Alaska dogs are so great. There's just something about them - maybe they know how lucky they are to live in such an awesome place, or maybe they take their cue from the people, who are generally pretty laid back too, but either way, it's pretty clear that they love life. The last year that I lived. in Alaska I had a neighbor who had a greyhound/husky mix named Gypsy. That dog loves to run and she loves to run fast. My neighbor had had some trouble getting her to stick around off-leash since sighthounds see something and take off after it, just like their name suggests, but when Sienna was around, Gypsy loved to chase her. This always worked out great since Sienna was always running after tennis balls, so whenever they got together you were guaranteed to have two happy tired dogs. Now that we live in Arizona, Sienna misses her best friend, and I miss the plaintive "Mommmmmm, my best friend is outside please let me out so I can play with her" whines she would give every day when my neighbor got home from work. So here's to Gypsy, a great Alaska dog who's left our lives a little emptier since we moved away.

Nikon D50 | 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX | f/5.6 | 1/250 sec | 38mm | manual mode

I've been trying to not turn this site into a dog blog, but with such a photogenic puppy it is very difficult to resist the temptation.

Here are a choice few of Sienna at seven weeks from a roll of black and white that I recently had developed. I personally think she's so cute it must have been illegal in one state or another.

Nikon FM

Cory (of he-gave-me-the-D50 fame) came to visit me on his mid-tour leave. Since we only get to see each other about every three months, we made the most of it. However, since Alaska is really, really big, (if you divided Alaska in half, what would that make Texas? The third largest state! Oh, I love this place) there are still many many places for us to go together, so we've barely even touched the tip of the iceberg in our adventures. Wherever we went, we dedicated time to rectifying the we-have-no-pictures-of-us problem. The following pictures were composed by me on a tripod and snapped using the D50's remote.

Nikon D50

I took the plunge -- I got myself a new yellow Labrador retreiver puppy! Her name is Sienna and she is oh-so-photogenic when she stays put long enough to get a picture of her.

Getting her is pushing me over the breaking point of dissatisfaction with my digital camera though. The shutter lag means that I miss almost every great photo I try to take of this very wriggly puppy. Perhaps a Nikon D70s is in my immediate future....

I did take the opportunity to load a real roll of black and white film into my Nikon FM today. It felt amazing to be using it again! I actually felt like I was involved in the process of taking my pictures. I didn't shoot the whole roll, but when I finish it I will get them developed and of course posted here.

Clicking the first two photos will link to larger versions.

Nikon Coolpix 3100

As much as I liked a few of the pictures from the color roll I took of Adrienne and Peter, I loved the black and whites even more. I had some license to get artsier since these were not intended as gifts to people who have no interest in non-boring, non-portraiture photos, so I took advantage of the pre-dusk horizontal light to have fun with some shadows. I love the pictures that follow here.

Nikon N50

This winter, Adrienne and Peter asked me to take some photos of them so that they could give them to their families for Christmas presents. Since I hadn't been able to use actual film for quite some time, I was both thrilled and honored to be asked. Two rolls of fun were had, and the best of the color roll follows below.

Nikon N50

I love my dog unabashedly and unreservedly. He's a sweet yellow Labrador who is absolutely adorable, hence I love to take pictures of him. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to take really good pictures of him in a long time, so what I'm posting here are two photographs that I took of him a couple of years ago.

Nikon FM

As my last installment of pictures from Spring Break, I'll be displaying candids and portraits of Mike, who was a common target of my lens that week. I've already posted two of him from Ice Cream Renaissance, but here are some other pictures I snapped of him (and one of us) during our week in the Pacific Northwest.

Nikon Coolpix 3100