Photo of the week: January 10, 2012

I swear, the intention of this photo of the week series isn't to have yet another excuse to post pictures of my dogs.

I had a nice photo picked out to share this week and then it went and snowed on Monday. I mean, quasi real, sticked to the ground for a night, fluffy stuff. By Tuesday's sunrise the white dandruff of the gods had quickly disappeared. On Monday night, though, I had two polar opposite dogs - Jax was in heaven while Jewels was in hell!

Another "goal" of mine this year with my camera is to get more comfortable shooting in manual mode. When it comes to shooting something quick or shooting when I'm with a group of people I tend to favor my camera's standard shooting mode. I just don't trust myself yet enough to shoot fast in manual if that makes any sense. So, Monday night when the snow was falling I relied on my T2i's action mode to capture Jax's crazy behavior as he sprinted through the snow and leaped the desk's steps before crashing into me. True story. He hasn't quite figured out how to use the stairs and instead his preferred method of coming into the house is to charge into the house and slide across the den carpet to slow him down before crashing into a wall or human being.

Back to the photo, perhaps I should have moved the outdoor chair that was casting a large shadow in the middle of my photo. There is a solid chance that's where my camera was focusing and reading a large dark spot there the camera decided to use a slower shutter speed. Or, maybe I shouldn't try to take action shots in a poorly lit night time setting.

However, I did want to try to capture Jax's reaction to the first real snow in the new house. Even though he's blurry, you can tell he's happy.

Even without the night time issues, action is such a large part of my life that I need to get better at capturing these motions. My life is far from static and therefore I need to get better at documenting those crazy moments in life. At least that's my goal to work on this year.