Category: Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Inspiration Lily Living

Lily

Our Gal Lily by Scott Loftesness

On Friday, we lost our beloved Lily – just shy of her tenth birthday.

Lily was our constant companion over the last ten years – her only desire was to spend time with us, to be with us, to cuddle and play with us. She was selfless in her pursuit of our companionship, just wanting to be by our sides sharing our times together. So many special times.

Lily really selected us – we didn’t select her. We vividly remember first meeting her – along with her litter mates. They were all huddling close – but then Lily noticed us and walked away from the group to come over and say hi to us – her little tail wagging and her big eyes looking up at ours. We knew immediately she was the one.

Her official name was Tigerlily. She had a cowlick on her forehead – a tuft of hair – her own “mohawk” style – that just went straight up and earned her that name.

To us though, she’s always just been Lily. Our very close pal for all of these years – who we still can’t believe isn’t with us tonight. We really miss you girl!

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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel iPhone 4 Lily Photography San Francisco/California

Loving the iPhone 4 Camera with TiltShiftGen and PhotoShop Express!

I’ve become a big fan of the old adage – the best camera is the one that’s with you – and mine of late has been my iPhone 4 along with two great apps that just make my iPhone-based photography more fun!

Last Friday I was in San Francisco attending a conference that was held on the 32nd floor of the Westin St. Francis Hotel – with big windows all around. I had fun taking some San Francisco skyline shots – and then using PhotoShop Express‘ Stylize feature to play with them. Here’s an example:

San Francisco - Stylized - by Scott Loftesness

Yesterday, I snapped this photo of Lily which she was sitting on the couch watching the drizzle outside. This was adjusted using TiltShiftGen to add the blur and the vignette around the edges and then uploaded using the Flickr app (TiltShiftGen doesn’t currently support uploading directly to Flickr):

Lily - Cavalier King Charles Spaniel - by Scott Loftesness

The photography that’s now possible with this combination of the iPhone 4’s great image sensor and these photo apps is just great fun! What are your favorite iPhone photography apps?

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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lily Living

Our Girl Lily!

Lily (officially Tigerlily – our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel) turned seven years old today. She’s a cutie! In dog years, she’s still younger than me – and she doesn’t let me forget it!

Last year, Chris Gulker captured Lily’s sixth birthday portrait after one of our twice-weekly morning walks. She’s really missing those walks lately – and lets Chris know when she sees him!

Here’s her seventh birthday morning pose – as she ponders the day ahead! (Shot using my iPhone 4, post-processed in the iPhone app TiltShift Lens).

Lily Loftesness - Cavalier King Charles Spaniel - September 3, 2010

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Blogs/Weblogs Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Health Lily Living Menlo Park

Some Musings on 2009

Looking back at my late December 2008 blog posts, I made a wish about simple and beautiful HDR photography becoming super simple – unfortunately, it hasn’t yet. I’ll restate what I said last year: “But it still feels like we’re living in a 1995 world when it comes to HDR photography.”

On the other hand, on this day last year I wrote about Walking with Chris – Chris Gulker to be precise. In mid-2008, Chris, Lily and I began a twice weekly 1.5 mile walking regimen every Tuesday and Thursday morning when our mutual schedules permitted.

We had a great time continuing our twice-weekly walks throughout 2009 – solving the world’s primary technology and political problems along the way – and very much look forward to resuming them next week – on the first Tuesday in 2010!

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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lily

Six!

lily.jpg

Today is Lily’s sixth birthday. We celebrated by taking our 1.5 mile walk together with Chris this morning and by trying to stay cool (hot, hot hot in Menlo) tonight! She also had a lot of fun playing with her new toy (from A Dog’s Life) this afternoon. (Photo credit: Chris Gulker)

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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lily Photography - Canon 5D Mark II

Faithful Companion – Lily

Lily - Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

While over at my Mom and Dad’s place today, I was playing around a bit trying to capture a good shot of Lily, our faithful companion Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

I thought this particular shot turned out especially good – capturing her “mohawk” (her “defect” that we actually found pretty special – along with her amazing curiousity!) and her typical look.

Lily is actually short for Tigerlily – her full name which reflects her breeder’s view of that Mohawk!

Hope you enjoy her as much as we do!

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Business Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Cooking HDR Photography Lily Living Menlo Park Photography

Grey Saturday Musings

Taking it easy on this grey, overcast and sorta chilly Saturday in Menlo Park. Grocery run this morning (Trader Joe’s, Draeger’s), a nice 0.6 mile walk with Lily, catching up with the morning papers, and now enjoying the aroma of the short ribs simmering on the stove! More about those short ribs coming soon over on Scott’s Kitchen!

Chris Gulker‘s mentioned Anne Knudsen to me on our morning walks. She’s a great Silicon Valley photographer friend of Chris – see her latest photo of him!

Don Neff forwarded a link to this article on Gizmodo: How To: Create Stunningly Realistic High Dynamic Range Photographs. See some of my earlier posts about shooting HDR on my Canon 40D. It’s been way too long – I need to carve out some time for another HDR shoot day sometime soon!

AIG sucks again. This story in tomorrow’s New York Times says they’ve got to pay out $100 MM in bonuses “to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.” A chapter 11 filing would have forced a cram down on any “contractually obligated” bonuses. Who’s in charge of this circus, anyway?

Late tonight, the WSJ comes out with another story about AIG bonuses – it’s actually worse than it appears! This crap has to stop!

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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lily

Grey Sunday at the Park

Grey Sunday at the Park

Out with Lily for a quick couple of loops around Sharon Park. Sharon Park is about two blocks from Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park.

Grey and chilly out this morning – walked without a coat and got too cold.

Lily’s got her vim and vigor back after last Friday’s vet visit!

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Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

A Rough Day for Lily

Lily

Lily, our 5+ year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, had a rough day today.

Turns out that, following her annual physical last week, she needed some oral surgery – to remove some diseased teeth, dealing with gum disease, etc. You get the idea. Not much fun – for humans or dogs!

She’s doing OK tonight – but she’s not her usual bubbly self. If I had had that kind of work done in my mouth, I’m sure I wouldn’t be my usual bubbly self either!

We’re looking forward to getting her out for a walk tomorrow – as soon as the rain clears.

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Blogs/Weblogs Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Health Lily Living Menlo Park

Walking with Chris

At this time of year, even minor milestones seem especially relevant.

For the last six months or so when work schedules cooperate, Chris Gulker and I (and Lily too!) have been doing a twice a week, early morning, 1.5 mile walk (Tuesday and Thursday mornings) around Menlo Park – and really enjoying ourselves!

Continue reading “Walking with Chris”