Dog walking is as routine as it gets, at least five times a day. Practically, it means I hardly ever leave the house without at least one camera. Last Sunday, ready for a change of scenery, it was with two: a Fujfilm X100S with the Wide Conversion Lens (true 28mm) and my own Cine50D simulation, and my Nikon FE hooked up to a Panagor 55mm f/3 macro lens and loaded with Rollei Retro 400S.
I drove 30 min north, arbitrarily stopping on the edge of Baarn and strolling straight into its ‘forest’…well, I would define it as a public park with a few trees. Nevertheless, for once in a long time it was a beautifully sunny day, and I thanked Odin for a day without the onset of a migraine.
So I stayed calm when Milo got himself ambushed at the waterfront by a pack of Mastiffs who inadvertently pushed him into the water. I skipped down the slope and saw him clutch for dear life, with real panic in his eyes. After pulling him and a chubby labrador out, I slightly regretted not having stopped for one second to immortalise that scene first.
The lab’s owners came up to me, thanking me for ‘saving’ the big fella. In the same way a dog in an animal shelter isn’t really a rescue. You didn’t dodge enemy fire, or crawled a mine field to get a free dog, right? (Heavily borrowed from Bill Burr).
Milo wide awake and nicely refreshed, I passed the cafe-restaurant ‘The General’ and slowly circled around the train station area, before heading back into the park and returning home…without setting foot in the house. We spent it wherever there was grass, until the sun went beyond our arc of horizon.
