Day 344 - Golden doodle or baby seal?

I warned you early on that there might be a few photographs of our beloved dog Marlee, didn't I? Well, here's another one. Those of us who know her recognise this as the classic "I'm ready to play" pose, right down to splayed legs ready to jump, the eyes intent on her dad, and the orange rubber ball hiding beneath her ear to the left of her head. Those of you who don't know Marlee and don't have a dog of your own probably thought this was a photo of a large baby seal, caught on the ice floe.

Taken early in the morning, just after Marlee's first walk, this photo posed a real lighting challenge. In fact, it was only the technical wizardry of iPhoto's Edit functions that really saved it. I took the shot in very low light at f3.4 at 1/60th. Even then, the Olympus' light meter was blinking away at me. But the camera doesn't offer any larger aperture settings and I couldn't move the shutter speed any lower without having the natural shake in my hand affect the shot. So I just clicked anyway and left it to iPhoto to save the day.

What impresses me about the shot now is that iPhoto's exposure control allowed me to recapture Marlee's original colours and detail but, in doing so, it seems to have converted the snow and grass into a black-and-white background. Happily, I quite like the overall effect.