I’ve been doing the 365 Project for 18 days now, and it’s going pretty well. However, with our new dog, it’s sometimes hard to remember to shoot during the day, which leaves me to wind up with something at night or in the house. The other difficult situation has been the weather. Where we live on Redmond Ridge above Redmond, Washington, has its own microclimate. We have been in a very cold fog since Christmas until it started to clear up yesterday. Today was beautiful sunshine but incredibly cold (which much of the country is about to experience).
But here are my next nine photos from this week. Captions are on the individual photos in the gallery that will tell you how I shot them. I have set up the photos as enlargeable photos, so if you click on them, you can see them full size, make a comment, read my caption and see the settings I used to take the photo. Just click the small i at the bottom of the photo.
This is our new family member. Her name (for now) is Kopi. We might change it to Keeley, as in “Avenge me, Keeley, Avenge me.” (You’ll only recognize that if you’re a Ted Lasso fan). Naturally, since we just adopted a newly rehomed dog, she had to be the subject of today’s photo of the day. She turned six last week and is an absolute cutie. She’s already making herself at home and loves the backyard, which has plenty of space to run.
Sometimes you just come across a photo. I had just returned from taking Keeley on her first long walk and was searching for a picture. I looked out of our living room window and saw the party lights on our patio. They are LED and covered in rain. Hence, this shot.
This is another instance when I waited too long to take a photo today and had to come up with something to do after I made dinner. This is the interior of a large glass art bowl we have on display between our living and dining rooms. It is a beautiful piece, but for the life of me, I can’t remember where we got it.
In my quest to use all four of my current lenses in the first 15 days of my 365 project, here’s the last one: my 60mm micro lens. Everyone but Nikon calls them macro lenses, but Nikon has to be different. It takes a very cool photo. This one is titled “My Brother’s Car” because when he passed away, he had about 15 of these old metal cars in his apartment. When I was cleaning it out, I took only two things with me: his carry-on suitcase (which I recently had to trash after a wheel broke) and the set of metal cars. Now, they are the only things I have left that belonged to him. I believe they belonged either to my grandfather or my uncle, but I’m not sure.
Our weather still stinks. Nothing but cold, damp fog. I tried to take a photo of it during the day, but it just doesn’t show up. It looks like bad smoke. So tonight, our new pup and I took a quick drive to the clubhouse at our 55+ complex. People were driving in and out to pick up their mail. I would say I like the picture (which I kind of do), but I hate the fog. It’s been relentless. And there is no end in sight.
Last week, I shared my first real estate shot of our dining room, taken with my fish-eye zoom lens. Today, I present another shot from that lens (which I’ve been using quite a bit), this time featuring my office. It’s a fantastic room. I especially appreciate it in the winter because if I keep the doors closed, the room retains the heat. It’s almost like a dry sauna in there. I love it. Last week, when I captured my dining room, I mentioned in the caption that all the art on the wall was from places we’ve traveled. This room showcases photos of our entire family, from our grandparents to our parents, to our kids, and now our grandchildren. The large K you see is a photo collage of the grandkids for my bride, whom the kids affectionately call Grandma K.
Anyone following my 2025 365 photo project should expect to see Keeley at least once a week. Today was her first visit to the off-leash dog park closest to our home, and she loved it. More than the dog park experience, though, she loves her ball. It’s nearly impossible to get it away from her unless she thinks you’re going to throw it again. But she is a good dog and is gradually fitting into our routines, or more likely, we are fitting into hers. She does give me a chance to practice taking action shots.
Searching for a subject tonight while it was below freezing pushed me to quickly decide to photograph this nearly abstract image of my neighbor’s heater vent. I edited it a bit in Photoshop and Camera RAW, but I truly appreciate the starkness of how it turned out.
Photography, to me, is catching a moment that is passing and which is true. —Jacques-Henri Lartigue
