About Me

Welcome to my photography and my blog!

My name is Nancy Smiegowski and I am a new resident of the suburbs near Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to that, I lived in Richmond, Virginia and many of my posts are from exploring there. Eventually I will explore Georgia the same way, but not quite yet.

I’m a CPA and until recently, did corporate tax work. I’m now retired (it’s still strange saying that) and starting a second life with my photography. I also use the moniker “dogear6”, being shorter and easier to remember.

My fine art photography reflects my love of color and I enjoy pushing the limits as I experiment and learn. I use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, along with Topaz Studio and onOne to post process my pictures to get the look and style that I want in my photography.

My husband has done photography for more years than I have. Our trips fill the back of the car with our gear and include getting up before sunrise, afternoon naps, and staying up late for sunsets and night photography.

To my chagrin, I would not be as adventurous capturing pictures if he didn’t prod me along. I’m working on maintaining a better attitude and not griping about being uncomfortable, walking so far, or arguing with him on how to post process my pictures. To his credit, he is also much better at accepting that my vision is not the same as his and I can use or not use his advice.

I used to have three old dogs, including an energetic and somewhat cranky beagle. He made sure we walked every day, no matter what the weather was. All three are gone now, waiting for me on the other side of the rainbow bridge. I miss them dearly, but they lived long and happy lives and I have many good memories of them.

My boys, practicing their synchronized sleeping.

The young beagle is, of course, my gravatar.  He had the sweetest face!  It was a great aid to when he was trying to communicate that it was time for me to get him out a treat. If you want to read his posts, click here. Be warned though that they are very one-sided!

87 Comments Leave a comment ›

  2. Hello! I saw your photography from inside the Trellis of the Farmers Market in Williamsburg. I am on the farmers market board and we are looking for entries to our 15th anniversary poster contest. I love your photo and hope you will submit it. There is a $250 stipend for the winner.

  3. “Living the seasons” this hit home for me today as I am so sick and tired of the people in this part of the world complaining about the weather. I yell from the FaceBook mountain tops that it should not be a surprise and embracing it makes it 100% easier to live life on a daily basis. “Living the seasons” beautiful put. Thank you.

    • It’s so frustrating how negative everything seems to be. My life is not perfect, but my blog is intended to be a bright spot in everyone’s day for at least a few minutes. I’m glad you enjoyed it!

  4. Nancy, I nominated you for an award. I know you have more than 500 followers, but you were the only person I felt comfortable enough to nominate! Also perhaps you’ve already been nominated. I plan to add more bloggers as I meet more people, but you’re the first!

    • Maxine – thank you so much! I actually don’t do awards. My time is pretty limited and I decided several years ago that it wasn’t how I wanted to spend my efforts on my blog. That doesn’t make it any less flattering though, so the thought is very appreciated.

      I have to laugh that you’re awed by the 500+ followers. It’s a nice number, but I’ve been doing this for four years and that’s all I have! So many others have more (and I can’t figure out why either). I seldom hear from most of them. So I don’t pay attention to the numbers. I’m looking at the dedicated few who actually leave me likes and comments and let me know they’ve been by. I’ve got some good friends in blogland and that’s what’s important.

      • Hehe, Nancy – I wasn’t sure that you’d go with it because one of the rules is that you have to have less than 500 followers. I feel so much better knowing that you don’t do awards than you being like – “no, I’m not trying to “cheat” like you did!” (asking only one person – who just happened to have more than the followers stipulated). I remember you telling me not to put a great deal of stock into the follows, they would build up, but only a few would be…faithful (for lack of a better word). And I’ve been grateful for that advice! It’s true. I don’t really know how many followers I have, but I do know commenters are much farther and few between! And I’m grateful for them.

        • I didn’t realize the rules said that, but no, my bigger reason is just the lack of time I have to do things.

          I’m glad I gave you that advice when I did. It’s so easy to get caught up on how many followers everyone else has (versus me) but in the end, it’s that I have a few faithful that I’ve become friends with and who regularly support and encourage me that makes the big difference in this.

        • I totally agree. I’ve got over 600 subscribers, but only hear from a handful. Most of them, I have no idea who they are or why they bother to follow me.

          Thanks for stopping by!

          • The list of subscribers appears in our WordPress stats, so I’ve occasionally checked them out. In some cases I can see why they might be interested in what I’m doing, but in other cases there seems to be no commonality at all. On the other hand, I have varied interests, so those people might also. I’ve heard other bloggers say they’re puzzled by this too, so you’re not alone.

  5. Hi “Dogear”.
    With a Beagle avatar, I couldn’t help but visit your blog.
    (We had a Beagle once called Nina. Totally wacko! – probably a Beagle gene – but the loveliest of dogs!)
    Nice blog you have here. :)
    I’ll come back.
    Have a great week
    Brian

  6. Hi there, I am not sure if you “do” blog awards or not… but I have nominated you for the Premio Dardos award. The rules are simple: all you need to do is nominate 15 blogs, nice and easy. Here is the link to the post: http://wp.me/p4Do1g-u4. I hope you will accept it, but if not… nevermind, I still like your blog and this is a token of my appreciation!

    • It is, but other than my niece, no one seems to care. My daughter has been quite clear she doesn’t want to hear the family stories and her Dad agrees with her. Trying to get them out of some of the family members is an exercise in futility too. The good thing is everyone gives me the old pictures and newspaper clippings since no one else cares, so I have quite a stash!

  8. I found a photo online and tracked you through the copywrite “dogear6 llc.” It is an autumn pic of a horse and carriage in Colonial Williamsburg. Is there a way I can purchase a copy of this photo from you? Can you please e-mail me directly? Thanks. Dawn.

  9. Great blog! Glad to have stumbled upon it and you. Will definitely follow! Feel free to check out mind if you like and if you see things you like of course by all means follow as well. :)

  10. Nancy, When you said in your reply that the sculptures we compared are similar that’s when I became curious as to the name of the sculptor for the one I featured on the square in Decatur, Ga. It’s called Valentine By “George Lundeen” and a bronze sculpture, located in front of the Old Courthouse, reflects the enduring love shared by two people. The artist completed a sculpture of this couple early in their life together and revisited them years later for this piece:
    http://www.decaturga.com/index.aspx?page=94
    ~Mary PS: Keep in touch. You can always email me and find that information on my Gravatar.

  11. When i saw your lovely gravatar of your Beagle, i thought i must check out who this person is .. I love dogs, and i have a breed known as Drever here in Sweden. I don´t know if there is a english name for Yarris breed… Drevrar are to the appearance quite similar with the Beagle breed .

    Your blog is wonderful, and your text and photos are great ! Thank you for sharing. // Maria

  14. Hi Nancy – I, too, am a diary/journaling enthusiast and still have all my journals that I’ve ever written from the time I was a teenager (and that was decades ago). I have actually been teaching journal writing (off and on) as a self-therapy tool.

  15. Pingback: Acknowledging Milestones « Living The Seasons

  16. From SoundEagle, Happy New Year to you, Nancy!

    May you have a new dawn and an even better beginning in 2013!

    I would like to wish you a fine year in 2013, happiness and good contacts within a world in less turmoil and unsustainability if possible.

    May the new year bring you and your family plenty of happiness, good health, peace and harmony!

    SoundEagle hopes that you continue to do very well and find fulfillment in whatever you enjoy doing and savouring, especially through being “an experienced diarist and archivist”.

    Keep journeying with journaling! :)

  17. Nancy – You have a beautiful blog, and I am so inspired by your consistency in journaling! My daughter who just turned 29 has been journaling since she was in 7th or 8th grade, and both of you are amazing! She writes hers down in journal books, a new one each year. I was never disciplined to do the same, but I am enjoying my blog – which is something of a journal, I guess.
    Anyway, thank you for your kind comments, and for following my blog “Blessings through raindrops”. I am humbled, and consider it a real honor to have you following me on my journey. Thank you!

    • Becky – what a lovely note – thank you so much! I regard my blog as my diary now and my personal journal has gone way down as a result, which is okay for me. It records my life, which is what I want.

      I look forward to reading your blog and seeing what you’re up to as well!

    • You are so welcome! I followed you over from Christine’s blog and enjoyed looking at your blog. I miss my cats, but with the dogs, am not in a hurry to get another one.

  25. Just wanted to let you know I have nominated you for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. I hope this will be welcome news for you. If you prefer not to accept the award, I certainly understand, but I hope you will visit the other nominees, and they will visit you, just the same. To see more about the award and accepting this nomination, please visit my post at http://wp.me/p2ekZU-E4. All the best!

    • Thank you! I’ve quite accepting awards because I’m so perpetually behind on everything, but I do appreciate the kind thought. One of these days, I might get around to actually passing them along.

    • You are welcome! I’d have not known about your blog if you hadn’t visited first (thanks so much for doing that). I enjoyed looking around at your work.

    • Thanks Kathleen – I always appreciate hearing from you. I’ve been enjoying the break from my blog – a little TOO much in fact. It’s been nice getting back to some of the things that I put down when I started doing this last year.

  31. Hello, dogear6! Please let me welcome you to my blog’s “family.” I hope, while you are exploring the site, that you will stop on the Friends page, and tell us all a little about yourself. Please include URLs for both blogs — who knows how soon I may need to look up something there! I’m glad you’ve signed up, and I’m looking forward to seeing you there. Oh, and I had a beagle once. He was a fat old dog who had belonged to a truck driver, so he ate a lot of hamburgers and ice cream cones. He shaped up some with us. He was a great dog — I hated to lose him.

    • Thank you so much! I went out to your Friends page and introduced myself – thanks for the invite!

      Our beagle is a good companion. He’s not much of a cuddler, but he follows me from room to room and stays by me all day. Unlike dog #1 whose best friend is the couch. Our beagle is very fat. We’ve got him on a diet for quite a while and cannot get the weight off of him! The vet says there’s nothing wrong, but he’d have less back problems if we could get him to drop some weight.

      http://diabeticredemption.com/friends/

  32. Hello…thank you for following my blog at Faith1st Ministry. I hope it has and will continue to be a major blessing in your life. May God richly bless you as you continue to write and blog. Please continue with us on this journey and remember to have Faith 1st. — Sebastian

  39. I’m very glad I met you, Nancy, via Christine Grote who kindly wrote a review of my memoir on a recent blog post. Like both of you, I’m also involved with family history. Before my mother died at age 97, I put together a history of her and my father’s life and families. I did it on PageMaker (which I can no longer use with my new computer; I hate this technology stuff that is always making the “old” obsolete). It ended up being over 300 pages of text and photos. I then did books for a few friends, and one for my son’s church mission. That’s it. I won’t be doing anymore long books, but I will still do genealogical research and hope to finish my life history book with my first husband that I want to get bound for my children. It’s almost done.

    That’s great that you heard the stories vocally. My mother told me some things, but mostly what I have came from stories that were written down by my ancestors.

    I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love “cool” photos like yours. I still can’t figure out how to follow through the RSS feed, but I’ve signed up to follow you through email. I think the “photo” challenge you’ve set up for yourself this year is awesome!

    • How frustrating to use software that no longer exists! I did mine with Microsoft Publisher. I used a Mac for a while but couldn’t transfer those files over to anything. Between that and Photoshop Elements always being a version behind Windows, I went back to Windows last year.

      Thanks for the compliments and following my blog. That is so cool.

  40. Oh, we share a family history interest. I got into genealogy when my oldest son was born and got as much information as I could from my oldest living relatives. Over the years I’ve collected lots of photos. I’ve created genealogy books for both my and my husband’s familys that include photos. I love keeping this history.

    Over the past several years I began to interview my father about his childhood. I have this on audio tape and most of it transcribed. I am so thankful I did because he has Alzheimer’s and not longer speaks very much.

    I’ll be back.

    • We have a lot in common, which is probably part of why I love your blog. Plus you have cool photos and tell a good story!

      I’m glad you got your Dad’s story while you still could. My grandparents were pretty vocal about their stories and much of what I recorded came from hearing it directly. My grandmothers also lived next to each other and my mother has helped with a lot of stories too.

      Thanks for visiting! I look forward to seeing more comments from you.

  41. I love your blog, and have added it to my rss feed favorites. We have pets in common. I’ve 3 cats, Sunkist, Sitka and Juneau and a dog, Mocha. You might want to read my very recent post, “pets, can’t live with them…”

    We also seem to have writing, and journaling in common as well. Although you’re probably more organized at both. I’ve so many interests, that I can’t contain the words that occupy my brain 24/7. They just keep pouring forth.

    I might try to take up your challenge of a word a day. Sometimes it’s difficult to keep abreast of the wordpress ddaily post challenges, so we’ll see how far I get with yours.

    Will check back again. Hope you come visiting me some time. I’ll mention your blog in mine so that my readers come-a-calling.

    have a JOYful day…hugmamma.

    • What a wonderful note! Thanks for visiting and leaving me a note. I enjoyed checking out your blog – you have a lot of interesting things out there. I’m surprised you got tagged as spam a while back – I sure didn’t see anything out there that would have qualified for that label! Glad you got it resolved quickly too.

      Nancy

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