!) and in very uninspiring surroundings. My main hope is for action shots, which they are singularly unforthcoming in providing. I’m hoping for a bit of fresh snow one of these days to make things look cleaner and brighter, and that might provide the impetus for me to get out to some of my regular horse haunts for some new shots.
In the meantime, we’ll work with what showed up today.
Shot one shows the chaos that currently has overtaken my studio. One of the side-effects of me not currently having any shows or particular time pressures for my photo work, combined with more down-time from riding than is usual (horse has a cough), has been that I have the leisure to get into trouble on the home front. I’ve been enjoying “putter” mode for the most part, doing selected small and mindless chores around the house, which has been entertaining in a low-key sort of way. Since “some day” seemed to have come for countless little jobs, I thought I’d better make some moves on the slightly bigger undertaking of a studio rearrangement that I thought up back in December when I didn’t have the time to work at it. This involved unloading and moving an extremely large, laden, and very heavy worktable, with the added regressive move of having to unload and move another largish storage unit that was full of many heavy items, to make room for the work table. I got the table moves done a few days ago, having displaced a lot of items in the process. I have a feeling I’m not done moving furniture around, so I don’t want to put away all the stuff that is piled on whatever horizontal surfaces I could find, since inevitably the minute I load them all into a storage unit, I’ll suddenly decide I want that unit elsewhere and have to reverse the process. So, until I have a clearer idea of what to move where as my next step, the piles remain. In the old days when I worked with other art media, this type of situation meant I couldn’t work until I resolved all the work surface concerns, which had the effect of keeping me at it, but these days I just walk past it all (averting my gaze if necessary) and head straight to the computer to do my artwork. I have a feeling this situation could last quite a long time.
We’ve been getting some nice frost effects due to the relatively warm temperatures that continue, combined with higher than usual humidity. Shot two is one I took of the pole bean remnants on their support, backlit by the rising sun. I like the organic linear lines of the bean stems outlined in frost, and the warm colours of the early-morning light.
I have a fondness for snowmen, and the weather has been prime for them of late, although the raw materials (snow) are a bit scarce. I drive by a schoolyard that abuts the highway as I go to the barn every day, where the kids have been building snow people overlooking the highway. One of the fun parts is the snow person changes on a daily basis. The first one I noticed was a quite shapely woman with a hat and purse. By the second day, she had morphed into a shapeless and lumpen one-eyed creature holding a garbage bag. Shot three was the creation of day three, which was Friday. Since school was out over the weekend nothing changed on Saturday and Sunday. I would love to get photos of each day’s snow person, but the highway is too busy for safe stopping on the shoulder most of the time. I was lucky to get this shot during a quick stop when the traffic was a little less intense than usual. The other poor part is that the snowman is facing north so is always backlit, which is an added photo challenge.
Primulas always make a welcome appearance at the grocery stores at this time of year, and I bought a couple (shot four) to brighten up the living room. They are nestled nicely in the interesting silver-coated basket (that needs polishing) purchased last summer for 50 cents at a garage sale.
Shot five is of my friend Murphy, the Ebon stables dog, taken last fall. Murphy is always happy to fetch whichever of his many toys is thrown for him. I love the way he fixes his gaze straight on me as he is coming in at high speed. This is one of the many “family and friends” shots that I have been endlessly editing for the past few weeks. I often think of myself as the “independent memory unit” for the family, friends and clients for whom I do photos.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , | 0 Comments

Getting back in the groove

December 30th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





As per usual, Christmas has come and gone, whether we were ready for it or not. I was mostly ready and it all went off in quite a satisfactory fashion. I’m sure I’m a trial to my family when it comes to purchasing gifts, as generally if I want/need something (usually in theart/photography or horse line) I get it. If I haven’t yet got around to buying the item for myself, good luck to anyone who tries to get it for me, as my specifications will be *very* specific as to what I need, and there would be many ways for the unwary but well-meaning to go wrong.
This being the case, I was particularly pleased when Jim followed up on a random suggestion I made about a possible gift that I would enjoy, and purchased a wonderful crow artwork for me as my Christmas gift from him. It is second from the top here. I’ve been planning a corvid and tree “shrine” in the area over the fireplace mantle, and this will round out the collection nicely. Plus he gets extra points for actually paying attention to my suggestion.
It’s not often I complain about it not being cold enough, but now that I’m getting back into photo mode, I found this to be the case over the weekend.We were driving past the river weir just around sunrise on Christmas morning, heading to the town north of the city where our local daughter and her family live. I glanced toward the shoreline and spotted a wonderful photo op, but of course I had “Nikon minor” with the smaller lens for indoor shots with me, and it wasn’t going to be up to the job. Plus we were on a bit of a timeline and it was 33 below zero. I decided I would follow up on the visuals I wanted to get (a line of waterfowl along the rim of the ice right near the open water, with billows of steam rising from the water and the rays of the sunrise shining through) over the weekend. Sunday morning I headed off with both cameras (just in case) and got myself situated for the shot. Dang. No billows of steam backlit by the rising sun. Too warm at minus 11. I did get some shots but not the ones I wanted. Word has it we’re heading back to the minus 30s for New Year’s day, so I’ll try again then. Think I’ll get some better mitt liners before then, too.
That being said, on to the shots I did get. I’m starting to be a bit less cautious about the new camera, having spent the first week tiptoeing around it worrying about abusing it like I did the last one, and am relaxing and just going out and getting shots and familiarizing myself with its capabilities.
Shot one is my “grand-dog” Brodie on Christmas morning. He is enjoying his new hedgehog, a near-exact replacement of his “precious” of several years ago. Seems to be a satisfactory substitute for the loved and lost. As per usual, when I downloaded the Christmas family photos, I found I had far more shots of the dogs than of any of the family members.
Shots two and three are from the “warm” river shot day. I worked my way home from the river the long way, and my eye was caught by these trees on the university campus (shot two) and their shadows in the warm early morning light of the sunrise. Shot three is from the other end of that day. I headed out to visit Alpac at the barn in the later afternoon, and again went home the long way to check out a herd of bison that I had spotted earlier in the year. No good bison shots that day (light was fading and they were a bit far off behind some trees) but I like this shot of the road that goes past the bison ranch (shot three). This is not a busy road by any means, and in fact I felt if I got too far off to the side I could be in trouble, but of course as soon as I stopped, a farmer in a truck appeared and I had to account for my presence. He seemed a bit puzzled as to why I would be out in the middle of the road taking pictures, but after we chatted for a bit (me having to establish that yes I was a city person but I did own a horse that lived vaguely in the area) he seemed satisfied with my credentials and continued off down the road. My experience of shooting in the country is that no matter how remote the location (and this one wasn’t actually that remote) you are never really unobserved or un-noted, so you’d better be out in rural territory with good intentions, because someone is going to be watching you.
The final two shots are from this afternoon. Since it was still warmish at minus eleven today, it seemed like a good time to try my luck at the zoo. I am never sure whether the grizzlies will be out since it seems to me they should be hibernating at this time of year, but there they were. They have dug quite an extensive multi-room den or pit in their enclosure, and were at their leisure in it when I got there. One of these young bears has only grudgingly accepted his lot as a zoo bear, and he was sleeping in one area of the pit with his back towards the viewing area. The bear in this photo has always seemed quite relaxed and philosophical about his life. He makes good use of the recreational and entertainment options of his pen, and generally lounges about seemingly quite content with his world. Today he was in the pit, his back leaning against the side of it, and his feet up on a tree stump that he was using much like a footstool. He had a small conifer branch which he was manipulating and occasionally chewing on. You can see it as he holds it up in this shot. I have a particular fondness for this bear, who exemplifies a good-natured acceptance of that which he cannot change.
A pair of baby cougars were taken into the care of the zoo earlier in the year, having been orphaned in their native home in the southwest of the province. The only previous time they were visible when I was visiting the zoo was of course one of the rare occasions I didn’t have my camera with me. That being the case, I was pleased to see them out and about today. They have lovely plush winter coats, and were having a good time being teenage cats, exhibiting much the same behavior patterns that you would see with a pair of domestic cat siblings of the same age. No lions to be seen today, so it was good to have the cougars to represent the big cats.
It will be a new year by the time I post next week. New for our calendar system, and another notch in the belt for me, as tomorrow is my birthday. I try not to dwell on the passing years one way or the other, as there’s not a lot I can do about it, other than be glad that I’m still around to *be* another year older! Onwards and upwards.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , | 0 Comments

Carrying on—

October 20th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Another week of not much to report, or quite a bit that has happened, depending on how one chooses to view it. No big events but many of the small happenings that keep the days full and busy, which is overall how I prefer things to be.
The weather continued dismal and dreary for much of last week, although the snow did eventually go, to leave everything rather drippy and soggy. One thing the early and unexpected cold and snow did was to spook me into dealing with a few things that I needed to get sorted out, such as booking an appointment to get my snow tires on. Turns out this can’t happen until November 18th by which time I will likely need them, so it’s good that I got the booking made. I’ve also got a game plan for getting the various weights of filthy and disgusting winter horse blankets cleaned and repaired, which will happen later this week. Hope they won’t be required for a while yet, but I’ll be ready when the time comes.
Saturday was the one nice day of the week, and it was absolutely lovely, certainly by recent standards. Any other fall and it would have been just another day, but this year it stood out as one of the few nice ones. I wisely opted to get as much yard work done as possible, despite running right up against a deadline for an art show which I was hanging on Sunday. Good thing I did this, as Sunday was another really bad weather day (very dark, cold, windy and raining) so my outdoors work wouldn’t have been possible then. And I got all my images printed, framed and hung in time anyway. Just had to hustle a little harder to get it all accomplished. I’m not sure why I was spending the evening before the show went up doing my framing, given that I’ve had almost two years advance notice for this one, but there you have it. In my world deadlines are always met, but usually just barely. Keeps things interesting. If any of my Saskatoon readers want to check it out, it’s in the Amber gallery at the Mall at Circle and 8th (right by the movie theatre entrances) and will be up until November 21st.
When I got up this morning I was a bit concerned about what images I would find to post this evening (ones from the show were going to be my fall-back if all else failed) but the day provided me with a number of photo ops, being quite bright and dry, if not overly warm.
This morning was the herd health vet appointment at my friend Donna’s place. She runs the “old boys club” for my retired Thoroughbred gelding, her own Appy gelding, and another Thoroughbred. My Native at age 29 is the youngest of the group!! He’s been retired for almost ten years now and Donna has done a spectacular job of keeping him and the other old guys in excellent condition. Sadly, things are starting to go less well for poor Native and I think if he sees another summer he’ll have done well. He’s lost weight, and if anything we always want to see them a bit on the round side heading into a harsh prairie winter. The vets couldn’t check his teeth during the spring herd health visit as he was in a panic that day (for reasons totally unknown) and was almost unmanageable, so this was the first look they’d had in a year. Turns out he has almost no teeth left, which would certainly go a long way to explaining the drop in weight. In the spring they determined that he has cataracts and is virtually blind now, although he manages well enough in the pasture that no-one had actually noticed this. All this said, he seems in good spirits and is enjoying a decent quality of life, so until something major goes wrong, he’ll carry on as usual. We have worked a plan for getting more calories into him and Donna will modify his feeding regime to optimize weight gain, but other than that there’s not a heck of a lot we can do. It’s my dearest hope that he will just fall over dead one day, but that’s not an option many old horses get to exercise. For the moment, though, he’s doing fine.
Shot one shows the lovely patterns of the frost on my windshield when I went out to start the car to head off to Donna’s. It was so pretty I had to get the camera out to take some shots, although the front windscreen (the one with the best patterns) is rather steeply slanted and was difficult to shoot. I’m thinking of getting Jim to leave his van out of the garage one of these nights so I can get more of this type of shot. It has a bigger window that is more vertical and would potentially be easier to photograph.
Shot two shows the frost outlining the fallen leaves in the front yard on the wood-bark mulch. We took our front lawn out some years back and are very happy without it, as are the hundreds of lady-bugs that burrow into the wood-chip mulch every fall to overwinter.
Shot three shows Native in the pasture this morning, just before he got led into the barn for his medical. He still looks pretty reasonable for a 29 year old horse from a distance, as he has kept in shape and his top-line is still good, but up close you can see the toll the years are starting to take on him, and it’s a bit sad to see.
Shot four is a favourite clump of trees that I often photograph in various seasons en route to and from Donna’s.
Shot five comes from this evening’s event, which was a reading (at a local bookstore) by author Ted Barris who is touring in promotion of his newest book “Breaking the Silence”. The man in the photo is my great-uncle Gavin McDonald, who is featured in the World War I section of Ted’s book, and who was one of the “stars” of tonight’s reading. It’s a long story how we got Ted and Uncle Gavin’s (he fought in the trenches in France and Belgium throughout the whole of the first World War) war memoirs together, but suffice it to say that it’s another example for me of how everything and everyone of interest can be accessed either at the barn or through my riding acquaintances. Ted is an engaging speaker and both knowledgeable and passionate about his subject matter, and we were glad to have had the chance to attend his talk.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Delaware All Horse Parade

September 18th, 2009 | Posted in Patricia Getha

This past Sunday was the Delaware County All Horse Parade which kicks off our County Fair, the best fair East of the Mississippi! I am a staff photographer for the fair this year and will be covering the Little Brown Jug and the Juggette as well as the rest of the races. I will also be poking around the show barns and arenas and catching the action at the Open and Jr. Fair shows. This is always a very busy time but oh so fun to be a part of the action. Best seat in the house for the Little Brown Jug!

The fair starts on Saturday, September 19 and runs until the 26th.

Here are a few shots from the parade. Hope you enjoy them.


©Copyright 2009 by Patricia Getha. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , | 0 Comments

Meet the New Addition to the Herd!

September 9th, 2009 | Posted in Susan Williams



Meet Syche’s Sweet Serenade aka Seri. She is a new addition to my herd and is such a doll baby! She has already seen a bit of the world for her young age and these pics were taken at her Oldenburg inspection a couple of weeks ago. I just love the little braids!

I was looking at a 1/2 sister to Zephyr who was down in Texas. She was also a sweet little thing but a bit far awawy. Little Seri lived only a few miles down the road from me and she had the pinto thing going that I just love.

She has two heart shaped patches – one near her girth and the other on her neck. One for Kairos and one for Zephyr, although I have to tell you that they were not to pleased when we brought her home. Worse yet was little Scooter who just seemed to glare at her when he wasn’t trying to bite her through the fence.

Just wait Scooter, she is almost as big as you already!

©Copyright 2009 by Susan Williams. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , | 0 Comments

Spirit of the Horse: New Equine art cards at Pine Country Feed

August 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Susan Williams

New Artcards!


I was busy dropping off my new artcards, Horse as Teacher book, small prints and also large editioned mounted prints today while getting my new account set up in the boutique section of our local tack and feed shop. Sometimes I have to wonder why it takes such a fire under me to get these things going!

The cards have been extremely successful at all the fine art festivals this year. What I realized on the way home was that I never created the opportunity for you to buy some beautiful cards here on my blog. They will not be available on my web site. I had to sit down and do a bunch of graphic work this evening so why not continue on and create PayPal buttons…..fun stuff for a Sat. evening. I bet you want to party with me! LOL!

There are three different sets of cards; each box contains 6 cards, 2 each of three different prints. They are 5 x 7 so they pop easily into little frames and make a great gift for the horse lover in your life! Additionally they are printed on the highest quality of paper.

To purchase your set please go to the right hand side of my blog. I hope you enjoy them!

Susan
windhorseOne Studios

©Copyright 2009 by Susan Williams. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , | 0 Comments

QT, Scooter, Shadow: Melisa Pearce’s “Touched By A Horse” Boys

August 16th, 2009 | Posted in Susan Williams

QT
This morning was spent photographing three former champion reiners who now have new jobs in life. And yes I do take normal photographs! I once handed a client her proofs and she just stared quietly at them, finally looking up and saying softly…”These don’t look anything like your work”. LOL!

But back to these amazing guys, who are not old and retired but average aged that have experienced career changes in life that they embrace and love. Career changes are not just for people!

Scooter
Each one of these handsome boys have become a therapeutic healer. Melisa is a psychotherapist who uses horses extensively in her work. These are her personal show horses who no longer perform at World championships but work their magic on her clients and other folks who show up from all over the country to participate in one of many equine experiential learning workshops she offers at her Lil Bit North Ranch in Longmont CO.

Shadow
I have been very fortunate to share and sell my art at her workshops. People leave the ranch wanting to bring home a “horse” to solidify their experience so Melisa and I felt it would be more powerful and meaningful if they were able to bring home a representation of her horses whom they worked with. This is a fun and exciting project! I also photographed Kathy Pike’s horses (Coaching With Horses) a couple of weeks ago for the same purpose. This is a very worthwhile project that may continue to help people with their healing process once they are back in their mainstream life.

I will continue to share more about this artwork as it develops.

Enriching the life of humans and horses one day at a time……

Yours in the dance,
Susan
windhorseOne Studios

©Copyright 2009 by Susan Williams. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , | 0 Comments

I suppose it’s all my fault

August 11th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Where to begin?? Seems like a lot of water has gone under the bridge (almost literally, given the rain we had) since this time last week. I neglected to mention last post that Oscar, one of my pair of Boxer brothers, had undergone a tooth cleaning and some extractions. Anesthetics hit Boxers particularly hard, and older dogs in general can have a tough time with them, so he had the unfortunate situation of embodying both of these perils. He was a pretty pathetic boy for a few days after this event, but it was well worth having done as he has now recovered and is not only as good as new, but considerably better, if you take “new” in this case to be how he was preceding the dental work. I think his teeth had been bothering him for a while, but we failed to realize just how much. Keeping track of the teeth of dogs that have that amount of jowl is not something that is easily accomplished. Still, I feel badly that I didn’t get onto this sooner. Here’s a cute video I came across just now as I was checking the definition of “jowl”. Anyone with a Boxer will understand this one. Mind you, I don’t endorse letting your dog hang its’ head out the car window as they can sustain eye damage, but still this is quite entertaining.
I realize that I don’t have space here (and you likely don’t have the required reading time, patience or interest) to detail some of the other happenings of the past week, so I’ll go straight to the main event, which was the horse show at Ebon that started Thursday evening and went through to Sunday. About the same timeframe, in fact, as the rain, although mercifully the rain petered out before the show did. In addition to Ebon being able to control the advent of rainfall by having an outdoor show, an added bit of misery seems to be that it rains a lot more (both in frequency and in volume) at Ebon than it does in the city, a mere twelve minute drive away. Go figure. At least no-one has mentioned the word “drought” lately.
Thursday night was supposed to be clear round jumpers. I have no idea if this went ahead as I don’t let the camera get wet so I wasn’t there. Ditto for much of Friday. Classes that could be moved indoors (the flat classes) were carried on there, but with a fair amount of inconvenience all round since the indoor ring was prepared for chute jumping on Friday evening, so that whole set-up had to be taken out for the flat classes, then reassembled for the evening event. Classes carried on outdoors as much as possible on Friday, but there were many who chose not to participate for fear of injuring their horses due to the footing, and the schedule in general went out the window in the confusion of minute-to-minute changes of plan in the attempt to optimize what *was* possible under the circumstances. I’ve rarely seen the hunter ring as totally liquid as it was by Friday night and Saturday morning.
Show start was pushed back to noon on Saturday, and the jumper ring was usable by then, if puddly. By mid afternoon so was the hunter ring, after a few hours of sun and a lot of heroic efforts with the tractor as it reworked the surface to enhance drying. Well, to make it less wet and slippery, anyway. Drying hardly seemed the word until about Sunday. Luckily for all concerned, Sunday was a lovely warm and sunny day, with a light breeze. Just about ideal for all the rest of the postponed classes to be crammed in on top of the regular schedule. How the show workers and organizers kept their sanity is beyond me. All I do is show up with the camera when possible, and even that seems a challenge some of the time. However, horse people are used to coping with whatever comes their way, and even more so during show season, so everybody soldiered on as best they were able to, and there will be other years and other shows.
On to the photos. Despite (or maybe because of) the cool and cloudy “summer” we have had to date, many of the flowers are just spectacular this year. I got the first shot on Friday, after the rain had stopped. This gladiolus had bent over sideways, but there was something about it that caught my eye, and I love the raindrops sitting on the surface of the petals.
Shot number two features a close crop shot of the warmup ring for the jumpers. I’m a big believer in photographing what you’ve got to work with, and in this case it was mud and water, so I entertained myself quite nicely between classes with shots of this sort.
Shot number three is part of a long sequence of shots I got of an unfortunate event for one of the Ebon riders. She had just taken a jump in the warmup ring of shot two, when things went sideways on her, and she ended up in the slop. As I have been known to observe, one person’s disaster is another person’s photo op, and I am most grateful to Wendy for making my day (my weekend!!) by providing me with the chance to get the shots I did of her spectacular dive into the muck. Needless to say, I’m not so unkind as to post a shot like this without permission! Wendy is a Saskatchewan girl and a dairy farmer, so she is pretty used to getting down and dirty. I have to give her full credit for graciousness and a sense of humour in this situation, as there are not many who would handle it as well as she did. She did go on after this to put in a really nice round in the jumper ring, where I got some good shots of them showing fine form over the fences. Hope that will make up for my great glee at having got the other shots!!
There was a Canadian Warmblood mare and foal evaluation on during the show as well, luckily not scheduled until Sunday, which was about the first day that ring could be used at all. This youngster ( in shot four) put on a tremendous show of brattiness and high spirits while his long-suffering mother was being led around the triangle. I certainly have more shots of him on only two (or no) legs than I do of him with all four on the ground.
Shot five is one I caught from the seating by the jumper ring, while I was waiting for the next class to get underway. These horses are getting one last look at the scene of the disaster as they head for home, doubtless to return next year, we hope to ideal showing conditions. It would be nice, just once!!
And if you’re wondering about the title of this post, last week I mentioned both the show and rain in the same paragraph, so I take full responsibility for what happened. Stands to reason. And I apologize to all concerned.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , | 0 Comments

August

August 8th, 2009 | Posted in Susan Williams

It is already well into the month of August and I can’t believe how quickly this year has moved along! I haven’t had much time or energy to any art work lately. I am surrounded by work that needs to ship to New Hampshire, Texas, Minnesota and locally from the shows I have been at but I took a little time to do some much needed work (for me!). This piece turned out to be a challenge and it took a bit of perseverance to get it to where I wanted it.

This is a portrait of August, a Canadian mare. I had never heard of the breed before I met Ingrid – the caretaker of my two boys. The Canadian Horse is a little known national treasure of Canada. This hardy breed descended from horses originally sent to the “New World” by King Louis XIV of France in the late 1600’s. These Norman and Breton horses were felt to be of Arab, Andalusian and Barb ancestry – traits of which can still be recognized in the Canadian Horse today.

There is quite an unusual lot at Ingrid’s with this Canadian and her colt Echo plus the Peruvian Pasos and then my Friesian/colt crosses.

August is the alpha of the group and has quite a mind of her own! She is often standing near the gate gazing towards the house door or towards the forest. She is a horse who demands and commands respect.

I am glad to be home now for a while with no shows until mid-September! I have become enamored with a buckskin Friesian/paint filly in San Antonio. She is half sister to one of my boys and I can’t seem to get her out of my mind……….Perhaps more on that later!

Have a super weekend!
Susan
windhorseOne Studios

©Copyright 2009 by Susan Williams. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , | 0 Comments

Finally summer (for the moment)

July 21st, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Another busy week, at least as far as taking a lot of photos goes. Other than that, I’m in my usual “I know I was busy but I don’t know what I was doing” mode. The weather finally shaped up towards the end of the week so that we weren’t compelled to ride in the sauna/indoor ring, which was a challenge while it lasted, more so for management at the stables who were trying to juggle too many horses and riders in too small a space without enough time. It never fails to amaze me how we can have so much rain that the outdoor riding arenas and large portions of the horse turnouts are under water, then within two days max we’re back to blowing dust on the roads and in the outdoor rings. For a while the outdoor jumper schooling ring had mud, deep puddles *and* blowing dust, depending on which end you were riding in.
The weather got downright hot for a couple of days (30 or highish 80s, depending on what system you follow) and has now backed off to a nice tolerable temperature, albeit with some huge winds blowing. It was pretty ideal yesterday for riding outside as the winds kept the bugs away (always a big consideration, although this year we’ve been spared the worst of the insect assaults so far) and also made it seem less warm. I’ve decided that of the archetypal classical elements (earth, air, water, fire) I must be an “air” person, specifically a “moving air” person. I love the wind and it’s seldom too windy for my taste. Occasionally (not often) we will get an utterly still day here with not a breath of wind, a situation I frankly find kind of creepy and rather unsettling. It just seems wrong. I’ve taken of late (starting when things were on the hot and humid side there briefly) to sleeping with a portable fan blowing on me, and my quality of sleep has improved so much that I think I’ll just stick with it year round. Added bonus is that according to my local grandson, alien life forms don’t care for moving air, so now I don’t have to lose sleep worrying about a middle of the night UFO abduction scenario. Works for me.
Saturday saw the annual riding camp one-day horse show which is the wrap-up event for camp participants. Many of them are from other parts of the province (or even other provinces altogether), usually from farms or small towns, and for whom this is often their first “real” horse show. It’s always a relaxed (for us spectators, anyway, the competitors take it pretty seriously) day of showing with both flat and “over small jumps” classes, and in fact is one of my favourites of the show season. We are a small province with a scanty population and not a lot of big-time amenities to speak of, but we do friendly, fun and inclusive really well, and this little show certainly epitomizes a lot of what makes Saskatchewan what it is.
Today’s photos cover a fair amount of the past week’s variety of shots. Last Tuesday my grandson Mark (also a photographer in training) and I went to the zoo for some big cat shots for a photo assignment he had to complete. It had been a while since we were at the zoo and while the young lions still show their baby spots, they are definitely maturing teens as you can see in this photo of the male. He’s at the “straggly hair” stage with his mane for the moment, much like a youngster of the human species who is trying to cultivate facial hair at a comparable stage of development. The end result would have to be classified as “promising, but not quite there yet”.
On the other end of the spectrum of nature, we have the many little sparrow families who frequent our yard, feeders, and bird baths. We have a set-up in both the front and back yards so they have lots of choices. Shot two is of a family taking a moment at the front yard birdbath. I spend quite a lot of time lurking in sight of this bath and feeder area with camera in hand. I’ve got a good set-up with my chair in an unobtrusive spot, and if I sit *really* still for a *long* time, I can usually get some shots of these little ones. Sparrows are very suspicious and flighty by nature and will take fright over the smallest movement or change in their environment. I’m sure this is doing wonders for developing my patience skills, which always need improving.
Shot three was one I took as I was driving home from the stables after an evening ride last week. I could see the dust hanging in the air and thought I’d just pull off to the side of the road and get a shot or two. I was quite amazed when this was the result as it didn’t look quite that wonderful in real life, but then the camera always “sees” a lot more than I do. That’s part of the fun of photography. Sometimes the “killer” shot you just know will be fantastic turns out to be on the “blah” side, despite your best efforts, and then some shots that didn’t really have much promise at all will surprise you.
Shot four is one from the Saturday horse show. There is a lovely line of big trees between two of the show rings at Ebon, and they cast a welcome shade where horses and riders can wait for their turn in the ring. I have a fascination for shadow patterns on horses, so I couldn’t help getting this shot. I’m always very impressed at how clean the owners of white/grey horses can get them! Not an easy task to achieve or maintain.
The final shot is one I got this morning as I passed by the weir en route to shopping. I observed this clan of Canada geese leave a small island downstream from the little waterfall of the weir where the pelicans were hanging about chatting and nabbing the odd fish. The geese came paddling through the water in a direct line straight to the pelicans, got out, walked up the little cement apron to the top side of the waterfall, then got back into the water and continued paddling upstream. I’d never seen this before and was quite bemused by the whole operation. I was describing it to Jim (the family bird person) at lunch, and he said the geese must be molting and without their major flight feathers just now, hence the paddling and walking. Makes sense, but without the ability to fly they are very vulnerable so will have to keep their heads up and their eyes open.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , | 0 Comments

The goat ate my lawn……

June 16th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Hard to believe (or even to remember) that only a week ago I was writing about how very cold it was, after the blazing heat of the last few days. Nice to have something different to comment on, although the heat isn’t an unmixed blessing. Seems we in the western Canadian prairies are having the driest spring in the 113 years that such records have been kept. When I think of the two droughts (each several years in duration) I have lived through over the course of the past few decades, this isn’t a good thing. I guess the cold was keeping me from noticing the lack of precipitation. Drought is undesirable in general, and even more so in an area where farming and the agrarian way of life is still very much present. Doesn’t do much for hay supply or prices for us horse-owners, either.
Now that yard and garden activity is not only an option but almost a necessity, we have been initiating projects left, right and center. First I decided that the alpine bed in the front yard was too big and the plants too small for it to look right, so I pulled out a ground cover area that I didn’t care for and moved all the alpines there. Then I bought and planted a number of medium sized bushes, deciduous and evergreen, and planted them where the alpines had been. Other than the mountain of mulch that I have yet to order then distribute about the front yard, that’s it for the front.
In the back, I’ve been dividing and de-mulching the iris beds as they have been sadly neglected. We took a trip to Solar Gardens a week ago and that made Jim decide that the entire iris bed needed to go so we could have a rock and succulent area in that spot. Then I thought that the irises would look good by the fish pond (site of the unfortunate dog and fish incident of a few weeks ago) so we have had to extend that area, remove existing edging, buy and install new and different (and, I hope, superior, or why did we bother?) edging, and generally prep for moving the irises. Plus we had earlier in the season pulled out the “upper” fish pond which always leaked, and now Jim fancies digging the pond liner into the ground for marsh plants. Sounds to me like a good way to breed mosquitoes, but I guess we’ll give it a try.
In the meantime, while I was at the Waterfront art show/sale on Saturday, my son-in-law Bill called by with “the goat” which is apparently the name of the turf lifting machine from the rental store. Bill attacked the far eastern strip of lawn so it can be removed to make room for the trees and bushes I want to establish there for birds and small wildlife. Of course that was the only half-decent remnant of lawn on the whole property and I’m removing it, but I had the bright idea of using the turf strips to fill in the troughs and dead spots (which comprise about half the remaining “lawn” area in the back yard) so I spent much of the morning working at that. I think I even moved a few weeds and some dog poop along with the turf to its new location–just so it will know it’s still in the same yard!!
Not sure about the origins of the rose in the first shot. I think it must be an indoor mini that I bought at the grocery store. The main thing there was I was trying out the new Nikon D40 that Jim got with airmile points. It’s actually a really nice little camera and I’m thinking of taking it over as a back-up to my big Nikon. I need to read the manual(if we can find it) to figure out some basic stuff (like focussing) but once I understand how it works it will be a nice addition to my photo-taking arsenal. I hate switching lenses so with the little Nikon I will have a short lens camera available without having to take the zoom off the D200. Works for me!
You wouldn’t know this was my blog without at least one horse shot, so shot two is the token one for today.  This is Kitten (Akeeta), a lovely Warmblood mare, a product of the Ebon Stables Warmblood breeding program.
Shot three shows the vanishing lawn from the back yard. It was already quite hot by ten this morning when I took this shot, and Mickey decided that the cool earth was a better bet than the grass for his morning rest in the shade.
Shot four shows a planting I did today, of two interesting succulents purchased on the recent visit to Solar Gardens. The plants on the left are Lithops or “living rocks”, not to be confused with the non-living rocks I also put in there. The other plant that looks kind of alien is really interesting. Common name is “baby toes” and official name is “Fenestraria rhopalophylla“. I bought them because I liked the visuals, but then read what it said on the information label and was really impressed. “Each leaf has a translucent window at the tip where sunlight is filtered to enable photosynthesis”. Those little eyeball-looking things at the top of each tentacle are windows!
Shot five shows the net covering for the umbrella/outdoor table that I purchased (the net, that is, not the table)  on the weekend and installed today. It has a zippered opening for ingress and egress, and the hem you can see at the bottom is actually a rubber bladder that you can fill with water to hold it down. Not filled in this shot, but since a storm seemed imminent this afternoon (it didn’t materialize) I did fill it with water in case of high winds. I took great pleasure in having my lunch in there today and watching the flies and mosquitoes on the outside, being frustrated in their attempts to get at my lunch and at me. Mostly I look forward to not having to worry about wasps when they come along, as many a nice outdoor meal has ended with us all running shrieking from the table ahead of marauding wasps after our food.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Do I get to sit down now?

June 2nd, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





I’ve had one of those days where I feel that I got shoved into the revolving door way earlier than I would have liked this morning, and have only just emerged after a long day of perpetual motion. Although unlike being in a literal revolving door, I did cover a lot of territory.

The morning started with a phone interview for an article that Bethany Caskey is writing on my work for the July issue of Rural Heritage magazine. Seems Bethany found me via this blog, which makes me feel that maybe someone out there is listening (well, reading anyway) after all. Then I spent most of the rest of the day rushing all over the city trying to catch up on the tasks I ditched last week while I was getting ready for the weekend show/sale in which I was a participant.

Since one of my destinations was Costco (where road construction has brought us a new definition of hell while trying to get in there) on the far reaches of the other side of town, of course I had to go there via the river weir where the pelicans live. I try to do this any time I have occasion to go to the other side of the river. In the end, I went to the weir three times today alone!! I assure you this wasn’t in the original plan, it just kind of happened. First set of shots was on the outward bound leg, but it was kind of cold, very cloudy, and raining a bit. Seemed like a good idea to swing through again on the way home since the light had improved, although that stop didn’t net much as no-body was within close range of the lens.

I had totally forgotten, while making these stops, that I was going to be very close to the weir around suppertime anyway, dropping a couple of photomontages off at the Mendel Gallery for their annual members show. Since I was in the neighbourhood anyway (and since the light was really good this go-round) I popped down there for the third and final visit this evening. I think it’s safe to say that was the final one since the sun will be setting rather soon and that will be it for the day. Strangely, I’m not featuring any pelican shots today, but trust me, I have lots.

One of the fun things I did last week was to attend an outdoor flyball practice at the behest of my daughter who participates with one of their dogs. I really enjoyed the variety of dogs that were there, all enthusiastic in their individual ways, and all going hard at their training. The setting is very pleasant (in a park-like area on the university canvas) but a bit challenging for photography as the big trees cast shadows which meant the dogs were running from quite bright sun to shade, and then back to bright areas, making it hard for the camera to figure out what is happening. Also those dogs go darn fast. I plan to make a few return visits to work on my technique for this new area (for me) of photography. Today’s top two photos are from that shoot. The happy young Jack Russell in the top shot is one that I last saw looking like a very small guinea pig at age 4 weeks, in a fall puppy photo session I did last October. The second shot is one I got in the parking lot as I was leaving. Several fine-looking American Staffordshire Terriers were arriving, and this fellow was peeking around the corner to check me out. I hope they’ll be at the coming week’s session so I can snag a few shots of them in action.

Shot three is of a fox that ran across the road in front of my vehicle as I was leaving the art show I was at over the weekend–the show was located at Agar’s Corner farm site, several miles east of the city. Of course the fox was much closer when first spotted, but by the time I got the van stopped and had the camera dragged out, this was the best I could do, and I felt lucky even to get this shot.

Shot four shows a fine fish that I purchased at the show from my friend Ric Pollack, who was another participant. I’ve wanted one of these for a while, and it seemed like a good time to get one. He’s located by our outdoor fishpond, and can serve as a memorial for the poor pond fish that was the victim of Mickey the Boxer, as detailed in last week’s post.

While I was out photographing the fish sculpture, I realized how many of the nice little early irises had opened up overnight, and I felt they were worthy of a spot of their own in the blog. I’ve been in major iris mode for the past few weeks, as I have a lot of them and all are shamefully neglected and overgrown. I’ve been digging, dividing, and dispersing them with great industry and almost feel that I’m getting somewhere with the whole process. Usually this is a fall chore for me (in the years when I actually get around to it) but I just couldn’t stand them any more so am doing them now while I’m still enthusiastic about being able to be outdoors. Doesn’t seem to bother them as some that were brutally yanked out of the ground and chopped into bits before being replanted in a new location are now blooming quite cheerfully. You’ve got to respect that kind of survival!

I’ll end with a couple more links for those that care to follow them. The June article in my ongoing series on the Creativity Portal is now up, and there is a feature online interview on the Equinest, an online magazine.  Seems like I’ve plugged in a lot of links this week, but sometimes there are just a lot of little side roads that need to be explored.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

The dog ate my ……

May 26th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Finally things are picking up here, no freezing temperatures, no snow or even a threat of snow, and I’ve actually had a chance to wear shorts comfortably. Things are perking along quite nicely. I’ve been very busy on the home front getting plant material into the ground (much of which has been keeping warm in the backyard greenhouse with a heater running for the last several weeks) and also hauling my fairly large collection of indoor plants out onto the deck and to various areas around the house. Of course if the temperatures plunge yet again I’m hooped, but chances are it will be OK.

I had a nasty shock earlier today in the course of doing another of my seasonal tasks. We have a small outdoor pond in which we keep a couple of goldfish during the summer months to keep the mosquito larvae down, and just because they are nice to have. They winter over in an aquarium in the basement and I always look forward to releasing them to the pond as it must be such a nice change for them. Kind of like how Alpac and I feel when we can start riding outside again after a winter of indoor ring work. I had the fish in a bucket in the back yard, covered with a metal mesh strainer. While I left the fish to acclimatize to the outdoor temperature before putting them in the pond, I went out front to do some planting and digging.
Imagine my horror and distress when I returned to the bucket to find the cover off and only one fish remaining where I had left two. I can only conclude that the wretched Mickey (one of my Boxer dogs and the only other living being in the back yard at the time) pushed the top off and ate my poor fish. Alive. I went as far as sniffing his mouth to see if he had fish breath, but really it just smelled like dog breath and I couldn’t tell. However, I’d have to say the circumstantial evidence is very strong. He is the one that once raced into a flock of witless sparrows in the back yard and emerged with one in his mouth, so I’d say he is capable of having done this, although I’m not sure where the challenge was in grabbing a fish out of a pail. Poor thing. The remaining fish (of course Mickey took my favourite one, the one with the interesting shape and colours) seemed both in shock and depressed, but it at least is still alive. I have purchased it a new companion as I think even fish like to have another of their kind with them. I will definitely remember this event in future and keep Mickey in mind when I am doing fish transfers.
On a happier note, I had a nice opportunity this weekend to get some shots of Tennessee Walking horses that were doing a demo at a local riding establishment . It was interesting to see their way of moving and to learn about the breed history and their special characteristics.
Today’s first two photos show a couple of the Tennessee Walkers, both owned by Sherri Hueser, who was unfortunately unable to ride either of them in the demos due to a knee injury that had her hobbling around on a crutch. However, this freed her up to give us a most informative commentary on both the breed in general and her horses in particular. The first shot shows Teddy in the rack, one of the specialty gaits of this and other gaited breeds. The second shot is Tango, a handsome black fellow with a noble head.
I had the camera at Ebon on Sunday when I popped out to check on Alpac. Little Murphy has taken up his summer occupation of chasing and “killing” his toys on the grass near the outdoor rings. I think in this shot he is wondering what would happen if his head got stuck in this position!!
Today I finally made it to the weir to start my annual seasonal collection of pelican shots (shot four). I continue to be fascinated by these birds and was interested to see that the flock seems bigger this year, with a lot of mature breeding adults (they have the upright keel on their beaks, unlike the juveniles whose bills lack this feature) like the two featured here. I suspect they are a couple, and they worked in perfect harmony much like synchronized swimmers, as they fished for their food. Other years I have seen few adults but many juveniles, so maybe this is the year that the teenagers have made the jump into adulthood, hence the larger number of physically mature birds.

In my few otherwise unaccounted for moments (usually quite late at night these days) I have been working on some more of my rather odd photomontages. This one may or may not be completed. I am fairly happy with it as is, but I will often see other directions to go with these after I have contemplated them for a while, so it’s anyone’s guess at the moment whether it will stay like this over time. The nice thing about photomontages is that I can keep one copy as is, but do further work on another copy as I see fit. Kind of like having your cake and eating it too.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , | 0 Comments

Coming along nicely

May 5th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Quite a bit has started coming along nicely in my neck of the woods, principally the weather which has finally shaped up and given us a few really sublime days. I’ve at last relegated all the seriously winter-season clothing to a storage closet for the next number of months, and am sorting and assessing my warm-weather gear, which is a much smaller collection overall. Alpac is going naked at last, and I’ll have to cowboy up and deal with the cleaning and mending (really, with paying someone else to accomplish that thankless chore) of winter and fall horse blankets, and we’ll be good to go. I’ve even got the snow tires off the car and the summer radials in place. Of course it snowed the day the summer tires went on, but no harm done.

I always have a hard time trying to get in touch with what has happened in my life since my last post. I update this blog religiously every Monday, and each week I have to struggle to remember what-all has happened since the previous post. I know I get up every morning, generally without much of a game plan unless I have a booked photo shoot, and I chug along through the day, busy the whole while, but when I look back it’s hard to say exactly what I’ve been doing. I know I rode every day (except Monday which is the horse’s day off), did some photography, made no progress with tidying the studio or any other part of the house, played with some new visuals for art photos (which is generally what I end up doing in the studio when I am *supposed* to be addressing the chaos), got some stuff done (finally!!) outdoors, bought yet more of the endless list of foodstuffs to keep my people, cat, dogs and horse functioning in an optimal manner, had some time with family and friends, but……seems much like most other weeks of my life, now that I think back. I’ll have to start keeping notes!

I’d have to say the high point of the week (or likely of several weeks or months) was getting to do a photo shoot of the North Fork Gypsy cob yearlings. These youngsters are all for sale and Dale and Cheryl, the owners of the yearlings and of North Fork, needed some updated photos for their website and were kind enough to offer me the job. I’ve just been itching to get back to see these horses, and this was finally my chance. The herd is mostly shed out of their winter coats (and that’s a *lot* of hair with this breed) and have left their winter pens for the freedom of the fields and pastures.  The day was bright with a *very* brisk wind, but was really quite ideal for our purposes. Dale and Cheryl and their trainer Wendy had a good game plan thought out for how we should proceed with the shoot, and it all went off like clockwork. The youngsters were well-behaved when we needed them to be, and gave us lots of action when that was appropriate. All in all, just a super afternoon from my perspective.

Needless to say, most of today’s shots are from the North Fork visit. I had a hard time just keeping it down to the few I am sharing here. You will be seeing lots more of these horses as I gather more photos along the way and as I get time to work them into my art photomontages. Not sure how much studio time I’ll be logging now that the nice weather is here, but eventually the artworks I have in my mind will come into existence.

But before we move on to the horse part of today’s blog photos, a quick flashback to some Whippet shots I took a few years ago in the fall. I had a whole CD from this shoot, done for a Whippet breeder client, which I couldn’t view as my old PC claimed the disc was flawed and wouldn’t read. For some reason I kept it anyway, and it came to the surface recently when I was looking for something else. I decided to give it a try on the new Mac just in case, and lo and behold, there were my dog shots, perfectly fine. I had quite a few nice ones from this shoot so I was very happy to be able to see them again. This one shows a pair of the Whippets doing what they do best, which is running flat out. I loved the texture and colour of the background which complements the dogs so well.

Now onto the horses. Next three shots are of the North Fork yearlings. Shot two shows Prince bounding through the pasture. He is a very interestingly coloured “pink roan” pinto, quite an eye-catching fellow. Not sure if that is what it is really called, but that’s how it seemed to me. It turns out to be a very difficult coloration to capture accurately with the camera, especially in full sun. He is backlit in this shot so it’s one of the more accurate ones, but in direct sunlight his delicate colour seems washed out in the photos. His pigmented hairs have an almost metallic sheen to them.  He might be one that would be better to photograph on an overcast day, but in any event, here he is in all his glory and exuberance.

Shot three shows Mana, a beautiful filly, just as she is heading off to find the mare herd. You can see the heavy feathering on the legs and the “big hair” of this breed. And keep in mind these are only yearlings, nowhere near mature in size or in hairiness!

Shot four features more of the boys, these ones being Cash (pinto in the foreground) and Riot, the little black fellow, with Prince lurking in the background. These guys are the horse equivalent of young teenage boys, and act in pretty much the same fashion, with a lot of physical interaction that can look alarming but is really all about show and developing their manly skills. As with people, the girls tend to be pretty unimpressed with them for the most part.

Final shot of the day is one I took at Ebon when I went out to ride on Sunday. I was just finishing my ride when I looked over to one of the other rings and saw that Jillian was working her new youngster, Poe,  on the long-lines, so I had to rush to get my camera and take a few shots. This work is part of his ongoing education and preparation for learning to work under saddle. Jillian is a very capable young horsewoman who addresses her riding and training with great dedication and enthusiasm. In her previous working career she was a professional jockey at Woodbine racetrack, so she returns to Ebon with a wealth of horse experience to bring to her new horses here. I always enjoy getting the chance to record the progress of the young horses from their first rides through to their later careers in the show ring, and I think this will be one of the ones I will be able to track for a while as he learns how to be a saddle horse.
In closing, I would be remiss if I didn’t offer greetings of the day, since today is International Jedi Knight Day. May the fourth be with you.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , | 0 Comments

One more week

April 7th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Another week closer to our eventual release into warmer and more hospitable weather. Progress is slow and with some ups and downs, but the snow is gone in some areas and we can now almost get all the way around our dog walking route without detouring around ice fields and/or deep puddles.
I feel that I’m in a kind of “on hold” mode these days. Can’t yet do anything much in the yard (although goodness knows there’s lots to be done) until things have dried up a bit, ditto with getting outside to ride. Photo ops hold less appeal for me than usual since this is visually the ugliest time of year, especially for horse photos. The equine landscape is littered with the mounds of manure from an entire winter’s production, no clean-up yet possible (as per my own yard cleanup and for the same reasons) and many of the horses have been enjoying a good roll in the muck, so they are often coated with a thick layer of dried mud. If I was in “grunge” mode I’d be thrilled, but I’m not (not in grunge mode nor thrilled at the prospect).
We had grandson Mark staying with us for the weekend while his parents headed north to weekend at the lake cottage. Most of the weekend was spent scurrying around going to various destinations and accomplishing small but necessary tasks. Sunday afternoon saw us all headed to one of the not too distant malls to try to purchase a couple of things. We ultimately ended up at Canadian Tire, each with our own goals in mind, and I was reminded yet again of the wonderful consistency of my experiences when I shop there.
I have come to think of Canadian Tire as “the store that never fails to disappoint”. Doesn’t matter if what I am looking for is in season, is a timely purchase, has been advertised in the flyer that came that very day (or the one before) in the paper, they never have what I am there to shop for. Sometimes they have sold out of whatever it might be, sometimes it is coming but no-one is quite sure when. Sometimes (and this is a personal favourite) they will check in the computer and allow that the desired item is indeed in stock and somewhere in the store, but no-one actually knows where. The only times I can ever find something to purchase are the occasions when I happen to be wandering through looking for something else entirely, and stumble across something I can use by accident. Needless to say, on Sunday all three of us came home empty-handed, as per usual.
Today’s first shot shows that despite the ongoing freezing temperatures and ice-covered areas, nature and growth will win through. This is a little something (not quite sure what) that is already pushing out green leaves in our back yard, despite being almost completely encased in ice every night when the temperature falls. I’m always especially grateful for the hardy little perennials like this one that make their presence known before the snow has even left the garden.
Shot two is a “painting” I did with my new computer program (and which I still don’t really have a clue how to use) from one of my Gypsy cob photos. I think of this one (a young brood mare) as “the bearded lady”. This breed is known for extravagant “big hair” and it isn’t confined to just the mane and tail of the horse, especially when they are in winter coat. One of the things I am keenly anticipating is the time (not too far off now, I hope) when this herd will be turned out to their summer pasture area and I can get out and do some decent photos of them. You can check out the website for these horses here.
Shots three and four were taken at Ebon Stables over the weekend. Two of the young Pony Club riders (shot three) were indulging in one of the classic prairie spring rituals, one I remember fondly from my own childhood. Almost inevitably during one of these wading events a foot will hit a submerged gopher hole or other such hazard, and the boots will fill with icy cold water. It’s pretty well a tradition.
I glanced out the end door of the stable and my eye was caught by a motion on the road. Something seemed kind of odd about what I was witnessing, although goodness knows seeing Terry driving one of the young Warmbloods is common enough around the barn. Then I realized that he was seated in a *wheeled* conveyance rather than the sleigh with runners that I’ve been seeing all winter. Yet another sign of spring. Hurrah.
Shot five came out of a visit earlier in the week to my usual herd south of the city. I had the settings mildly wrong (as per usual, it’s an ongoing struggle for me to get things right when the lighting conditions are challenging) so my images were a bit darker than I had hoped for, but I played with this one and merged it with a textured ground I created in the computer, and quite like the end result. I know the theory (or am grappling with it at any rate) of how the settings *should* be for the low-light end of day shots I am so fond of, but in my eagerness to get shooting I often forget to apply this knowledge. Or else I have it right for the first while, then don’t remember to keep adjusting settings to accommodate the changing light as the sun sets. Guess that’s all part of what keeps me going back for more, in the hope that some day I’ll actually get it all sorted out!
Edited to add:  forgot to mention that part 3 of my ongoing series “Riding Lessons for the Artist” is now up on the Creativity Portal site .

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , | 0 Comments

Coming along slowly but surely

March 31st, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





Winter is in slow but steady retreat, and signs of spring are advancing, step by step. I was excited to see my first housefly of the year last week, buzzing about in the heat-trap area of our south-facing front step. It’s the one and only time of the year that I’m actually happy to see a fly.

Migrant birds, one species at a time, are slowly starting to make their appearances as well. The crows and ravens have made their seasonal switch, with crows back in considerable numbers, and the ravens heading for parts north. These two species generally don’t share the same territory at the same time, although in the past couple of years a few raven pairs have started to nest in the area of the city, so maybe this division of the space is starting to change, but crows certainly continue to have the advantage of numbers. Since there is still a lot of snow on the ground, it will be a while before we see many of the insect-eating songbirds, likely sometime later on in May.

A family sign of spring is grandson Mark’s birthday (his 12th), which we celebrated on the weekend. Mark had Friday (the actual birthday) off school, so he was with me for the day, with family and friends gathering at the end of the day at his house for a birthday dinner. Mark and I spent much of the morning baking the traditional chocolate birthday cake (recipe from his great-Grandmother’s recipe files) that is standard for family birthdays. It turned out well, and we got it iced and ready to go in the afternoon. Problem was, things got a bit hectic at the end of the day and as we were pulling into the driveway at his house after a half-hour drive, already later than we would have liked for the family gathering, we realized to our horror that no-one had actually remembered to load the cake into the van, and it was still miles away in my kitchen. Our only comfort was that it was located at the back of the counter where the dogs wouldn’t be able to feast on it so it was likely still going to be there when we got home. I have a feeling it’s going to be a while before I live that one down. My one defense is the literal interpretation that I was asked to bake a birthday cake, and I did. No-one actually directly told me to bring it with me!

Saturday morning we headed off for the Gardenscape show to enjoy the displays and see the new plant and gardening offerings for the coming season. We also took in the butterfly display which was well worth experiencing, although I didn’t get to spend quite as much time getting shots as I would have liked. We also picked up a neat teak root garden bench, something both Jim and I have been eyeing for a couple of years since we first saw them at Spruce Meadows. It’s kind of like buying a piece of sculpture you can sit on. Very satisfactory.

Today Mark had no school yet again (!!) so we went off to the zoo with our cameras, hoping to get more lion shots. For whatever reason, the lions weren’t out today, but a lot of the native animals were enjoying the sun and relative warmth (about -2 C). There were also a lot of incoming Canada geese, noisily arriving by twos and threes, and circling the area searching for safe landing sites. There is a large natural body of water in the park area of the zoo that hosts a lot of migratory waterfowl in the spring and fall, and where many wild geese nest. Today’s arrivals were pretty peeved after their long flight north to discover that the whole area is still covered in ice and snow, not a bit of open water for miles around. There was a lot of circling overhead and loud honks of disapproval.

Shot one today is of a pair of geese in the midst of their circling and protesting. These were hard shots to snag since the area is quite heavily treed, and I could hear the geese coming long before I could see them. Geese are amazingly fast and strong fliers, so I would usually have just a second or two to spot the geese in the bit of open sky overhead, focus, track, and shoot. Getting this kind of shot is great preparation for the horse show jump shots I’ll be taking in a few months. Galloping and jumping horses are a piece of cake compared to birds in flight.

Shots two and three are also zoo shots from this morning. The second shows one of the Swift foxes, sitting in front of its den. These are very small little fellows–about the size of an average house cat, although with longer legs. They were uncharacteristically mellow this morning, just happy to bask in the sun and enjoy the relative warmth. Mind you, I don’t think anything but the most extreme cold would be an inconvenience to them with those thick coats. Shot three shows Mark getting a close-up photo of some Canada goose footprints in the snow. There were trails all over the place where the geese had been marching about as pedestrians. You can see by checking out his boot tops that we still have a fair depth of snow in some areas.

Shot four is of one of the butterflies on Mark’s jacket shoulder. They were fluttering all over the place in their display area, and were quite happy to settle on anyone that stood still for more than a few seconds. I seemed to attract more than my fair share, I can only assume due to the colours I was wearing. There were two young employees stationed at the exit to the butterfly area who would check for hitch-hikers before one was allowed to leave.

Final shot is not from the garden show but is rather a hydrangea blossom from a small plant we have at home. I wanted to try out Jim’s ancient macro lens and this seemed like a good candidate for a photo. The main drawback with the macro is the extremely short focal length, which you can see by the blurring of the blossom edge on the left. This lens lets you get in really close, but unless everything is on the same plane, you can only get a sharp focus on part of what you are shooting. Despite that, it’s a very interesting type of photography to do, and I’ll have to work on my skills some more with that lens. 

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , | 0 Comments

Hey, it’s getting better!

March 17th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





I’m sure regular readers of this blog will be very happy to hear that I can’t in all good conscience whine this week about not riding, since my saddle has come back to me in its new and improved form (air panels put in to replace the previous wool flocking, and so far it’s a big hit on the comfort and function front, especially with Alpac), and I’m not even going to bang on (much) about the weather, because while it isn’t exactly spring-like, it’s far from brutal, therefore doesn’t merit any attempt on my part to extract sympathy. All in all, things are perking along quite nicely.
There have been some quite warm days in the past week (by which I mean approaching or even getting a little above the freezing level) and I noticed on the way to the barn a couple of days ago that the level of the snow in the ditches has actually fallen a bit so that it is mostly lower than the road itself, rather than the reverse as it has been for the last months.
Grandson Mark had Friday off school (again!!I think they should just declare four school days a week to be the norm with five being the exception, since this seems to be the modus operandi of late) so we took the opportunity to head off to the zoo for a photo shoot. This wasn’t on the agenda originally, but there was an article in the Friday paper noting that the zoo was hosting two newly arrived juvenile lions, so Mark and I had to go check them out. We had a very jolly time trekking around to our various favourites for photo ops, and spent quite a bit of time being entertained by the young lions. The male is one year old, and the female is eight months. They are “on loan” from other zoos, one from Alberta and one from Ontario, and if I understand correctly, they will be here for the next year or two. We’ll be seeing big physical changes in them as they mature and put on size, so it’s kind of neat to have the “before” shots of their early days here.
This morning we awoke to falling snow which lasted until early afternoon and was quite heavy intermittently, with a bit of a wind to move it around but nothing much in the way of cold. I had to head downtown to pick up the “camera armor” that I had ordered a while back, with protection from the dust and rain (not usually simultaneous) of the upcoming summer horseshow season in mind. It will be handy in the snow as well, I’m sure, but by the time I got it picked up, the snow had stopped.
My ultimate destination after the shopping outing was to visit my favourite herd south of the city, so I carried on and got some shots there. By the time I arrived at the photo site, the sun was shining strongly and it was really quite pleasant. The mares were all standing in clusters out of the wind and just vegging out and soaking up the sun. I always think of these mares as being in “waiting” mode, certainly during the winter months. They are waiting for the weather to moderate, and most of them are waiting for the birth of their foals as well. Patience is the name of the game for them, but with time it will be rewarded with the dual benefits of the warmth of spring and with the new foal crop that will be appearing. I’m ready for both any time, and I think these mares are as well.
First shot today is of a very relaxed lynx in the new “hammock” that has appeared in its’ cage since the last time I was at the zoo. Seems like a popular item that will be well used and appreciated.
Shot number two is the young male lion. You can still see the remnants of his baby spots on his legs, but as a young “teen” he is also starting to generate his adult mane. I love his big clunky feet. He spent a fair amount of time indulging in fantasies of his heritage by stalking, crouching, and doing fierce attack rushes. This shot catches him in the midst of one of his charges across the enclosure.
Shot number three is the young female with her “scratching post”. She is quite small, weighing in at present at seventy pounds, which is about ten pounds less than either of my dogs, but while they have topped out for size and weight, this girl is just getting underway. I was happy to see how relaxed and settled both of these big cats were in their environment. The tigers that preceded them never really “played” (despite being much the same age when they arrived as the lions are now) and spent most of their time in somewhat tense motion. I think that tigers as a species are just generally more tightly-wound than lions. These youngsters spent a lot of time interacting with each other and with their “toys” and the entertainment options in the pen, and seem pretty content, all things considered.
Shot four is what it looked like out my front window this morning, and shot five is one of the mares relaxing and enjoying the sun and relative warmth of the afternoon.
Towards the end of the afternoon I was poking around in the studio when the doorbell rang. Once I beat the pack of dogs back (my own two and a small one we are tending while his owner is away) and got to the door, I discovered two youngsters with snow shovels on the front step. They were very cute boys, maybe nine or ten, and wanted to know if I would like my walk shovelled. My son-in-law usually does this job with the snow-blower, but we’ve been slacking off on that front lately, hoping it will just melt before we need to deal with it. In truth, it did need some attention, so I asked how much they were charging. They very earnestly said they didn’t have a set fee but would be happy with anything I wanted to pay for the job. Then they went on to say how glad they were that I was willing to employ them, as they had been to *thirteen* other homes in the neighbourhood and had been “rejected”(their word) at all of them.
Honestly, is there something wrong with this picture? Here are two enterprising (and very personable and cute) youngsters, who are out in the fresh air, willing to work and do a good job for whatever money might come their way, and everybody says “no”.  Doubtless some of these are the very same people that crab about kids these days having no sense of a work ethic or of individual enterprise. Sometimes I just shake my head. They were very conscientious about doing their job well, and rang the bell at the end to explain with some concern that there were a couple of areas that were solid ice (I knew this, having almost gone down a few times) that they were unable to clear, but I assured them that this was just fine. They were thrilled and happy when they headed off, and I hope they are able to find other customers who will be as pleased with them as I was. We live on a corner lot, let it be noted, so there is a *lot* of sidewalk to clear. Have to give them high marks for persistence as well. I’m not sure I’d have it in me to keep on knocking on strangers’ doors after the first half dozen refusals!
One final thing–I can’t remember if I’ve posted the link for the second in my series of articles “Riding Lessons for the Artist“.  If there is a somewhat odd image above the article, don’t panic, the article is mine, that image isn’t!

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Marching right along

March 4th, 2009 | Posted in Judy Wood





So it’s March now. In other parts of the northern hemisphere, it is likely getting kind of nice out, warming up, things starting to grow or perhaps even bloom, but here we are still in the midst of winter. Mind you, there is hope as we are supposed to get up to freezing or possibly even a bit above in the next couple of days, and despite the minus 20s (with windchill into the minus 30s) of the past week, we also have some hopeful reminders of the changing seasons.
For one, the horses are starting to shed out a bit. Alpac has been letting go of his hair in a minor way for a couple of weeks now, so I’m being a bit more conscientious than I generally am about grooming him. That and the fact that I’m still not riding due to the saddle being elsewhere, so I have a bit more time than usual for basic maintenance. At least it’s come at a time where the extra grooming really pays off and is noticeable. I’ll have to remember to start saving the hair that he sheds out for my backyard bird project. I like to put out a bunch of horse hair on the platform feeder in the spring for the songbirds to take for their nests. It always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to clean out a bird house at the end of the season and find that my horse’s hair has been made into a nice cozy nest for the baby birds. Likely gives them a warm and fuzzy feeling too!
Since it snowed several days last week, I got out and took the obligatory “horses in snow” shots, but I have to report that my heart isn’t in it the way it was for the first dozen or so outings of earlier months. My hands still got almost as cold, though. Now I’m more focussed on looking forward to the mare and foal shots that I will be getting in a couple of months, of various breeds and types of horses belonging to friends who are good about giving me photo access. Of course in between now and then we’ll have serious water and mud season to work through. Sometimes there are good photo ops there as well if you can only navigate the mud without mishap.
Since I was unable/unwilling to do much in the way of photo outings, I spent quite a bit of time on “photo innings”, working on a series I am doing of humble objects in domestic interior settings, on the days when we actually had sun. Other than that, I’ve logged a lot of computer time, mostly trying to set up, and then trying to make sense of and use, my new Corel Painter Essentials 4 program. The Painter Essentials 3 program came free, bundled with my Wacom graphics tablet when I purchased it a few years ago. I didn’t really notice that I had this extra program until recently, but I thought since I had it I might as well install it and try it out. This led to a longish and trying set of attempts to get it to co-operate with my new computer, which in the end didn’t seem possible, for reasons unknown to all. The tech person from Corel that was helping me was mystified as well, and in the end very kindly asked if I would be willing to work from the newer PE4 program, which I was happy to do. So now I’m embarked on yet another learning curve with this program. So far all it’s done is confirm for me yet again (as if this was needed) that I am *not* a painter. Not in the real world of art supplies, and apparently not on the digital screen either. However, it’s early days yet and I can certainly see a number of non-conventional ways that I will be able to make this program work really well with my Photoshop endeavors, so stay tuned.
The top image today is of one of my first efforts with the PE4 program. I thought I’d better start out simply, with a style of image that I have worked with in “real” art media, so I came up with this little cave-horse style pony. There’s a lot I can (and likely will) still do with him, but this is as far as I got with him today. The second photo is another one I did, starting from a source photo (the cave pony was done from scratch) which was then modified with the “auto paint” program, then taken over to PS and merged with the original photo. This was from a shot I took last fall before the snow fell, and I have always like the textures, soft colors and backlighting in this shot and the others I took at the same time.
Shot three is another happy discovery from the past week. I spent a fair amount of time lurking by the weir on the river last summer gathering pelican shots, but for months they have been notable only by their absence. As I was rooting through a pile of discs, I discovered that I had apparently put them all on a CD, so now the pelicans have come home to roost once more. It’s so nice to see water that isn’t frozen!! These are non-breeding birds as they don’t have the characteristic “keel” on the upper beak of the mature pelican, and are probably “teen-agers”. From the way their were behaving, I thought they were likely two males and a female (the boys were doing a fair bit of showing off and posturing and she was mostly ignoring them) but really I could be all wrong about that since I don’t know how to tell the sexes apart in the world of pelicans.
The last two shots are of the “then and now” sort, taken from in front of my house at two distinctly different times of year. The “now” shot of the wintery street was actually taken during an earlier snowfall in January, but that’s exactly what it looked like this time last week as well, except the depth of the accumulated snow on the sides of the street is considerably higher by now. The other shot was taken in late August or early September, in the golden glow of the long evening.
So who knows what I’ll have to report on for the weather by next week. Could be more winter, could be a rush towards spring. Maybe I’ll also have found the cat photos that are also MIA. Happened with the pelicans, so there’s still hope! And maybe my saddle will be back and I’ll be riding again. That would be nice.

©Copyright 2009 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.

Also tagged in: , , , , | 0 Comments
RSS for Posts RSS for Comments