Typist: Bethany
Cascadia has always inspired the panorama photographer in me. With my first camera, I remember carefully lining up series of photographs to stitch together into a panorama. I was lucky to have spectacular Pacific Northwest landscapes to photograph, with majestically jutting mountains and unique cloud formations making it a little easier to slide a camera across a scene. I loved shooting photos that would later recreate what was wider than even the eyes could see. Back then, panorama stitching was done with tape. Now, I can capture the head turning beauty of my surroundings with a lot less tape and a lot more technology.

Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge Week 8, Landscape: Wide Angle/Panorama
"This is a great opportunity to explore panorama stitching and create a wide sweeping landscape."

The panorama challenge this week made me nostalgic for those carefully lined up single shots I used to take, photographed on faith that they might be able to be stitched together after being developed. I even began to miss developing photos in a dark room! However, those old, film panoramas would never have been able to include dogs. Even with all the amazing technology of panorama stitching, the computer can't make my dogs hold their heads still as I pan the scene. It takes almost as many takes to get a computer stitched panorama of the dogs exploring Cascadia as I used to shoot to line up the mountains, clouds or shoreline on film. At least after several takes with the dogs, we get to move on. Remembering constantly changing rolls of film suddenly makes me a lot less nostalgic. That, and these tape free panoramas of gorgeous Cascadia.

Less tape? More fur? What do you like best about modern photography?

This post is a part of the Dogwood Photography 52 Week Photography Challenge. Please see more of our photo challenge posts here.

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Typist: Bethany
The dogs have seen all the road trip gear hauled out so many times, when the dog stuff is getting packed, they get excited. Really excited. So excited, in fact, that they seem disappointed when everything is in the car, ready to go, and we spend one more night at home. I hate packing the day before and having to wait until morning to leave too. I never sleep very well... I am just too eager to hit the road! So, are the dogs truly enthusiastic about traveling or are they just feeding off of my strong wanderlust emotions? When we arrive somewhere, anywhere, the car slows down, and I begin to delightedly look around, Wilhelm, Brychwyn, and Huxley do too. I can't wait to get out and explore! Either can the dogs. Maybe we are the luckiest foursome ever to have found others that share our exploring passion. Maybe my dogs love me so much that whatever makes me happy, makes them happy. Judging by how difficult it is to get the dogs to look away from me for a photo, I thought the latter was probably true. But after viewing the photographs I managed in this weeks Dogwood 52 photo challenge, maybe Huxley, Wilhelm, and Brychwyn just love to travel. 

Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge Week 7, Portrait: Faceless
"Tell someone's story without showing their face."

Capturing photographs of the dogs traveling exhilaration is easy. Sharing their love of travel in photos is one of the reasons we are the Cascadian Nomads! What was challenging for this weeks faceless portraits, is shooting the dogs from behind. Sure they love exploring where we are, but they are trained to turn towards me for photos. I had to be sneaky, and aware of moments that each dog was really enthralled with our wanderings. The most challenging part of all was that I am always invigorated by our journey's surroundings as well! So maybe Huxley, Wilhelm, Brychwyn and I have a passion for travel in common. Maybe because every aspect of traveling, from packing to unpacking, makes me happy, the dogs are happy about travel too. I am not sure I need to know why my dogs love to travel so much. I just care that we get to keep going places together for many years to come.

Does your dog do something just because you love it?
Do you do something just because your dog loves it?

This post is a part of the Dogwood Photography 52 Week Photography Challenge. Please see more of our photo challenge posts here.

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Typist: Bethany
Travelers can check and recheck attraction hours, research every possible route, call several times to make sure pets are allowed, and prepare for every possible touring scenario. But all travelers know that despite massive preparations, something is bound to go wrong. It has been my experience that when travel plans sour, we end up enjoying the sweetest traveling moments.

Jason and I have been taking the pets on a February road trip to the Columbia River delta for years. This year, the pet friendly motel we always stay in changed owners and was no longer as pet friendly, the craft beer festival we always attend sold out before we got our tickets, and the forecast during our trip was for days and days of huge winds and inches of rain. I wasn't going to let a lack of somewhere to stay, something to do and a risk of an entire trip of soaking wet dogs stop me from getting some much needed time away. So despite soured plans, we ended up in a fantastic hotel, with an amazing view of the stormy weather, and Jason and I enjoyed beer tasting at some craft breweries we had never been to before. It doesn't get any sweeter than that!

Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge Week 6, Artistic: Candy
"Your artistic interpretation this week should be inspired by something sweet. A great chance to play with macro photography."

This post is a part of the Dogwood Photography 52 Week Photography Challenge. Please see more of our photo challenge posts here.

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Typist: Bethany
I love this time of year in Cascadia. I love the temperatures, the rain, the snow covered mountains, the stormy waters, the myriads of cloud types, and the light beaming through. What I do not love is being so sick that I cannot enjoy every second of my spectacular bioregion's winter beauty. But I accept that with the good comes the bad, and vice versa. I have endured fourteen days and counting of miserable head, throat, and lung congestion, all while still healing broken and separated ribs, but I have managed to enjoy a little storm watching with the dogs. And, of course, capture some fantastic photographs of our adventure.

Dogwood Photography Photo Challenge Week 5, Landscape: Black and White
Look for a scene with great contrast that will make a great black and white.

More difficult than bundling up and venturing out with dachshund Wilhelm, corgi Brychwyn, and collie Huxley between Pacific Northwest storms, has been choosing photos to post through blurry eyes and between sneezes. Thanks to the stark beauty of a storm looming over Puget Sound, the varied viewpoints at Emma Schmitz Park in West Seattle, and my three creative canine models, I had a large amount of heavily contrasted storm photos to choose from. I think I finally managed a clear enough head to choose the best of the black and white storm watching dogs bunch. We'll see what I think once I am 100% again but for now, I have to go back to using every bit of energy I have making sure the dogs keep being as happy as they are pictured above.

This post is a part of the Dogwood Photography 52 Week Photography Challenge. Please see more of our photo challenge posts here.

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