This may shock you, but today I am going to post a cute, cuddly dog picture.  It’s just the mood that I’m in.  I am forever going through the various “Best of the Week” photo series and am forever depressed by all of the terrible events going on around us!  Today I just cannot deal with it anymore. So…

Last week there were severe and devasting storms in Europe.  We have been watching the news footage here in the United States in the context of the pretty recent memory of Hurricane Sandy in New York City and along the New Jersey coast.  So I was drawn to these images and delighted to find this wonderful picture by Jens Buettner / Deutsche Presse-Agentur via AP showing a very shaggy dog running during a heavy storm at the harbor of Timmendorf on the German island of Poel in the Baltic Sea on October 28.

What I like about this photograph is that it tells the whole story without words.  The dog shuts his eyes against the onslaught of the wind, which fiercely blows back his fur.  We wonder if he is in danger of being blown out to sea. Some technical points: love the rule of thirds, love the color similarity of dog and dock, love the out of focus bokeh of the sea. Great stop action.  Then there is a certain ambiguity about how the dog feels.  Is he upset about being windblown?  Would he prefer the warm of hearth and home?  Or does he find it all great fun, in the same way that school children enjoy a day off and fun in the snow the day after a blizzard when the rest of us have to clean up.