Me and my shadow

I really like to take pictures. I spend hours outside on our property, following my various animals around and snapping photo after photo after photo. So many of these photos never make it on this blog, because most of them are either blurry or too dark or only interesting to me, but sometimes, even though a picture isn't the highest quality, something about it tugs at me, and I decide I want to share it after all.

So. Here are a few shots that, even though they're not the greatest quality, I really like. A lot. The subject matter in all these shots? My beautiful donkey, Chester, of course.

I was photographing the llama girls in the pasture the other day when I noticed a presence behind me:

He nuzzled me a bit, but mostly, he just wanted to stand close:

This is what I saw when I turned around:

I hope this means he likes how I smell:

Chester has a few trust issues that we're working on. I'm hoping that lots of time spent and gentle attention given is going to help him to overcome some of his fears. Sometimes he doesn't want to be touched and petted and scratched - frequently, he just wants to be very close and sniff:

I'm ok with this:

A bit later, I caught Chet taking a little nap in the sun with his nose pressed to a tree:

He's a big one for eye contact, this guy:

It's interesting that some of my most favorite photographs aren't always the ones perfectly captured. More often than not, it's those spontaneous, blurry, sometimes overexposed pictures that squeeze my heart the most.