Little Cheecher, Nacogdoches TX

Chee-Choo! That's how Nini greets our little snaggle-toothed baby. Cheech is camera shy, and will rarely look directly at me when I'm taking his photo. But it gives him that laid back cool look most of the time. He's too cool to pose.

Two black and whites in two days is very rare for me. I really admire black and white photography but I'm a sucker for color and usually just can't resist. But sometimes too much color is distracting from the subject, as I think it definitely was in this case because the couch below Cheech's paws is bright green and some of Cheech's face was even green-lit with the light reflecting off of the couch. So it was an obvious candidate for black and white for me. I stepped out of my comfort zone and applied a lot of vignette in Lightroom. I've been off of vignetting since last year when I first discovered and over-applied it like crazy for a month or two. I tend to rely on the natural vignette created by my lenses. But in this case I think it really helps focus the attention on the Cheech man.

Yesterday was full of controversies on my grainy photo of Nini. I was surprised grain is such a hot topic! I have to admit I'm not the biggest fan myself, but I was going for a different look from my normal portraiture and thought it worked well with the mood Nini was conveying. I appreciate all of the different perspectives in our community and look forward to hearing your opinions.

Congrats to my dad, who had a big day on 500px.com yesterday with this little number: http://500px.com/photo/17079045
How many of you are on 500px.com? Let me know so I can follow you. My username is PaulBellinger and my dad is PaulBellingerSr.

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: November 1 2012, taken October 28, 2012

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