I subscribe to Lensculture, an online photography and much much more magazine who always have inspirational artists and their work to share. But this recent post about photographer and artist Nancy LeVine really touched a chord with me, despite my being an abhorrer of the You-Tube-Funny-Dog (Not) email that occasional friends are prone to inflict but also  because I recently lost an old dog of my own and have seen what LeVine has seen.

'Senior Dogs Across America' is a wonderful and lucid look into the way both we and animals cope. The steadfastness of the various dog's gaze into LeVine's camera is entirely refreshing. We can so easily forget that others cope and thrive despite increasing years or infirmity when we are subsumed in our own private pain and fear. 

LeVine says 'I entered a world of grace where bodies that had once expressed their vibrancy were now on a more fragile path. I saw how the dog does it; how, without the human’s painful ability to project ahead and fear the inevitable, the dog simply wakes to each day as a new step in the journey.' 

Her referencing of the larger political changes taking place throughout the world also rang true with me.
These changes, for the worst in the most part, will have ramifications for everyone, so that a search for and a reaching out to indomitableness will become a certain required in the years to come.

We most assuredly are '... better than that' but our politicians most probably aren't.

I reckon there's a lot to be learned from senior dogs. Lovely images.

    My recent short set of images 'quarries' was an absolute pleasure to make and an absorbing afternoons work, more to come.

My love of and present reliance on the LX1 for image making started after making the decision to move from Nikon to Pentax and only half completing the move; I got rid of the Nikon but haven't yet bought the Pentax.

This meant re-discovering lots of reasons for enjoying the LX1 - It's small, very small, possesses a complete and really usable measure of manual controls, exposure brackets and compensates very easily, makes beautiful raw files, has a great Leica lens and makes 16:9 images with the flick of a switch.

I can no longer look at 4:3 (the standard aspect ratio of most still images) in the same way, they just don't resonate and I don't 'see' them as I look around for photographs.

Carrying the Lumix around has become second nature and has undoubtedly helped re-invigorate my photographic practice which was kick started a couple of years ago after my dear friend Linda pushed me to set up the informal Blurred photo group which meets monthly in Belper, Derbyshire.

Using the Lumix also means I only need to carry a very small, very light tripod around which is all this camera needs. Ah bliss.

A change of aspect ratio and/or a change of camera might be all that is needed to make you see new images and feel excited about your photography once more. It worked for me.

To quote Haje Jan Kamps - 'The best camera you own is the one you actually end up using.'