For This Photoblogging Post I Had an Art Director . . . (But I Treat Him Like a Dog)

More, photoblogging? Yes, more photoblogging, Sunday is my day to take the family doggie for a long walk. As has been my habit these past few weekends, I've grabbed my camera as well.

This time, for many of the photos, I let Mofo (the family doggie) be my art director.

I shot almost everything (I forgot twice, I think) he chose to mark. 16 times he felt the need to leave a 'calling card' and 14 times I captured an image so that he could upload his work. Think of it as the doggie equivalent of myspace. When we engineer dogs with the ability for speech and give them some sort of web access, I'm sure you'll see stuff like this proliferate. Until that day, dogs like Mofo will have to rely on their owners (I refuse to not 'own' a pet and just be their 'companion' or worse yet, their 'parent') to use the web to increase the reach of the territory they can mark (but of course for this to have maximum utility for dogs, Mofo suggests coming up with some sort of 'scratch-n-sniff' system over the internets)

Below are five of the examples of his decision making as an art director.




First up is the classic lamppost, Mofo's not a big fan of the fire hydrant, too cliché.



Next, trees with porous bark are always good for marking, plus Mofo felt he wanted to get in the shot, so I obliged.



To switch things up, Mofo chose a clump of grass. Just keeping me on my toes I guess.



Ivy's also a great place for leaving a message for other dogs' noses.



For the final shot, Mofo was angry with me for lazily shooting all the shots from above, so for the final tree, I got real low and took the shot from a more dramatic angle.

The whole set can be found on flicker, titled 2006 OCT 29 Territorial Pissings (A Collaborative Art Project Between XWL and Mofo (His Dog)).

And yes, the Nirvana reference is intentional. Even though I don't do Friday Funk Lyrics anymore I do like posting lyrics, so I'll use this as an occasion for some Sunday Grunge Lyrics (borrowed from here)

Come on people now

Smile on your brothers

Everybody get together

Try to love another right now



When I was an alien

Cultures weren't opinions



[Chorus]

Gotta find a way

To find a way

When I'm there

Gotta find a way

A better way

I had better wait



Never met a wise man

If so it's a woman



[(Chorus)(x2)]



Just because you're paranoid

Don't mean they're not after you



[(Chorus) (x3)]