Ultimate Dog Lover

Gina at Pet Connection has been hard at work on her next book, The Ultimate Dog Lover, along with two other books on lesser animals. The publishers have graciously opened the pages of the book to submissions of prose and photos from the masses.

Seeing that I’m right in the middle of a crusade against corruption, I’m really in the wrong state of mind to write something feel-good and uplifting for inclusion in the book; although if my efforts and the efforts of those I’m working for and with are successful, more than 30 people will have a chance at rebuilding their lives. If that day comes, it sure will be uplifting and feel-good, but the road there involves a lot of hard work, legal strategy, and a good dose of luck.

So I submitted a few photos instead.

I’ve had a lot of luck with photo contests, winning the John Fielder out door photography contest with a photo I took of Red Rocks, Colorado and First Place Architectural and Best In Show in a national competition for an image I took of the Temple of Neptune in Paestum, Italy. Recently, my work was featured on the cover of the International Disc Dog calendar.

Unfortunately, photography is really the rich-man-poor-artist’s art form. Sure, it takes an artist’s eye, but much of photography is simply capturing another artist’s work, be that artist an architect, a gardener, or Mother Nature. It’s not so much a creative process as much as it is a capturing process.

Whereas my previously appreciated photos have all been of someone else’s work, or even someone else’s dog (it’s really hard taking good action shots when it’s you who’s throwing the Frisbee or guiding the dog through the Agility course), the photos I submitted for the book are all of my own pups, most of them of the puppies I just bred since that’s the closest thing to original artwork you’re going to find in the dog world. Maybe one of them will make it in, although the odds are pretty stiff, there are over 1,500 uploads to the submission gallery and that doesn’t count any pix that were e-mailed or mailed in.

Here are the shots that I submitted for your enjoyment, it just might be the only place you’ll ever see them:

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