Team Up Thursday - Week 14 - Animals

I really struggled with deciding on a theme this week - and eventually decided on a cop out cos I knew it would be easy - even if we did not pick up a camera (which I did not) I knew that we had loads of back up pictures..
Unlike me, Mariette picked up her camera and her resulting picture of Jessie is AMAZING....Everything works from the lighting to managing to capture some of Jessies "ness" to the getting low down and taking the picture at Jessie's level - WELL DONE MARIETTE - you certainly aced it this week.

Fortunately when my creative juices have been bubbling for previous TUT themes, I have tried to take pictures of our pets (we have young cats, an oldish German Shepherd and MY little heartbeat at my feel - Tickey - little Jack Russel)...so like I said I knew I had back up and I am still obeying my own unwritten rule that my chosen photograph should be taken by me...so therefore it is only half a cheat (at least that is my story).
The picture that I chose probably breaks all the rules of good photography...It is over exposed and I really do not know what happened to the colour and I think it is slightly blurry BUT those are all the reasons that I absolutely adore my picture...

The cat in the picture is Smokey who is actually all black - we own (or do they own us?) Smokey's brother, Misty as well.  We got them as two beautiful grey kittens and within four months they had lost all their grey fur and where totally black (perhaps charcoal is a better description - although in some lights you can see a kind of grey undertone)...Very interesting.  Like human siblings, these two have a love/hate relationship except without the love...

Here is  better picture of Smokey..


I really do not have a great picture of Tickey or Romani...Maybe at some time in the future, I will take a decent picture of them and then load it up just to show you.




My last picture this week, is one that Mike took, about seven years ago at the Lion Park...(????)  I love this picture and love imagining the mind conversations going on betwen Bradley and Kayla-Fern:-
Kayla-Fern - Sharky (that is what she used to call him) - I am a little bit scared
Brad - Don't worry my little baby sis - I will protect you and if anything goes wrong - JUST RUN...
AND I imagine the giraffe (who was also only about two at the time) saying "OK Guys, whatcha gonna feed me today"

This weeks theme made me realise how lucky we are to have animals (pets) around us and how they bring so much to our lives...And also how important family memories and photos about those memories are - I don't think Kayla-Fern remembers feeding the HUGE giraffe, but looking at the photo, she can re-live it and also know that despite the fact that her and her brother fight often (that love/hate relationship again) - he will always be there to protect her...
I think that is my (relatively boring I know) post for this week...So until next week, and hopefully I am feeling a bit more creative and interesting...Lots of love