I have been walking this trail for over 14 years (full loop is 14.5km with 500m of elevation). Everytime I go through this forest tunnel, I tell myself "I should take a picture; I should have brought my camera". Well I finally did it! I like the simplicity of this capture, but for me, it's missing my dogs. They were with me the previous day for the full version of this hike and I got the below capture in the same location (log and side trail marker for reference).
But when we got home, I found a number of ticks on them (which I safely removed and got rid of). I didn't want to risk them getting more, so they stayed home.
If this was extended editing, I would submit this edit where I added Stark walking at my side. As luck would have it, I took a pic of him just walking ahead earlier. Blended in perfect.
I then got the inspiration to include my 2 dogs who passed away recently + Nova. All of my dogs love/loved this trail. In fact, I realized that pic of a Teague was one of my first DSLR pics taken of him (Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever), and my 2nd challenge submission on dpc. It was here at Hockley Valley in 2009.
So I went back through my archives for the source image. I then selected one of Cole (Dalmatian, another feature dog in my challenge submissions). His is from a grassy field at the mid-point of the hike (2010). Both are blended into the main image with transparency and glow. I originally had Teague BW, but with Cole already naturally being BW Teague looked weird and out of balance. So I gave Teague back some colour. Nova and Stark have images that fit their personalities. Nova's was selected because she is crazy and all over the place, and it would be normal for her to run back to us, while we move forward. Her pic is my Orange VII submission. Stark is more stoic and keeps the line :)
While the end image is a bit more busy, and I am undecided on whether it should be portrait or landscape, it does make me feel good inside to think they will always be walking beside me in one form or another.
If you are interested in seeing more about Teague and Cole, their celebration videos are here. They were performance dogs and traveled internationally to perform in shows:
Celebrating Teague Celebrating Cole
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