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⚡️Jango & Boba✨Adventure Dogs⚡️

@idreamofjango

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🙋‍♀️Nat 🐺Jango 🐶Boba
🏜️Utah/Wild West Adventuring
✨Mental Health

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I am so thrilled with how IPPA went this year! It was definitely full of twists and turns for me, and I learned SO. MUCH.

This year my goals were to have one photo be awarded a Gold, and to be a finalist! I’ve since learned that these are actually very lofty goals, much more than I realized, and I’m surprised I actually did it. Only 28 photos out of over 4,000 entries were awarded a Gold score. It’s such an honor and it’s honestly very humbling to have one of my photos be awarded a Gold.

I also still can’t believe I was a finalist in the Canine Portrait category. After seeing all of these results, a big part of me isn’t sure how that happened, but it’s such an honor! And it’s taught me a LOT about my photography on so many levels. 🙏🏻

I was inspired by Georgia @beyond.the.tails to share the feedback I received on each image! This post has the first half of submissions, so look out for the rest later!

Also a HUUUGE shoutout and thank you to Lizzy, Boreal, and Renner @adventureborealis for trusting me to take their photos and joining me on so many adventures over the past year! I’m so pleased so many photos of you and your sweet pack were awarded prizes. 🫶🏻 Love you!

“An image that you must be immensely proud of. The timing of is perfect with those clouds giving drama and tension to the image. This location is well known for its cinematic vibe and what you have created is exactly like a still frame from a movie. The dog is beautifully positioned and pulls the images together. Congratulations.”

“Compositionally, this image is truly fantastic. It has drama, depth and a real sense of scale. The main thing that catches my eye and draws it away from the dog is the light source in the background. The dog is looking towards it, (with ears back, which lacks the confidence that would match the drama of the image confidence) but the light source is very week. Consider how working into this could create more of a point of light coupled with enhancing the shadows in the foreground would level this up even more.”

“This is a beautiful portrait in a stunning location. The subject is beautifully sharp, and the dog’s pose works very well within the scene. Personal taken in Planet Earth by @idreamofjango

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2 months ago

Turns out, Boba is a total modeling PRO… when Jango isn’t nearby to district him or me. 😂 I put Jango in the car just before this epic sunset because his feet were starting to be unhappy with the snow. Boba’s feet couldn’t have cared less (they’re very furry), so we snagged a few photos together and he was absolutely delightful.

ALSO, I have decided that Boba is only 1, and not 2 years old. I thought he was probably 1 when I got him, but looking back at photos now that’s he’s grown more, I can tell he was *definitely* still a teen when I got him, so he’s 1 now. 😆 Rescues, am I right?? 🫶🏻 For a while I thought he had just filled out and changed so much because now he’s much healthier, but I finally realized nah, he was just still a puppy when I got him! And also now he’s healthier. 😂

People with rescues, how do you handle your dog’s age when people ask? Or those dumb forms that require you to put in a birthday for your dog? Those are SO annoying to me. 😆

🌙 Collar: @dogonthemoon | “JANGOMOON” 🌙 taken in Utah Lake by @idreamofjango

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2 years ago

Tree Dog: when a dog begins to grow out of a tree. This is usually caused by an adventurous spirit, and is especially likely to occur in the mountains of Utah, specifically in quaking aspens (given their nature of connected roots).

❓Hey, what’s your state tree? Do you feel any type of way about it?❓

The Utah state tree is the Quaking Aspen! Did you know that living in Utah grows the single largest organism on earth? It’s a grove of aspen trees called Pando. Aspens are connected by their roots as one large system. The Pando Grove is 80,000 years old, which also makes it the oldest living organism on earth (though each individual tree averages 130 years). It consists of 40,000 trees, and has a combined weight of 13 million pounds. Unfortunately, scientists also believe it is dying, though the exact cause is unknown.

🍂Jango’s fit?🍂
✨Bandana: @the_ramblin_wolf | JANGO
✨Collar: @dogonthemoon | JANGOMOON
✨Tag: @swampspills taken in Primrose Overlook by @idreamofjango

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2 years ago

Has anybody else struggled with the weather this year!?

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m the type of person that low-key *obsesses* over the weather when I’m planning, or even THINKING about planning, photoshoots. The weather has been VERY uncooperative for me for like 6 months, and it’s been driving me INSANE. It was suuuch a hot summer, and in August every time I wanted to try a hike after work on a not-scaldingly hot day, it was thunder-storming (and a couple of people died in the area this summer from lightning hits, so going out in the storms wasn’t even sort of an option to me).

So after careful planning a couple of days ago, when the weather was supposed to be partly cloudy, I was very annoyed when I got to my photo destination and there wasn’t a single cloud in the west. They were ALL in the east, meaning that my sunset would be cloudless. I was annoyed, that is, until *after* the sun went down, and the east side of the sky, the side with allll the clouds, absolutely LIT. UP. Giving me a soft pink sky with biiig purple, dramatic clouds.

I guess, sometimes, or maybe most of the time, it really doesn’t matter what the weather ends up being. Just go OUTSIDE, and see what happens. 🤷‍♀️🌦️ (Except during lightning storms- just don’t even risk it! 😅😬) taken in Rowleys Red Barn by @idreamofjango

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15 days ago

I’ve turned my dog into a monster. 😂

This kid goes CRAZY when I pull out the yak chews. Normally Jango is the heavy chewer, and he still is with bully sticks and yak chews, but for whatever reason Jango mellows out completely with one of these chews. Not so for Boba. Boba will act normal at first, and then steal Jango’s stick at the *earliest* opportunity and horde both chews. When I pull out two sticks for these two, Jango usually ends up eating half of one, and Boba eats 1-1/2. Thankfully Jango doesn’t seem to mind (AKA notice).

Oh and when I pulled out a new flavor!? I had to hold Boba back almost the whole time Jango was chewing on his strawberry yak stick because Boba LOVED the strawberry ones and wanted them all for himself. 🤭

Tbh I’m not mad about it! These sticks are the only chews Boba gets this excited about! And when I first got Boba I had to really encourage him to chew more… (except for when he would chew on his knees- he used to gnaw on his knees a lot 🙄😂). His teeth were pretty awful when I adopted him- but thankfully they’re MUCH better now after some dental cleaning, and many yummy chews to help keep his teeth and gums clean and happy!

What’s your dog’s FAVORRRITE thing to chew on??

Sponsored by @bullybunches
These are the most high quality bully sticks and other assorted dog chews I’ve found and at a GREAT price! Check them out if you haven’t already! Your dog (and their dental hygiene AND your vet) will thank you! taken in Utah, USA by @idreamofjango

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17 days ago

Just a tiny dog on a giant flower. Swipe for the unedited shot!

Let’s talk about HEART DOGS.

This little chihuahua is Lili, and she’s my mom’s dog. My mom got her around the same time I got Jango; Lili was part of a litter that my aunt’s dog had. After my mom got Lili, I asked her how things were going, and she told me how much she loved her, and that she’d never felt so close to any dog before. We always had dogs when I was a kid, and that continued for my parents after I moved out, so my mom has had quite a few dogs in her house! I was overjoyed to tell my mom that Lili must be her heart dog. 💗 I also got to tell her what that means: the one special dog that holds a special place in your heart.

Doing this sunflower shoot with my mom and Lili was SO special. My mom has always loved sunflowers, so they have always made me think about her. And it was so wonderful to see my mom dote on her tiny little dog, and how much Lili loves her right back. Those two love each other SO much.

How would YOU define a heart dog?? What does that mean to you? taken in Rowleys Red Barn by @idreamofjango

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23 days ago

Pink water. Salty foam. Squishy tar. Growing crystals. Happy horses. Nosy dogs. Spiral Jetty.

Visiting the Spiral Jetty while the salty water of the Great Salt Lake is pink was a TRIP. So much so that I went twice over Labor Day Weekend, even though it’s a 2-1/2 hour drive each way. Also, neither shoot went as planned. 🤭Alas!! But, maybe next year!

The first trip I snagged some quick shots of the most beautiful horses, but we didn’t get to start until after the sun went down. 😆 The second trip I got my drone out and snapped a lot of shots of the area, close up and far out. But right before sunsetty times, Jango got stuck in an actual pit of tar, and that ended our time early. To say it was an action-packed weekend is an understatement. taken in Great Salt Lake by @idreamofjango

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a month ago

What’s the recipe that makes a good photo or piece of art? Foreground + middle ground + background!

Place your subject in the middle ground and have that in the sharpest focus. Keep the background and foreground in less focus, or even blurred or bokeh’ed out! Completing this recipe adds dimension and depth to your photos.

It’s common to miss the FOREGROUND in pieces like this, but it’s important to include it, as it adds a lot to your photo! Having a foreground helps draw the viewer in and makes them feel like they’ve been transported into the photo with the subject matter.

Here are some tricks to get a nice foreground:

1. Get DOWN LOW. Sometimes all you need for your foreground is the actual GROUND. This can create a really cool feel that pulls the viewer straight into the portrait!

2. Hold something in front of your camera. If you’re taking a shot where there’s no available foreground (which happens a lot), you can just hold it in front of the camera! During this sunflower shoot, for a couple of photos I gently pulled some sunflowers from the sides in front of my camera (without removing the flowers from the plants). During the mountain fall shoot, I scavenged leaves and sticks from the ground to hold up for a foreground. Play around with it!

3. Add your foreground in post processing. As you can see in these photos, I added my foreground during the editing process! I did this by pulling various flowers and leaves from the main photo and other photos from the shoots. I placed those in separate layers, and then applied a Gaussian blur to each layer. (Find Gaussian blur under the filter tab in Photoshop!) This method takes more time, but you can manipulate things to look exactly as you want them to. (Make sure to blur at various levels to make it look more realistic! The layers more OUT of focus should be above/in front of the layers more IN focus, to keep the photo’s depth perception correct.)

What are some other useful tricks we can use to complete the foreground, middle ground, background recipe?

Follow for more photography inspiration! 📸⚡️ taken in Utah, USA by @idreamofjango

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a month ago

This is why I like entering photo competitions like @internationalpetphotoawards and @dogphotoawards

I learned a TON from entering IPPA this year, and this photo is a perfect example! After reading the feedback from the judges and viewing all of the many other incredible entries from other participants, I went back through some photos in search of the next edit for the next competition. Previously I didn’t quite see the potential in this photo, but as soon as I saw it again, I knew I had to edit this one. I am so happy with how it turned out! And the edit itself wouldn’t have been as good a few months ago had I done it then. taken in Utah, USA by @idreamofjango

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2 months ago

Photography is a journey, and it is a PROCESS. There is passion at every step, and I know I don’t speak just for myself when I say I wedge as much creativity into each step along the way as I can.

Most of the time we only see the end product: the gorgeous photo. But there is a lot more that goes into each of these photos! Scroll to read some of the back stories on these ones. 👉🏻👉🏻

I researched which cenotes in the area would allow dogs, and my best friend, Azul, was SO nice and called multiple places to ask (en español). We couldn’t find anything reliable that wasn’t also VERY expensive, so we finally decided to hit up a town with an *insane* number of cenotes, and hoped we’d find one that allowed dogs so I could take photos!

This was the first cenote we hit up on that trip (the pool of water was behind me as I photographed this), and it was SO, HOT in this underground cave!! Juju wasn’t allowed in the water, but she was allowed in the cave! Juju was still very young and VERY squirmy, so I couldn’t have gotten any photos of her with Azul’s help! I was also trying out my new flash that I didn’t really know how to use, but it was a cave, so it was DARK down there. Azul ended up taking Juju above ground after not too long because of the stifling heat. I managed to snag just a few photos I could use! (All the while sweating *PROFUSELY.*)

(Heat is a SERIOUS issue with dogs! They have a higher base temperature than humans, and can overheat very easily and very quickly, so this is something I’m constantly monitoring with dogs during summertime shoots.)

When the weather cooperates, the large lake in our valley will sometimes freeze over the surface, resulting in ice that will break up (because of the waves, since it’s a pretty big lake), and then huge chunks of ice will end up pushed into stacks on the shores.

This doesn’t happen every winter, so it means I’m constantly keeping an eye on water conditions at the lake and hoping for these ice stacks! I don’t live right next to it, so this means I have to drive to the lake (20-25 minutes one way) to check the conditions, and am constantly looking at the weather and trying to see if any other photographers in t taken in Planet Earth by @idreamofjango

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2 months ago

I thought it would be fun to share a bunch of photos that I did *not* submit to the @internationalpetphotoawards this year (canine edition)! 😆 The photos at the very beginning and the end of this carousel were the closest to being entered. ALL of these photos went in and out of my “Maybe’s” folder, but for whatever reason, none of them made the cut! For some of them, I just felt like I couldn’t *quite* get the edit right. Some of them didn’t feel dynamic enough, or just plain got edged out by the ones I entered. And honestly some of them I really liked and wanted to do something with, but just didn’t know what to do with them. 😆 Some of these edits are final, but a lot are unfinished. Enjoy!

Are you surprised by any of these not making the cut??

Also I just want to say thank you to everyone who reached out and commented when I shared that I’m a finalist in the Canine Portrait category this year. My heart has been absolutely overflowing this week, and I have felt so loved and supported. Thank you all so much and I LOVE YOU!!
😚💨💋 taken in Utah, USA by @idreamofjango

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3 months ago

I had two goals for the @internationalpetphotoawards this year: be a finalist, and have at least one of my photos rated as Gold.

I entered three categories: Canine Portrait, Open Portrait, and Pets and People. I *knew* that if I was a finalist this year, it would be in Open or in Pets and People. I saw Canine as *THE* most competitive of all the categories so I thought I didn’t stand a chance. Not even a LITTLE. Finding out THAT’S the category I’m a finalist in this year actually stunned me, and I am on top of the world today!

It just goes to show: follow your heart, do what you love, and give that thing a go! You never know when you might even do better than you could have imagined.

As for getting a gold rating? I have to wait until August to find out the scores on my photos, but I think my chances are pretty good. (Gold means it’s rated 90-95 by the judges; last year my highest rating- of the two photos I entered was an 89.)

Congrats to ALL of the finalists! It’s so exciting and such an honor to see your work and to be judged on the same level as you!

(I guess now I’d better go ahead and enter the @dogphotoawards this year! 🤭) taken in Utah, USA by @idreamofjango

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3 months ago