New Blog!

I know, like I really have time for ANOTHER blog. But I wanted to separate my photography stuff from my Rowan stuff. So from now on photo blog posts will be here:

http://photolespoir.wordpress.com/

Still VERY much under construction.

How, and not how, to take a win picture

So. Over the last month Rowan and Caleb have been to a couple shows. Rowan has been cleaning up, Caleb, not so much. But he's getting there. I am happy to report that one of the wins was owner handled. Which means I showed him and the judge pointed to US for the winner. The other win Rowan had a professional handler, and it shows. See:

This horrid stack (stack meaning me putting his feet in the right spot and making him look perdy, or trying to at least) that does Rowan NO justice done by yours truly:

Then there is this elegant, beautiful dog stacked quite nicely done by his professional handler. YES, these are pictures of the same dog within a few weeks of each other. I guess that's why I pay Trent the big bucks.

Either way both wins were for two points and Rowan is well on his way to getting his AKC Champion title! And despite my terrible stacking skills, I'll continue to show my boy as well as have Trent handle him from time to time. Because there really is nothing like sitting back and watching your boy go!

Beer Butt Chicken Recipe

You know you have gone from wild 20 something year old to lame domesticated house wife when you start posting recopies on your blog. BUT there is beer involved! So I'm not totally lame, right??

Beer Butt Chicken

(aka Beer Can Chicken, but I like to be politically incorrect as much as possible)

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Chicken
• 1 16oz tall boy can of the beer of your choice
• 3/4 stick of butter
• Salt or Season Salt
• Pepper
• Any spices you like on your chicken. I used lemon pepper, season salt, pepper and herbs de Provence my mommy sent me from France :)
• 2-3 cloves fresh pressed garlic
• 1/4 Olive Oil

Cooking Instructions

1. Open tall boy. Take a swig, or 4. However many it takes to drink about a 1/4 of it.
   
   
2. Pre-heat your grill to medium heat.
   
   
3. In a small sauce pan melt butter, add your seasonings, and ALL the garlic. Just heat enough to melt the butter and mix it all up. Keep your spices out to season the chicken later.
   
   
4. Pour your delicious buttery spice mix into the can, a funnel is very helpful. Put the can somewhere out of sight so you don't accidentally drink it.
   
   
5. Get another beer to sip on.
   
   
6. Coat chicken in a thin layer of olive oil, inside and out. Yes, you have to violate the chicken multiple times.
   
   
7. Rub a healthy layer of salt, pepper, and spices all over the chicken. Inside and out again.
   
   
8. Find your can and pour a little olive oil in your hand. Lube up the sides of the can so it doesn't get stuck in the chicken...I'm not a perv I swear. Although I've had to say that twice in blog posts now...
   
   
9. Lower the chicken on to the can, be sure not to squish the can at all, and carefully put him on the grill. Be careful it's a little tipsy and slippery. Mine fell over but I managed to save it.
   
   
10. Roast on medium heat for 1.5-2 hours depending on your grill. Keep it from direct big flames and flare ups. Juices should be clear and skin a crispy golden brown. Cut into top part a little to make sure, if need be. Don't over cook it!!
    
11. You'll need some good tongs to get the birdie off the grill and can out of its butt. It should come out easily by lifting the bird and pulling down on the can. Two people works best, good luck. This part was a little sketchy for me ;)
    
    
12. Carve bird and enjoy the looks on the faces of your guests, I guarantee its the best roasted chicken they've ever had!

Josh dug a giant hole, replaced all my sprinkler valves, created a better drainage system, and sealed it like Fort Knox.

All so Caleb could continue attacking the sprinkler heads:

And so my weeds would continue to thrive:

Thank you babe, you are the best.

- N

Workin Hard for My Money

I'm not much of an entrepreneur. I can't even spell it, thank you Google Chrome spell checker! But I am trying to explore the idea. While I LOVE spending hours in Lightroom and Photoshop, I've decided that my addiction needs to start earning its keep. Or at least support the cause. So I have joined the masses of talented people on Etsy.com and started my own shop selling prints of my work. Find them HERE, and on the side of my blog.

I am happy to report I've already sold one copy of my Dirt Bag print! I almost puked I was so excited. Then I got all sweaty and nervous. What if she despises the actual print? What if it takes 17 years to get here and she sends me hate mail? What if, what if, what if. See, I'm not cut out for this artsy do it yourself crap. We'll see how long it lasts ;)

I Hate Cats

Last weekend Josh and I took the pups up to his parents property in Sedalia to go camping. They have 14 acres that are surrounded on three sides by the Pike National Forest. Needless to say it's beautiful up there and full of wildlife. We loaded up the Celica, yes all four of us plus a million pounds of camping equipment fit in a Celica, and headed up there on Friday night.

Josh expertly set up camp, in the dark, and we were all next to a perfect camp fire by 10. Around 12 we decided to call it a night and pile in the tent. It's quite spacious and we had a full sized air mattress, it was SO comfy. Rowan decided he was going to ignore the nice pad I made him and instead turned our giant army bag with all our clothes into a his own custom bed. He furiously dug around for a while sending socks and tee shirts flying, then turned 9 thousand circles, and finally with a giant grunt plopped himself down in his nice fluffy nest followed by a huge sigh of relief/comfort. Caleb can sleep anywhere and took over Rowan's abandoned bed, at least it got SOME use.

We all fall asleep quickly after a long hard week plus all the fresh air. At around 4am, the oh so beautiful wildlife I spoke of tried to freaking EAT US!!!

Let me clarify. At around 4am Rowan's alarms went off and he started barking like a SOB. Not a "hey look a bunny" bark, this was a "we are in danger, must protect my family" bark. I almost peed my pants he sounded so scary. I get him and the rest of the tent somewhat settled down, only to have a freaking MOUNTAIN LION scream and set everyone off again. HERE is why, listen to what the damn things sound like! The thing had to be no more than 20 feet from the tent. Josh starts frantically searching for the spotlight and shotgun (we were prepared for bears) and I was simply trying to keep my s**t together. My number one priority was to find dog leashes, then my shoes, of all things. We find our necessities and Josh, being our fearless leader, pops his head out the tent to try and spot/scare off the damn thing. Well we can't see the lion anywhere, so we stay in the tent and keep an eye out the windows. After about 20 minutes, Rowan seems at ease, i.e. back in his bag, so we all climb back in our beds too.

About 3 minutes later Rowan starts doing his "chicken bark," kind of a "buff, buff, buff" sound, then goes full out again with the full alert "I'm going to eat your SOUL!!" bark. Josh quickly looks out the window and the MOFO was 10 feet from the GD tent!!! He just starts yelling as ferociously as he can, Rowan is still barking, and Caleb says what the hell I'll join in too. Apparently my three boys cussing the lion out as loud as possible was enough to scare the f-ing thing off for good. We settle back down and try to get some rest.

The next morning, Rowan was incredibly interested in sniffing this big rock about 3 feet from the tent. I have a feeling that's where it was...SCARY. So thanks to my hound dog and his little side kick we did not get eaten by the wildlife. We spent another night in the same spot, but Josh built a fortress around our tent. Nothing was getting in without us knowing, and we were fully equipped with firearms. Rowan wakes us up again around 3 or 4 and we hear it screaming, but it was way far off terrorizing some other family. Oh and Rowan had moved into our 2 person sleeping bag on the air mattress....

According to Josh's dad, female mountain lions make that sound when looking for a mate, maybe she had the hots for Rowan? They too have spotted lions in the woods, hence the guns. They are known to snatch up children surrounded by adults in broad daylight, so if you are ever camping where the MIGHT be one, take a gun and take your dog. Amen. And now for some pics:

Caleb is Annoying

But he is a Cattle Dog and that is to be expected. What's even more annoying is that his dad, Josh, thinks it's cute when he is annoying. But what is most unbelievably annoying is that sometimes he really is cute when being annoying. Like when he insists on sticking his face out the sunroof even though I tell him not to. I am 100% against dogs sticking there heads out the window because I am an over protective mom and feel the need to protect him from the adverse effects of bugs/dirt/rocks flying in his nose/eyes/ears, the unpredictability of traffic and I have now witnessed 3 different dogs jump out of car windows on I-25. But sometimes when we are on a slower speed road we let him be annoying/cute:

Josh looks particularly annoying/cute too

Why do dogs love the wind in their face, but hate when you blow in their face. Bad breath?

This boy has the balance of a cat. And really cute paws. And nails I need to dremmel.

Now this chick knows texture! I have been messing with my own variations and haven't come up with anything nearly as beautiful as hers. There is definitely a trick to it, I'm slooooowly getting it, but probably won't ever be as good! Hopefully I can win some of her textures through MCP's blog. Either way I had to share these wonderful photos! I have nothing of my own I feel even remotely confident in, so I'll keep working and show ya'll later.

- N

WEIRDO - thats Me!

Remember how I like to go take pictures on my lunch break? Well yesterday instead of making my co-workers think I was a total freak, I thought I would work on the general population of Denver. I've been trying to brainstorm on ways to improve my action shots. At home all I need to do is let the dogs outside and attempt to get pictures of them romping around that have some semblance of a canine. Unfortunately, I can't bring my hounds to work, so I have to get creative, and yesterday I came up with a brilliant plan! I decided to sit down on the sidewalk of the 16th street mall and take pictures of people's feet as they crossed the street. I know, just call me Einstein!.....or not. So here are my wonderful foot/legs/derrière pictures.

I love this guys socks! And that girls boots. And that other girls flats. I like shoes.

I need a pair of cowboy boots.

Business men.

I'm not a perv, I swear I was trying to take a pic of her shoes, they were awesome!

Now that I have totally creeped everyone out I'm going to go paint my fingernails Barbie pink. Because I can, that's why.

- N

Back in the Fall of '09 Josh decided to take on a project that he knew would NOT be easy, but the end result would be beyond bad ass so he dove in head first. This project involves 2 late '80 VW Vans that were owned by this really rad British dude in Vail. Now each of these vans has its coolness factors and use, but separate they were generally giant piles of crap.

The first van, Turtle as we like to call him, is a 1985 Volkswagen Westfalia Camper van, which means its comes standard with two beds, a pop-up top, a two burner gas stove, a sink, a fridge, and all kinds of nifty storage cabinets. HOWEVER, Turtle's motor was blown, not that the 80- horse power motor was worth a crap to begin with.

Turtle and his Kitchen

Disregard the hideous pic, this was back in the day when I had a life and wasn't obsessed with taking pictures of every detail...

Now the second van had a working motor, but that's not what we were interested in. This van is a 1987 Syncro van, which means its 4WD and an awesome off road vehicle. SO, Josh took all the parts that made the Syncro 4WD and put them into the 2WD. Sounds simple right? WRONG. It was a serious switch that involved cutting, welding, and all sorts of other scary stuff, and after 5 months of battling both vans we now have a 4WD Camper van! That still has no motor...

4WD Turtle!

But we're getting to that part. We decided to do a motor swap, because this project isn't hard enough as it is, and went with a motor from the worlds ugliest car, a Subaru SVX. Long story short it has more power and fits in the tiny hole VW cut in the back. So that's where we are in the whole ordeal. Car is built, now it needs a motor, transmission, and differential installed and we're good to go!! Still a lot of work, but we'll get there.

Monster Truck Turtle

Josh bought new springs and shocks to lift it and make the suspension way less sketchy. Don't worry, bigger tires are coming

We got the Syncro pre-Nadia's photography obsession, so I don't have any pictures of it running. Sometime this week I'll tell you the story of actually getting the two vans home from Vail. Scary.

Playing with borders! I'll let them speak for themselves....

Wiener

I'm finally doing Rowan's first point win post, but keepin it short, so here ya go:

Rowan, Caleb, Josh, and I all loaded up in my Subaru WRX sedan (yes, it can be done. No it isn't pretty) and drove to Laramie Wyoming back in May to show the boys in the Laramie Kennel Club show. This was my first time showing Caleb and holy crap is he good. Damn biddable herding breeds. Alas he is a youngster and got totally dumped, aka didn't win squat. Next up was Rowan....4 hours later. So we sat around watching the junior handlers, who make me look like a total idiot, and waited our turn. Well the wait was well worth it and when it was Row and I turn we took winners dog for our very first point! I don't feel like going into details, but basically we need 14 more. Here is the picture from our win:

A few weeks later we did a show in Loveland with the same judge and got reserve winners dog, so I'm going to stalk this guy and milk him for all the points I can. He really is a nice judge and I sincerely thank him for recognizing my sweet hound dogs quality. Amen.

- N

I have an hour lunch everyday. However, I am a cow and generally inhale my Lean Cuisine within about 15 seconds of it coming out of the microwave. So recently I've been using the leftover 59 minutes and 45 seconds to take a stroll around downtown Denver with camera in hand. Usually I find something cool to shoot, but recently I've been totally uninspired by anything I see. Plus I think the bums are starting to catch on....

So today after meandering around for 45 minutes I returned pretty much empty handed. Bummed that I got all sweaty for nothing I decided to make my co-workers think I was even more strange than usual and take pictures from really strange positions IN the office. To my surprise it was fun AND I got a couple shots I like-ish...

Now both of these items are very near and dear to Wade (my coworker) and I hearts. First we have our wack paper clip collection, which features paper clips from all over the world that differ from your average silver clip:

Next we have our rubber band ball. Its about the size of one of those mini-seedless watermelons. Random, but that's the only think I could think of that matched size. It is made up of thousands of rubber bands, duh, but THESE rubber bands came from the mail we get each day, so it's special damn it:

Tomorrow I may give the homeless chess players another go, but they get a little grumpy. I also think it is illegal to photograph people without their consent, but what can I say I like to live on the edge.

- N

I need to stay off the internet...

Because I find things like this:

Soulographer Workshop Workbook

And I want them.

Luckily I'm crafty and posting a link to this book may help me win the book here:

Soulographer Blog

Other recent finds on the internets that I want and can't have:

Pretty Horsey - $70,000

Pretty Lexus - $375,000

1987 VW Van - $64,829.67, no that is not a typo. Oh wait, I have one of those, sorta.

CGC - Canine Good Citizen Test

So I've been meaning to do the AKC CGC with Rowan for, oh the past year and a half, but just haven't gotten around to it. Which is a lame excuse, and I'm going to do it the next chance I get. Both with Rowan and the cow dog. It's a great program that "can help us assure that the dogs we love will always be welcomed and well-respected members of our communities," which is to say that it helps keep Ridgebacks and all other breeds off the dangerous dog lists! As of right now Ridgebacks are accepted in big cities, hotels, and the like, and I need to help it stay that way! So here is a list of things you have to do:

Test 1: Accepting a friendly stranger - both boys have that one down. No problem, unless of course that friendly stranger is offended by crotch sniffing.

Test 2: Sitting politely for petting - there going to have to be a bit more specific about the "politely" part. Caleb has a tendency to jump thanks to his Napoleon complex and Josh's idea of it being "sweet" when he leaps 5 feet to kiss your ear, but he isn't like Rowan who has his balls-on-the-floor problem. That sucker will sit on anything, even prickly straw:

LOOK HOW TINY HE WAS!! (Sorry for the yelling)

Test 3: Appearance and grooming - double check. I'm a little anal about grooming and nails and such.

Test 4: Out for a walk (walking on a loose lead)- uh huh, sure, like this:

Test 5: Walking through a crowd - no prob.

Test 6: Sit and down on command and Staying in place - Um, maybe?

Test 7: Coming when called - Caleb, yes. Rowan, about 63.221% of the time.

Test 8: Reaction to another dog - Caleb will drag me to the other dog and whine the whole time. Rowan will check to see if its a hot chick, then be uninterested either way.

Test 9: Reaction to distraction - no prob. Both boys insisted on sitting in the front seat of the van to watch the fireworks.

Test 10: Supervised separation - this could get ugly. Both are pretty big momma's boys.

So maybe I've been putting this off due to BAD DOGS. Well at least I now know where we stand. Drop in classes here we come! Here is a link to the full description of tests, and here is the main link to CGC info. Any breed, including mutts, can do it and you can try multiple times, so don't be afraid to fail miserably! I'm pretty sure we will!

- N, bad dog trainer supreme!

p.s. a few more pictures I love from this shoot. It was back in ummm....I can't remember. But near the fall of 2009 I believe, during a lure coursing event for Rowan. I thought they were all shit, but turns out with a little tweaking they better than I initially thought! I love you lightroom and photoshop.

Options are bad. Lightroom is good.

If you haven't noticed I get a little carried away with Photoshop. I hear it's a typical newb mistake, but it drives me nuts! Well my friend Kelli has found a cure for me! Its called Lightroom. It has limited options compared to Photoshop. It still has millions of ways to change a picture, but is way simpler and straight forward, great for retards like me. Let me show you some examples.

So here is the SOOC pic:

Rowan looks dark, the sky is blown out, basically my white balance is total shit. At least that's what I think is wrong, I coulda just made that up. Regardless the light is wack.

Now here is what I did with photoshop:

Now I had just gotten TRA actions which are BAD ASS. I used their Big Blue action on the sky and their Yin/Yang on Rowan to lighten up his face and darken the rest. Well as you can see Rowan's face is strange and glowy. Especially right smack dab in-between his eyes. Now I'm not blaming TRA at all, that was totally my doing. I should have used a lower opacity brush and taken my time, but I'm a instant gratification kinda girl and didn't feel like it OK!?

Now look at my Lightroom edit:

Now I know it's still not perfect, but I've only had Lightroom about 4 hours :) But it is significantly better than the SOOC or PS version, and now I can mess with it even more in PS. With a few slides of nifty bars, I corrected some of the major issues without making it look totally fake. Thank you Kelli, I love you. Oh and please excuse his "boys" I know they are distracting, but they are necessary in order to show him. Speaking of, I need to make a post about our first point and the picture! I'll get to that soon.

-Nadia

I am a Masochist...and Proud of It

So as if I didn't have enough things to do in my free time, I have decided to start the nearly impossible feat of archiving all my families old pictures and 35mm slides. My family decided to entrust me with the 16+ giant Tupperware buckets packed full of thousands of pictures. Despite the overwhelming amount of work this adventure is going to be, I am extremely excited! My grandparents were both in the Navy during WWII and lived all over the place, from Japan to Turkey, and my dad was quite the traveler himself throughout his life so these pictures are from all over the WORLD!! I went out and bought a scanner specifically built for 35mm slides and negatives and started last night. Check out some of the gems I've found already!! These are all totally untouched SOOB (straight out of a dusty musty the sent of history and memories box).

This is somewhere in the Himalayas when my dad hiked them back in 1977:

Taj Mahal 1977 taken by John Michael Dormer (aka my pops):

Sanibel Island, Florida (January 1968, thanks Kodak for stamping dates on your slides!!!). The hottie with the incredible blond hair on the left is my dad. Yes, I just called my dad hot....

This is my beautiful Grandmother and my dad. My grandmother wrote on the slide and it looks to say the BÜbada Ferry and was in a box labeled Turkey (and the funny U is used in Turkish, the things I'm learning!), but Google doesn't seem to have heard of such a thing, I'll have to ask my dad or uncle what it is. Date faded off but I'm guessing my dad is about 4, so that would be around 1956. I'm 24 if you're wondering...I'll be 25 in August, but we don't talk about that.

This is my handsome Grandfather. Again the date has faded off, but my grandma did write that this was in Athens:

This one was labeled "little girl we drugged and kidnapped":

I'm kidding. This is me after a long day at the beach on Sanibel Island, Florida. My favorite place in the world, next to Europe. I just wanted to show you how the 35mm negatives come out on my nifty little scanner. I bought it at Khol's and saved a whopping $30! Go get one, they are neat! Saves the pictures at about 1mb, not great, but won't clog up your computer either. Warning: the software it comes with runs like shit on my Windows 7 computer and is VERY slow, but faster than scanning on a color flatbed, so I'm not complaining.

-N

Burn

Edge burning is one of my favorite things to do to pictures. I don't care if its trendy, a fad, or fake. I like it. And always will. It adds drama and focus to your pictures. I seriously have to resist the urge to add it to every single picture I edit. Anyway, let me show you what I'm talking about and how to achieve it!

So here is my before pic:

Pretty dramatic already but lets burn the edges and give it a little more magic:

Subtle but not. I love it. I toned it down a bit, when you initially run the action its very dark, I put the "opacity" to about 50%. If you want more drama, use heavier opacity.

Ok so now here's the good part, you can download the action for FREES from P-Dub's website HERE. You'll need photoshop (duh) and she'll tell you the rest on how to load and use the actions. Don't say I never gave you anything.

And because this blog is dedicated to my sweet pup Rowan, a little story about him related to this picture. I took this last August in France, it's Notre Dame (if you didn't figure that out yet, I forgive you), while I was visiting my mom. I was gone for 10 days and despite my obsession and love for France I missed my pup SOO much it almost made me not want to go, but I did and had the time of my life. But I did have to suppress crying myself to sleep some nights because I didn't have my corn chip- smelling-bed-hogging hound dog snuggling with me. Maybe I'M the one with issues??

-N

Are you guys ready for my favorite action of the week? Well I actually have 2.

So here is the before:

And after:

So. The first action I used was "Big Blue" from the Totally Rad! - Caffeine Jolt to make my sky more blue. Next I used Dodge for Colour to fix the color on Dawns face. And voila in 30 seconds I have a picture that is significantly less shitty!

That's all I got.

Peace.

-N