Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Of Dogs and Stones and Crescent Moons . . .

Imagine you're a young guy walking down a lava flow beach on a Canary Island in the warm March sun. Imagine you have the beach all to yourself, so you think. But then strolling a little farther along the rough black volcanic rock by the sea, you suddenly realize you are not alone, there is a very naked young lady lying in a low spot in the rocks where you couldn't see her until you were a little too close for innocent comfort. Imagine just then a big black dog comes from who knows where, walks right up, and stands there gazing at the remarkable landscape of the Canary Islands. Well, that is exactly what happened one day to your reporter. What does one do in such a situation ??? Nowhere in one's schooling is one taught how to react when confronted with such irrefutable facts and bare evidence. So your reporter did what any reporter worth his salt would do . . . he took a picture . . . and here it is . . . I admit, I couldn't help wondering what that dog had on its mind . . . maybe chasing a little tail for fun ? Isn't that what many dogs like to do ???
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The dog, it quickly became apparent, just wanted to play, and had an obsession for picking up stones. He struggled with this one for quite a little while . . .
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Getting down and grinding his teeth on it, growling all the while . . .
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Finally, after much effort, he managed to pick up a large rounded stone, which he then carried proudly over to the sleeping goddess there, who knew what was going on ; if you look carefully there is a hand waiting to receive the stone, like manna from heaven. Your reporter was sorely tempted to pick up a few large stones himself, with his teeth if necessary, to take them over as offerings, but didn't . . . how terrible it is to be so shy as to let obvious opportunities like that pass by in life. . . For the astronomically oriented people in the audience, you may just be able to make out a waning crescent moon in this image, like the real moon outside tonight . . . ahh, the perfection that reigns in some of nature's forms . . .
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Another smaller black dog dropped by to check out the action on the beach, but after a short nose to nose conversation, he decided to amble off to other parts. . .
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When the reclining female proved to be too inanimate, he came over to see me, and we had a fine time for a while, your reporter tossing stones into the tidal puddle, the dog splashing in to fetch them. . . (music repeats and fades to end a daydream song)
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30 comments:

swan said...

I adore your blog! Ahhh such a sweet find!
peace out!

Quill and Greyson said...

Hi! I saw you were following me, and I am honored. I liked this post, I think I'll take a look around.

@eloh said...

What a well down post. I liked the story line with the photos.

Lately I have been very interested in the black and whites.

robert said...

Spend many nice weeks on Gran Canaria, probably seen even the same dog.
Seems as if there are still many on their way towards 'Timbuktu', said to be a dogs-heaven.
Impressive photography too!

Batteson.Ind said...

Hmmmm.. Thank goodness for lovely ladies, when you're a bloke on a beach!.... it doesn't matter how many photo's you take of the dogs.. we know what the score is
:-P

Friko said...

Well, for how long did the naked lady remain absolutely still? And for how long did you hang around?
You can't just leave a story like this without an ending.........

Anonymous said...

Hi Owen! Great story!!!

Margaret Pangert said...

Yeah, I'm with Friko! You seem to have spent a lot of time on the beach playing with the dog! And the young lady seemed to stay inanimate for a very long time. Very tantalizing. Good story, good photos.

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

I would like to have commented more about the naked young woman but you forgot to put up the picture. Thus all i can say is that the dog is cute looking.

Anonymous said...

You have make me feel the intense need of got a camera and go out there, trying to catch some pieces of time in a cage named camera, like slippery butterflies with a net. Haven´t ever thought of making a book with all those fantastic pics and histories? it would be named "The runaway time that never come back"

Steve said...

Nice to know the dogs are fine... but what about the woman? Is she ok? It's a question of priorities after all! ;-)

jeff said...

Hi Owen ! Pas de vidéo superbe comme celle d'hier ?... Tant pis ! J'ai bien aimé et tu vois y pense encore ! Tu sais moi la lecture.. Me faut des images !... et encore !
Bon, pour ce qui est du Dog de jour ! Putain ( sorry ! ), t'as été un clébard dans une autre vie ! Clébard pas péjoratif Owen ! veut dire chien voilà tout ! Mais qu'est-ce qui fout le mec ou la nana à poil parterre auusi !?!
On dirait une pochette vinyle d'un autre temps like the Pink Floyd !... Tu sais que je suis un illétré de la langue des english ! ! ! Alors, j'ai pas tout saisi ! pas grave !
Et toi, Owen, comment vas-tu , 'faudra bien qu'un jour on se voit pour de bon tu crois pas ! je te dis pas les verres de "Beep" pour trinquer ! Pourquoi pas ?
Allez va, médite sur cette bonne intention de ma part et ... c'est quoi ces commentaires scintillanrs ? Suis-je si scintillant que ça ?
Ciao AmigOwen et ... bonne tisane !...8:(....non !..<:-)

Jo Potter said...

Hi Owen,
Thank you for stopping by and leaving good comments about my work.
This little dog is very cute with his scarf around his neck. Animals are so natural in their actions and environment. Great photos and natural imagery.:)

All the best. Jo.

The Panorama said...

Very nice blog:) Am going to add you to my list. Thanks for adding me. Cheers:)

The Sagittarian said...

I could barely contain myself, reading this! I thought, wow thats Ruff ruff to be in that part of the world. As for you and your camera, like a dog with a bone (oh dear, that really does sound so wrong in the circumstances, oh well..on I go). I don't want to be too negative, so did anything develop with the naked person? Maybe she was stoned? I bet the dog was named Rocky...

Nathalie H.D. said...

Aaaaah Owen, missed occasions leaving such strong memories many years later!


Well, wouldn't you have forgotten the episode hadn't you taken those photos? Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, aren't you a prudish lot, you Americans, that you have to make a whole story around a dog that eats stones when what you really got attracted to was the naked girl?

Un jour il sera temps d'appeler un chat un chat, au lieu de nous ballader avec des histoires de chien :-))))
:-)))

Nathalie H.D. said...

....Prudish and hypocritic! LOL

Nathalie again said...

Just read your "keep on bloggin'" post - sorry for being so late but I just can't handle daily visits with my current workload.

Completely agree with you both on your vision of blogland and on the question of awards. I've never been good at passing them on. Perhaps this award thing is part of the anglo-saxon culture and not the French but it doesn't really work for me. In my mind there are so many ways of showing your appreciation on an (almost) daily basis... you know what I mean.

Rhiannon said...

HI Owen,

I noticed your post a while back about Jim Morrisons grave. I left a comment on that post telling you to look in my archives from 2005 and 2006 where I did two post about Jim. One is story of my meeting him and the other post is a drawing I drew of Jim when I was 17 tears old which I posted.

Here are the dates and year of the two posts..so if your interested you can check them out in my blog.

My Story about meeting Jim when I was in High school is in my Dec.18, 2005 post...the portrait drawing I did of Jim is in my Jan.03, 2006 post..just in case you might be interested.

Jim is one of my all time favorites musical artist and poets. I have two of his poem books.

Interesting encounter with the woman (or rather not quite an encounter) but glad you enjoyed her dog..:o)

Blessings,

Rhiannon

Anonymous said...

The black and white really shows the textures well.It wouldn't have looked half as good in colour.

I didn't notice the sun bather either,

GG

Unseen India Tours said...

I Simply loved this post...Great one..Unseen Rajasthan

Owen said...

Swan, welcome ! Come back anytime... in peace...

Fin, the honor is mine. We have two cats, and your's was the first cat oriented blog I've come across, but now that I've seen how many cats are following you, I suppose there are more... looks like fun anyway, and I'll be back to look around more... as you can see from this post, I also like dogs... (even if some of them like to eat toads) :-D

@eloh, glad you like the black & whites, there's lots more where they came from... to appear soon in these pages as they come back little by little from the lab where the negatives are getting scanned...

Robert, well, it was on Tenerife, but who knows, could be the same dog... or its twin ? Thanks !

Dearest Watercats... was I so transparent ??? Actually, it was the volcanic beach landscape that really attracted me here... naked ladies on a remote beach, no, like you, I hate it when that happens ! LOL...

Hi Friko, she did stay still (dozing?) for quite a while. Sorry to leave you hanging, but there's really not much more to the story... and in case anyone is interested, I was with my wife, and had eyes only for her... it really was the dog I was interested in ! :-D Although a beautiful landscape is always worth any artist's observation for purely aesthetic reasons, n'est-ce pas ???

Rain, glad you liked it, as a dog lover, I was hoping it would appeal to you !

Hi Margaret, see response to Friko... he was a very friendly dog, who could resist?

LGS, Oh dear, you're right, I did forget to post the pictures of the goddess when she got up from her nap, stood up, stretched, slowly put her bathing suit back on, called her dog, and strolled up the beach... how forgetful of me ! Stop back soon, and often, in the coming days, weeks, or months, I will try to remember to post them... :-D (but you're right, the dog was cute!)

Alberto, indeed, indeed, one should always have a camera handy, for one never knows when a timeless moment may occur, amid all the moments we so easily forget... thanks for your e-mail too, I really appreciate your kindness... and who knows, maybe some day an editor will see my humble little blog, and be so smitten by the shimmering photos and gleaming texts that a book offer will be forthcoming ??? (I know, I'm a dreamer, nothing but a dreamer...)

Owen said...

Steve, she looked like she was just fine, but the dog needed attention, lots of it... ah yes, priorities... but as you can well understand, similar to your dentist story, my wife was present, and there were lots of baseball size rocks around within easy reach, so like any good and devoted husband would do, I played with the dog ! :-D

Sacré Jeff... c'est pour cela que j'écris en Anglais, pour te pousser à faire du progrès, en tout cas, ici, c'était juste une petite histoire de comment ton pixel pote a rencontré un chien super sympa sur une très, très belle.... plage volcanique... où la lave a coulé en flottes... :-D

Joanne... glad you enjoyed the natural scenery, it came naturally to photograph it... I had that Beatles song in mind that day : Act Naturally :)

Hi Panorama, welcome, and thanks ! Stop back soon...

Most Amazing Amanda Sagit, It was ruff, very ruff, but as mentioned above, was with la Grenouille, had eyes for her only... and there were no bones on the beach, only stones, and yes, I'm sure his name was Rocky... ahhh you are too much... so no, nothing "developed" other than the images on the film negatives... maybe I should have rapidly converted to the Fundamentalist Mormon faith ???

Nathalie !!! Good question as to whether I would have remembered all these years later... good thing there were photos to bring it all back into crisp focus in memory... As for the rest, yes, some Americans are quite prudish (several years ago in a hotel swimming pool my five year old daughter was threatened with being prohibited from using the pool because she didn't have her bikini top on !), but remember, I'm half French now too... If I'd stayed pure prudish American, I would never have posted the two photos above that seem to depict some naked human flesh, although in fact they are dog and beach photos only !!! LOL ! So yes, guily of all charges, no doubt, prudish and hypocritical... or perhaps just a bit oblique and discrete ? It was a lovely crescent moon, don't you think ???

Ahh, appeler un chat un chat... je ne pense pas être en mesure de répondre à ça... dangereux comme terrain glissant... LOL ! En tout cas, comme chez Jilly, j'adore des photos de chien !!!

Anyway, very happy always for whatever time you, and all the other good readers out there, can spare for this obscure little blog, if I succeed in helping you take a little dog walk from time to time, that is already time, that's all I can hope for...

Rhiannon, many thanks for your comment on Jim, I did see it, and here too, you are unbelievably lucky ! I will go and look at your earlier posts as soon as I have a sec ! Take care....

GG, then we agree, the sun bather was not the main attraction here, the dog was very handsome ! And the textures... hope you are well !

Thank you Unseen R....

Yes indeed, thanks again to all of you for these very observant and profound remarks... glad we all agree, it was a beautiful day on the beach ! And the dog was wonderful too, by the light of a crescent moon... :-D

me said...

Hmm..isn't it amazing what black and white can hide? I almost missed the woman!! hahaha. So...whatever came of her. =)

Lovely dogs, by the way.

Owen said...

Hi Paris, indeed black & white can reveal as it can obscure... up to the observer to see what he/she wants to see I guess :) Well, I wonder what she became, I knew nothing about her, was she a local, a traveller... I never spoke to her. Who knows, maybe through the power of the internet, the mystery lady will recognize herself and let me know what she became... all that happened that day was she sat up with her towel wrapped around her, got dressed, and left... my wife and I stayed on enjoying the late afternoon on a quiet beach. Hope all is well with you...

PeterParis said...

Wonderful story! OK, I saw your comment about your wife being around, so the question I (and many others) had in mind can be forgotten! :-)

Catherine said...

That first shot is so surreal... I hate to say it but she looks like she's just been washed up in some film noir scene...

Wade Solowoniuk said...

very haunting, beautiful work

Lille Diane said...

I savored every word to see how the story would end. Nothing "butt" a hand-up for a rock. Great pix, Owen! Amazing writing!

Jilly said...

Oh what a lovely set of photographs, Owen. I laughed at the first and your commentary on the nude lady. What is it with dogs and stones or rocks. I have some here who continually pick them up in the garden and chew on them. Can't be good for their teeth. This dog looks so bright and intelligent. Love your writing.