Mady climbs the stairs umpteen times a day. Whenever I go up, she follows me. Whenever I go down, she follows me. When I leave for the gym, she goes upstairs to await my return. When she’s hungry or thirsty, she goes down. I hear her in the middle of the night, claws scrabbling on hardwood, heading down or up the stairs, with the occasional thump caused I assume by her tail hitting the balusters on the way up or down. When I noticed that today’s challenge topic was “stairs” I immediately thought of Mady. When I watch her coming down, I imagine it is a scary thing to go headfirst down a steep stairwell. But when I beckoned her to the top and photographed her as she descended, she seemed willing. . .at least the first two times I asked her to do it. Then, when she wasn’t properly focused, I had her do it again. She was eager to please and I was sure I rewarded her each time she performed for me. The light kept changing in the entry and I kept being dissatisfied with the results. Then, Sue and I worked in my backyard for three hours, cleaning the fountain and the patio and preparing pots for planting. While Sue took a shower, I asked Mady to perform again. This time, I was met with a little reluctance. But she did it. Here are three of the last shots I took and I had to include the one where she looked at me from the top as if to say, “not again” or “I sure hope this is the last time” and it was.
I was still dissatisfied with the results. On this set of photos, I changed to Shutter Priority so that I could get Mady in focus while she quickly descended. But of course that changed the light entering the camera so I increased the ISO to 500 but still had to make levels and exposure adjustments in post processing because I didn’t consider exposure compensation. These are the last photos on my blog that will feature Mady for a while because Sue is taking her home to Redding later on this afternoon. I’ve certainly enjoyed her visit and her willingness to pose for my lens.
