Friday, August 29, 2008

Blogs of Note: Impressive pet photography from Paige at Look Away

Roxy in repose


Ginger, motionless


Dollie in motion (as always)



I've decided to start featuring posts about my favorite blogs. I'm often a silent observer of other people's blogs, always hidden in the shadows and being amazed by what others are blogging about. I often take ideas or inspiration from them, yet rarely do I leave comments about what I've seen. I do always share these blogs with my friend Georgia, but I'd also like to share them with a wider audience (you!). So I'm starting a feature called "Blogs of Note" with one of my recent favorites, Look Away.

Being a somewhat avid amateur photographer of pets and animals, I am always amazed by other photographers' ability to capture their subjects in sharp focus. I'm especially impressed by Paige and the never-ending portraits of her cat, Roxy. No matter what the setting or the situation, Roxy is always rendered in razor sharp detail, down to her whiskers.

How does Paige do this? I am utterly stupefied. Because, as you can see, my pets are never still. Wait, I take that back—Spanky is a little bit of a supermodel, but certainly not the rest of them (Max, Dollie, and Adora). My cat Ginger is also a rather good model, but she lives with my parents, and when I am over there she is often hard to find.

So needless to say, I'm a serious devotee of Paige's blog. I check in weekly to see what beautiful images she has captured of Roxy, among other things, since Paige is an awesome photographer and has just started her own photography business. I'm jealous, yet I'm also inspired to continue working hard at my adopted craft, trying to remember to use that tripod and lay off the caffeine to avoid the shakes, although I admit I do like some of the blurry shots I capture. Then maybe one day I'll have my own series of pet photos that blow the viewer away, like Paige's pictures do.

(Photo of Roxy the cat courtesy of Look Away)

2 comments:

georgia b. said...

oh, wow! she's very good. i just checked out her blog. i like how it is set up. i also wanted you to check out the bottom of this blog:
http://kathblack.blogspot.com/
i like how she has the FLICKR link and photos at the bottom of the page. i was thinking you should do something like this with all your photos on FLICKR—especially your "Favorites" album.
I really like your pet pics just as much as the one's on Look Away. It's neat how hers look so posed, but i like the motion and movement of the ones when your pets are not still.
I still love the one of Adora on your various skirt patterns the best!

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris! Just saw your post about my blog and I am honored! Thank you for all the kind words about my Roxy pics. One of the reasons I am able to get so many photos of her being still is because she is LAZY. She does a lot of laying around and spends most of her days migrating from spot to spot sleeping. Also, I have a very fast lens that is great in low light. So when she is moving I am able to capture her. I shoot with a Canon Rebel XT and the lens I almost always use is a Canon 50mm 2.5 compact macro. It makes all the difference. When I was using a point and shoot I would get so frustrated with the slowness of the shutter. I would press the button and by the time I took the picture Roxy was in another room. It was part of the reason I switched to the SLR.

Anyway, thanks again! And I see that you live near Chicago. We just moved away a year ago and I do miss it.