Digital Photography at Agility Trials

SUMMARY: Here's what I hate about digital photography.

In "the old days", when a photographer shot photos at an agility trial, the usual routine was to shoot all day Saturday, print the photos overnight, then make them available Sunday by posting, stuffing into albums, or just putting into boxes for you to leaf through.

I could spend maybe 5 minutes, usually less, looking at the photos to identify my dogs. If I liked the shot, I whipped out $6, bought it, took it home, and put it into my album.

Compare and contrast:

Digital photography has put the onus of work on the dog-agility buyer. Understand that I do a lot of digital photography and I spend hours going through my photos, tweaking most individually, labeling them, and uploading them to my photo site. But some--if not most--photographers at trials do only the uploading, with minimal or no sorting and minimal or no editing of any of the files. And they take a whole lot more photos now than they did then, too.

So, instead of maybe 2 to 5 minutes at the trial, now I wait until the photos are available, days or weeks later. Then I scan through barely legible thumbnails on sometimes hundreds of pages containing hundreds or thousands of photos, trying to identify my dogs. Thank goodness that all of my dogs so far have been easier to recognize in thumbnails than, say, black and white border collies, or shelties, or corgis. But it's still a challenge at thumbnail size. It takes real concentration.

For example, I just spent an hour and a quarter going through one photographer's photos of a recent show, and that's without finding anything that I particularly wanted to buy.

If you find a photo of your dog, you click the thumbnail to display a new page to confirm what the photo looks like somewhat enlarged. But of course it's still not quite the same as what you'll see in print; I've been disappointed a couple of times. If you like it, then you click the "buy" button. Then you fill out what size you want and whether you want it cropped and so on, then click the add to cart button. Always waiting for the pages to load, which even on broadband often takes time.

Then you find your way back to the thumbnail page that you were browsing and continue, repeating the whole process for every photo that you're possibly interested in.

Then you go to your shopping cart, fill out all your personal info, go to the payments screen, pay for it via paypal or credit card, meaning that you're going to have to deal with that payment later when it comes due. And you pay postage, which often isn't trivial--it usually makes it so that buying just one photo makes that photo seem amazingly expensive.

Then you wait a week or so for the photos to show up in the mail--which means that someone somewhere is spending the time to package and label them, and ship them, and there's the material used for the shipping container, which now most likely goes right into the recycling bin.

And furthermore, most (not all) photographers charge a stunning fee for the photos. No $6 or $8 prints. We're talking sometimes as much as $20 for 4x6 prints, here. I mean, really. They promote them as works of art, I guess, that are color corrected and cropped and all that. They must get buyers, because they keep doing it. But I resent having to spend all that time and then PAY SOMEONE ELSE more than I used to spend on snapshots. The ones who are still in the under-$10 range are particularly the ones who don't seem to sort (for quality) or do any precropping or anything like that. OK, I can put up with some of that for a lower price.

But I can't even offer to process and print them myself to save $; most photographers charge at least as much for the digital version of a photo on the assumption that then you could, heaven forfend, print as many copies of the photo in any size that you want and THEY wouldn't get any more money for it.

And many of them sell photos through a photo service, removing some of the advantage of dealing in digital--no individual dealing or edits or anything. For example, I recently won cert's for about 6 free photos from one photographer who was generous enough to donate them to various raffles. But I found out afterwards that (a) you can apply only one cert per order and (b) you can apply it only to the photo, not to the postage and handling. And the photographer said, sorry, that's the way it's set up.

From a business perspective, I guess I can understand that. But now i have free cert's that will probably never be used. I guess that makes the photographer happy, too: Looks like a nice guy but never has to deliver.

And are the photos I get any better than the ones I used to get? I'd argue not--because in the day, I bought only the ones I liked that turned out well anyway. Do the photographers make more money at it and are they happier about it? OK, unhappy customer, happy photographers. You figure out how often I buy photos of my dogs any more. Makes me sad, but thank goodness for friends who like to dabble in photography and sometimes do it at agility trials, or I'd have nothing.

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Of Christmas Trees and Grocery Clerks

SUMMARY: The dogs helped me get a tree.

Well, not really; the dogs just happened to be in the car when I picked out a noble fir at an amazing price--less than $40 for a 7-foot tree when it's usually close to $100. Either it was a good year for nobles or the economy's really bad.

With Boost's blue merle coloring and droopy ears, even people in the agility world sometimes mistake her for an Australian Shepherd. People in The Real World almost never figure out that she's a Border Collie. And most don't know what to think about Tika.

So it was interesting to me that, when two grocery clerks were tying my tree to my van's roof rack, and one saw Boost in the passenger seat so was hesitant about opening the door for better access, the other said, "She'll be fine, she's a collie; those are good dogs." Of course he was right on all counts, although I'm not sure that I could guarantee that all BCs would sit calmly and watch.

It surprised me even more, when Tika popped her head up from the back seat, that he also said, "Oh, you have a Border Collie AND an Australian Shepherd--or is she an Aussie?" In my experience, the guy putting the Christmas tree on your car doesn't know nuthin' about no herding dogs. Turns out he has a BC and an Aussie mix. I didn't ask whether he does agility with them--I'd probably know if he did.

But it was fun to have the experience. And now my house smells WONderful with the scent of evergreen wafting in from the living room. Maybe I'll even get around to putting lights and decorations on it this year.

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The Curse of the Baskervilles

SUMMARY: In which Holmes follows a 12-hours-old trail and discovers the culprit.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up in the night to let Boost out, was seated at the breakfast table, staring at a large orange blot upon the doormat.

"Well, Watson, what do you make of it?"

"I think," said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, "that the doormat is soiled."

"Ah," said Holmes, "but in what manner?"

I knelt to better examine the offending stain, and the color and odor soon enlightened me. "It seems to be dog excrement, perhaps transferred from the sole of a shoe in passing."

"Good," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and standing, "though elementary. Pray tell, did you notice any additional soiling?"

Taken aback, I looked around me. Sure enough, another blot, perhaps a stride away from the first, on the kitchen floor. And another. And another.

"What further inferences may we draw?" asked Holmes. He began to pace slowly and methodically, following the trail of blots into the hallway. I hurried so as not to be left behind.

"Perhaps," said I, "someone stepped in the offending substance in the yard, failed to notice it, and trailed it into the house?"

"Ah, yes, the leavings of the Hound of the Baskervilles," said Holmes. He said no more as he followed the trail down the stairs to the laundering room, back up to the front hall, up the marked main stairs to the carpet on the upstairs landing, into the master bedroom, across the carpet to the far closet, back and into the lavatory, back out across the carpet, and to the small closet, where the stains ended at a large pile of shoes.

"The thing takes shape, Watson. Might I ask you to hand me that brown shoe, and we will conclude this matter anon."

I did so with alacrity, and sure enough, a large wad of poo remained embedded in the arch of the shoe. The mystery remains, however, how the wearer of the shoe walked all that way the prior evening without smelling or feeling or seeing the soft gooey stuff underfoot.

All we can say is, thank goodness for the dog owner's best friends, the dust buster and the spot lifter. And there went half an hour of the morning, cleaning. What a curse.

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Chewing

SUMMARY: I've been a little stressed lately and needed a constructive way to channel my gnashing of teeth.

"So, Teek, ol' buddy ol' pal, can you explain this chewing-the-bully-stick thing?"


[[Ummm...can I go now?]] "C'mon pleeeze oh c'mon pleeeeeeeeezzzze???"


[[Maybe if I ignore her, she'll go away.]] "OK, like this? With the stick between my paws? Am I doin' it right? huh? am I? huh huh? Am I?"

[[I'm really not believing this--]] "Gnarrrr arrrrgh rrarr grnarrr..."


Somehow it was less satisfying than I had expected.

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Training

SUMMARY: Winter doesn't stop agility in California--but it might stop me.

I've heard people say how nice it is to have a break from training and trialing dogs during the off season. However, as I've noted here before, there is no off season for agility in my world.

We have a USDAA trail in two weeks, and it's an off-the-wall combination of events: all the Tournament classes (DAM Team, Steeplechase, Grand Prix) with also Jumpers, Gamblers, and Pairs. (No Standard, no Snooker.) AND--because some people really like the old games from back when trials were small and finished early in the day--Strategic Pairs.

I've decided that I need to refocus Tika's contacts on hitting her 2on/2off, and refocus Boost's contacts on STOPPING AND WAITING AND NOT TURNING TOWARDS ME. Boost's were so good for so long but have just started getting sloppy this summer.

So I've done a bit of nose-touch work to targets, on and off the dogwalk. Not a lot, just some, on days when I'm in the mood. And the mood is holding me back; maybe the rest of the world doesnt' take a break, but I feel like *I* need a break.

For instance, I haven't had jumps up in my yard since we came back from Scottsdale, and that's been almost a month, and I know that I need to practice lateral lead-outs and serpentines and keeping bars up. But I just don't wanna. The weather this year isn't encouraging an off season, either; it's supposed to be possibly into the mid-70s (F) today.

The dogs are going nuts because I've been ignoring them a bit while life goes on around me. Plus no class this week--for some reason the instructors didn't want to schedule classes on Thanksgiving day, go figure!

So, OK, I'll go do the agility trial but I might not shine because we're not practicing that things that we need to practice. And is that a waste of money and time? Torn. Conflicted. But it's a beautful day. Maybe I'll take the dogs hiking.

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Thankful

SUMMARY: I'm just glad.

Backfill: (Posted Sunday morning.)
My family's all alive and we're all getting along and we love each other. My dogs are healthy and alive. I can afford a house and food. I have a job. I try to remember it's just the basics, just the basics.

Family at the dinner table. Twenty of us--only the niece & nephew in Baton Rouge weren't here.

(Clockwise from bottom left featuring assorted related hair: Brother-in-law Martin's hair, Bro-in-law Doug, Dad's cousin Carol, Dad, Mom, sister Sharon's main squeeze Mark, sister Sharon's hair, sister Linda's hair, Bro-in-law Paul, my cousin's spouse Simon, sister Ann's hair, niece Katie's hair, niece Elizabeth, my ex Jim, his mom, my chair, nephew Alex's hair, sister Susan's hair. Not in photo, me, cousin Dawn, niece Kate, or any of our hair.)

Jamela (cousin's dog) gets some Thanksgiving loving:

Annie (cousin's mom's dog) gets some Thanksgiving loving, but really she was more interested in the food.

The food guest of honor: Mr. Turkey.

Uncle Marty teaches his nieces the finer arts of computer gaming. (Oh, really, they can probably out-geek him any day of the week.)


Mom. Can you believe she turns 80 on Sunday? Her mom didn't look nearly so good on her 80th. No, she doesn't color her hair. I hope I'm so lucky!
But noooo, the hair in front of my ears is already fading...fading... But I'm thankful anyway!

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Missed the Rainbow

SUMMARY: Just a touch of color in the sky

Coming back from our walk, I saw that a third of a rainbow shot up from the ground behind my house into the sky to meet the sunsetty clouds. Despite jogging the last 2 blocks, this was all that remained by the time I got my camera into the yard.

Still pretty cool.

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Agility on Facebook

SUMMARY: Another addictive online time-wasting thing.

Thanks to several agility so-called friends who invited me to join Facebook, I did. Now I must spend at least half an hour a day checking what everyone's up to, because after I plugged in my email address book, I discovered that about 90 people I know are already facebook members.

The main interface is kind of cool, in an insidious addictive way. On your main page, it just has a little box where you type a sentence about what you're doing right now (or thinking or feeling or planning or resenting or hating or loving or...). Then it shows up in a list on all your friends' pages. So my page shows what all my facebook friends are active in, what they're doing, what their lives are like, and so on.

51 of the friends are agility friends (including 6 of you agility blogging pals), so my experience on facebook is primarily agility and dog oriented. (Of the others, 4 are relatives, 10 are sci fi/fantasy writer friends, half a dozen are work friends, and the rest are just random people I've met through the years, most of whom don't know each other.)

The worst part of facebook is all the cool applications that you can sign up for and participate in and engage with your friends in (or compete against them in). My particular bane is Word Challenge. A bunch of my agility friends now seem to be heavily into "Mob Wars" - "Join the Mafia, and start your own mob. Band together with your friends to become the most powerful force in the elite criminal underworld of Facebook." They have invited me to be members of their mobs, but so far I have resisted, although the automated status postings indicate that they're having a good time smuggling liquor, robbing banks, and so on.

You can see that this is all enhancing my agility knowledge and expertise.

Oh--although I have also signed up for Facebook groups including "Blue Merle Border Collies," "Running Contacts," "Agility Vision - Agility Video Service," "USDAA Agility," "NorCal Agility Addicts," "dog agility lovers group," and "Doghouse Arts," (oh and also "No on Prop 8," "SFFWA," "Clarion writers Workshop," "Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor," "International Talk Like a Pirate Day," and other critical social groups like that), there is a whole lot more activity going on in Mob Wars and Word Challenge than in any of those other groups.

Anyway, not that I'm encouraging you to join. It really is a time sink, and so far hasn't really given my any useful agility info. But it has been interesting.

Here are some of the "what Ellen is doing right now" posts I've made recently:

Today: Ellen cries Why why WHY would anyone make a washable dog bed cover out of red fabric that bleeds? Why?! (Poor previously tan dog bed cover...)

Yesterday: Ellen has too much to do and is hoping the dogs might take up a quiet hobby like stamp collecting.

Yesterday: Ellen is taking an Xmas package to the PO for her niece & nephew in Baton Rouge.

Yesterday (OK, maybe i'm posting too often...): Ellen is thinking about turning up the thermostat.

Saturday: Ellen is sorting photos from hiking at Big Basin.

Friday: Ellen is going to take a NAP because she took her nieces to the midnight "Twilight" show.

Thurs: Ellen is going to take a nap so she can take her nieces to the midnight "Twilight" show.

Thurs: Ellen is catching up on facebook. Why did I start this?

Tues (some days are more profound than others): Ellen is vacuuming.

Mon: Ellen ponders Tika's speed, titles, and Performance vs Championship options. (With a link back to my post here at Taj MuttHall. See, you're not missing anything that's really important!)

Sun: Ellen is not sure how we managed it, but Tika Qed 8 of 9 at the NAF USDAA this weekend. (See, you guys already got that from reading Taj MuttHall!)

Fri: Ellen is packed and ready to go do some USDAA.

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Recidivism

SUMMARY: Dang Boost at night.

What, is Boost reading my blog now? She made me get up at 1:00 this morning to let her out.

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Hiking Today

SUMMARY: Took photos among the redwoods.

Left the dogs home today and hiked at Big Basin Redwoods State Park among the majestic redwoods. Photos and commentary here. Here I am, admiring a biggish one.

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