Another Egregious Dog PhotoBomb

I was going down the side steps to take in laundry when I noticed that all the rain this summer has created an explosion of color in the plantings on the stone steps. These steps, created with hand-hewn native Ohio sandstone from the foundation of a barn that once stood where our house now stands, are a little too widely spaced to be comfortable for navigation. I'm used to traversing them; I run up steps two by two anyway, so they work fine for me. (Are you surprised?) We only had five hand-hewn blocks, and a pretty steep hill to put them in. But they’re pretty darn fabbo for a terraced garden.

 

For this south-facing site, I choose dry-adapted plants that also give maximum color impact: portulacas, purslanes, catnip “Walker’s Low,” and golden thyme. The staple is ice plant, Carpobrotus edulis, a beachfront  perennial, native to South Africa, that persists and multiplies year in and year out. It's the one with needlelike gray-green leaves and finely cut magenta daisy flowers. I about croaked when I saw it growing wild along Monterey Bay, CA.  I assumed then that it was native, but now understand (thank you, readers!) that it crowds out native plants and is really bad news on the California coast. Here in Ohio, it's well-contained and I like the fact that it's a perennial; that such an exotic-looking creature comes back after the toughest winters. It's easy to propagate by sticking a cutting in moist soil, so I do.

The beauty of ice plant is that rabbits hate it. I've tasted it and see why--very salty-bitter. Not sure why its species moniker is edulis. Purslane (the redder one in the photo above) is also low on the rabbit nom list. Yuck. Now, rabbits eat portulaca like candy. So I interplant portulaca after the ice plant and purslane have taken off, and their yuckiness seems to protect the weaker portulaca from bunnehs. Just to be sure, I sprinkle dried blood over the portulaca until it's established.

So the kids are sitting at the top of the steps discussing some mail-order shoes Phoebe just got, and it makes such a nice summer tableau that I'm shooting away at them before switching to the flowers. Chet Baker always assumes anything that comes in the mail is a present for him. So he's nosing around the wrappings, hinting that he'd like a present, too. It's all very cute.

The kids don't know I'm taking their picture, and that's how I like it best. I have my shutter sound turned off so I can be stealthy. But Chet Baker notices me shooting silently away.

He comes trotting down the hill toward me. Is he doing what I think he's doing?

Yes, he is. He positions himself on the step right in front of me and looks up at the camera. Stares right into the lens, he does.

That was not my best smile. Here is a better one. Now, isn't that a much better picture than you were taking before? With me, Chet Baker, in it?

At this point the kids notice that Chet has bombed yet another photo, and they can't believe he took it upon himself to do it, unbidden. I didn't call him--I didn't say a word to him. He just assumed I wanted him front and center. He looks a little hurt that they're laughing and exclaiming at his hamminess.

But he soon recovers his composure and offers me his trademark noble stare into the distance. They're still laughing. Honey badger don't care.

Bacon, you are something else. Just something else. Thank you for immeasurably improving my photos of kids and flowers.

Any time, Mether. You know that everything's better with Bacon in it.

Chet. SQUIRREL.

Dog photography, or dogtography, as I like to call it, is a dance between the photographer and her subject. 

I have two modes when I'm shooting Chet Baker. This is Mode 1, which involves a bit of coaching and back-and forth. It's a bit like the old cliche of the fashion photographer who goads his subject to strike ever-more-outrageous poses by raving and cheering her on. For the gender sensitive, please switch the pronouns in that sentence. I could definitely see being a fashion photographer to those Calvin Klein boys.

Chet Baker was trying to catch a few Z's when I noticed his ultracute paw position. You'll see he has an antler tucked into his bed, too, for those sudden urges to chew.

Always with the antler.

Chet Baker. Are you asleep?

 Hunh? I was... What is it?

Chet Baker. What if there was a SQUIRREL out there?

A squirrel? Do you think there is a squirrel out there? Like, on the feeder?

 I happen to know that you are lying, Mether. There is no squirtle out there. I can tell by the way you said it, and the fact that you are not looking out the window, because you are pointing your camera at me.

It is going to take a lot more than the rumor of a squirtle to get me out of my warm cozy Dogburger.

I know. I'm sorry, Bacon. But thank you for the pictures. My favorite is the one where your little purple lip is hanging down, where you are starting your yawn. 

In my next post, I will explore Mode 2 of Dogtography, a far less obtrusive mode, which can result in photographs rich with mystery and meaning.

The Light, The Moment, The Dog

We move along on this June morning, headed back home. Chet starts to turn down Stanleyville Road, always a favorite destination for its cattle and barn cats. "No, honey, we're going up to the church," I say, and he immediately corrects his course and bounds up the Waxler Church driveway ahead of me. It's so good to have a dog who understands English.

We visit Ada Hune first. Of course you'd plant a sweetheart rose over a 14-year-old girl. 

Chet comes and sits with Ada for awhile while I tell her how beautiful her rose is today. She doesn't send any rainbows or orbs, but I feel her presence intensely. 

We go to the door, and there's a tattered old spicebush swallowtail resting on the lintel. It isn't afraid of Chet. He wouldn't hurt it anyway. 

Virginia creeper curls and purrs around the front stoop, wanting in.

I go in and sing a new song I'm working on, a cowboy song. The prairie gets songs out of me every time. Writing a song is sometimes the only thing that gets to certain aches, puts gentle pressure on them until they release just a bit. Singing it helps, too.

Chet lies down to doze while I work on it in the resonant space of the sanctuary. I love being far from anyone, able to sing unheard. This is my rehearsal space, among all the other things it means to me. I marvel that it stands here unlocked, and I can rent it any time I want.

He gets up and finds a spotlight of sun, as Boston terriers are wont to do. I believe he is aware how photogenic he is.

The light in this place kills me, every time. The light and the fusty smell and the presence of so many spirits. The walls are painted the lightest, most subtle mint green, perfect with the worn brown pews. It's such a simple place, but it fills something in my heart to be here, to visit it in every kind of light and weather. But for the mice I could probably live here. There are a LOT of mice.

My favorite shot of the day, Chet turning to go outside and see what's what. His neat little paws, his lovely shiny coat, the shadow he casts, the fluid motion implied, the perspective of the pews...the outside beckoning. Can you hear the catbird singing, preaching in the multiflora hedge just beyond that open door? 

Before we head home, we snoop around an old farmhouse that's now used as a hunting cabin. 

Listen, pry, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. We are not here long. --Walker Evans

When we had our kitchen renovated in 1999, I wanted a linoleum floor. I chose a single-sheet Congoleum that looks like tile. Our contractor, a respected friend, didn't think much of that; he doesn't like building materials that are trying to look like other materials. He advised ceramic tile. "But tile breaks everything you drop on it, and this is going to be a hard-working kitchen, a baby (Liam) underfoot too. I need a kinder floor than tile." Of course, it was to be my floor, so I won in the end. I'm fine with Congoleum. That looks like tile.

But I thought of Dan and felt his point being driven home as I looked at this marvelous...stuff, this, um, covering, so badly wrapped around the back of the old house. I don't know what you call it--asphalt shingle sheeting? Whatever it is, it's trying real hard to look like brick.

 Epic fail. But a great backdrop for Chet. And yes, the porch is sloping that badly.

Those neat little paws again. 

He is a picturemaker, a perfect muse, walking through every painting I see, pausing just long enough to let me record each fleeting mood and moment. Sometimes I'll miss the moment, and I'll have to ask him to go back for me. I did that in the shot below. Well of course. I'll go back. How's this alert look?

 I'm always flabbergasted when I try to photograph any other dog. They simply don't get how to have their picture taken, or hate the way the camera stares at them and actively try to thwart it. It's nearly impossible to get a decent clear photo, much less the evocative portraits I make of Chet every day. Other dogs never stop moving; they poke their noses at the lens; they bowl me over; they constantly turn away. And I realize that this little dog is actively working with me to make these images. He stops still and poses on purpose.  He knows what makes a good shot and he gives me that.  

What a gem we have in Chet Baker. I treasure him more with every passing day, every pat of his sleek hide, every new gray hair on that dear wise brow.

Dog-Bombing. Again.

If this little corner of southeast Ohio isn't the most beautiful place on earth, it's darn close. Sure, there's Fiji and New Zealand and Antarctica, there's the Swiss Alps and Taos and Greenland and oh I don't know how many other places much touted for their beauty. Maybe it's just that this is the kind of beauty I need, crawling with bugs and popping with blossoms. Plus, I love the skies and the clouds we get here.

So I try to capture it. I was working with this butterfly weed swarming with swallowtails. And there was this one impudent stalk of Queen Anne's Lace determined to spoil my composition. I didn't want to frighten the swallowtails, nor did I want to bend that stalk down, because it made me smile.

What if I were to frame this composition vertically? Would that work?

Wow. That's cooool. By George, I think I've got it! Wait. What's that in the background?

It appears to be an animal. Black.

And white. With a white face.

And it's taking a long loop around and headed directly for the subject of my photos, which is a butterfly weed all aflutter with swallowtails.

I have come to recognize the unique way this dog, whom I now recognize as my own Chet Baker,** apologizes for a small intrusion. He puts his ears back and sticks his tongue out. He does this when he knows he is doing something he shouldn't, but is compelled to do it.

You will not mind if I get into your composition, will you?

The problem was not the Queen Anne's lace. The problem is that there were too many butterflies. It was too busy. So there. I have gotten rid of the butterflies for you. They will not bother you any more.

I am sure you will wish to engage my services on your next photoexpotition. I am always available. Just yell BACON! and I will come running. Or you can try to sneak out without me. But you will not succeed.

**Truth be told I knew it was him all along.

Photography Tip: Get Down!

Back behind the barn, an old tree supports new barbed wire. I know without even looking for the bark that it’s a sassafras. We’ve got a lot of sassies in our woods. They are beloved by pileated woodpeckers for their tendency to go hollow, which was my first tip as to its identity. 

And in those hollow cores invariably dwell carpenter ants, the backbone of the big woodpecker’s diet. In life, they bear navy-blue drupes which feed bluebirds, thrushes, woodpeckers, cardinals, waxwings and doubtless many others. Their mitten-shaped leaves are highly aromatic, smelling of Big Buddy bubble gum when first crushed, segueing into a sweet spicy scent that finally collapses into fresh-cut grass. Their roots, boiled, make a lovely light root beer. I’m not sure the wood is good for much other than woodpeckers, but already the tree has many charms to recommend it.

I know that he has been here recently, the landowner, because of how fresh the cut vegetation still is. And here are the tracks of his tires in the mud.

 Yes, he was here only yesterday afternoon. I suppose one day I’ll run into him. Will I turn away before he sees me? Will I step into the white pines and study him for awhile before deciding? Will I tell him how much this old place means to me? Probably. I think we need to tell people we appreciate them. Places, too.

 

Here’s the welljack for the oil and gas well that once supplied the house with heat and the means to cook. Somebody’s planted crown vetch to cover the scars of the bulldozer that cleared the patch. Nasty plant, crown vetch, but oilguys don’t know or appreciate that. And the Soil Conservation Service is still giving it out to landowners as a quick groundcover. Duh. As a species, we are very slow learners.

Chet and I have enjoyed the farm, and we turn for home as the air begins to warm up. He pauses in the road to sniff a bunch of nascent chicory and I drop down low to capture the road running off over his bat ears. Mmmm. 

The phrase coined by a photographer unknown to me, and gleaned from someone else’s comment on a photo, comes to mind: “Don’t patronize your subject.” So many photos are taken from five feet up. Most people photograph their dogs looking straight down on them, so you get a huge head and a tiny body and no idea what the dog actually looks like. And no sense of how he sees his world. I get down with Chet and try to see him as another dog would see him, and see his world as he does, and he takes on a kind of majesty that is his rightful due.

 The same goes for flowers. A bug’s eye view is ever so much more satisfying, and it has the added bonus of giving you a slice of habitat and sky that really places the plant in space.

So get down on your knees, people, put your cameras on the ground and see how that changes everything.

More Dogtography

Chet, pensive, in the blue-eyed Mary. I'm happy with this shot because, although Chet looks a bit dark, the color of the flowers comes through. It's really difficult to photograph a black dog in sunlit surrounds. The same thing happens when I turn my camera to black Angus cattle. They look kind of ghostlike and the background gets blasted out to almost white. I hit the same obstacle when photographing hippos and rhinos in Africa. Large, very dark objects fool the light meter into opening way up, which blows out the background. So this photosafari was an exercise in fiddling with aperture and ISO. I got it right a few times.

The Bacon purely loves wildflower safaris. So do I. To take a couple of friends with the express purpose of admiring flowers...well, that's one of life's greatest luxuries. 

Chet Baker gazes up, looking for squirtles. Looking as happy as he feels. 

Pensive again. The boy knows how to relax.

If I look just one more time, there may be a rodent.

Meanwhile, Shila's focusing on wild larkspur, a real rarity around here.

We find the King of all Larkspur.

and a very nice toadshade (Trillium erectum)

What looks like grass growing around it is actually wild camas, a kind of lily.

I can't stop shooting pictures of Chet. Knowing him as I do, I know he's going to want to explore the pool below a gorgeous little waterfall on Newell's run. So I set up and pre-expose and pre-focus on the rock I know he'll use to enter the pool. Bingo. If only he were a bobcat...

He stops to take a drink, my little Narcissus looking at his reflection.

He meanders through the pool. And, unexpectedly, leaps. And the Canon 70-300 L series telephoto lens, with the nimble Canon 7D body, saves that shining moment. For me, it's the shot of the day, of the week, maybe of the month. 

He is the perfect dog.  Except when he rolls in coyote poo on a perfect spring day in this perfect spring place. He comes creeping up to me, ears back and eyes saying I'm so sorry Mether! I couldn't help myself! and I know even before the smell hits me that he's found something deathly bad to roll in. 

I play my part and give him a round scolding before scrubbing him with leaves and dirt and taking him back down to the creek for a cold bath, which is the best I can do under the circumstances.

Diane, who I suspect is here to visit Chet Baker as much as me, feels very sorry for the crestfallen Bacon, who only moments before was my Olympian ideal of dog perfection. Well, that's what living with a Boston terrier can be like. You're gazing down fondly, maybe embracing this sweet animal, cuddling him close and pbbbbbt! and you drop him like a hot potato and wave your arms around like there's a swarm of African killer bees buzzing around your head. Smells. With Bostons, it's all about smells. Some they make themselves, and some they outsource. All are bad.

Sara says that emanatory capacity is all that stands between her and a Boston terrier puppy. Imagine. Well, I can imagine. This is my life.

It is good to have friends who love you no matter what. Miss Diane loves me no matter what. She is nicer to me than you are, Mether. Someday you will be sorry you wrote such things about me. If you have nothing nice to say you should just not say it.

Chet Baker you know I love you.