Sarah Ause Kichas | saussie.com » randoms

playtime at Cat World

Sarah — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:36:32 +0000

Another cute video I did for work. Playing with kittens? Never gets old. Never.

Trail Tails episode 4: Spiral Jetty

Sarah — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:27:45 +0000

I shot this video way back in September, but have been lazy at video editing (it’s really time consuming and I have been too busy a bee). I finally got around to chopping it up last night into this little ditty. Now I’m on a roll and going through tons of old(ish) files, piecing together a bunch of videos (though they aren’t of the Trail Tails variety). Some I will post here, others on my other site. Regardless, I have some awesome video things in the works, so stay tuned!

Anyway, this trip to Spiral Jetty was special because it turned into a nightmare. The video doesn’t show the nightmare (I turned my camera off), but it turns out there’s some tar dumped out there (WHO THE HELL DUMPS TAR IN A LAKE?!?!?!), and Haley and Jemma both stepped in it. Besides fearing they’d die from eating it off their feet, we all got to breathe in the tar fumes during the two-hour ride home. We tried to soap it off with handsoap from a public bathroom (failed), used heavy duty cleaners at a friend’s (failed, and not recommended), and scissors (also failed). Just as I was about to give up and call a vet, I googled dogs stepping in tar (seems like it should be a pretty common occurrence, only on roads instead of at a lake) and found the answer… vegetable oil. Vegetable oil will get tar off your dogs. It’s slow, but it works. And so now you know: if you ever find yourself in as terrible a situation as that, vegetable oil will save you.

Anyway, here’s a video of the nicer parts of that trip… before the nightmare began. And yes, the water really is that color. It’s not pollution, but salt-tolerant bacteria that thrives in that remote northern part of the lake.

Here are some neato photos from another trip to the Jetty. The water was much lower last year, and in my opinion, much more beautiful. Shallow water makes for an alien landscape. This year, it was about a foot deeper.

invisible dogs

Sarah — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:15:07 +0000

Over the past four years at this job, I’ve photographed a wide range of animal species. Cats, dogs, horses, parrots, and bunnies come standard, but I’ve also photographed bobcats, degus, manatees, chimpanzees, and so on. But one thing I certainly never expected was invisible dogs.

Yep, invisible… as in not actually there. Our latest campaign encourages you to start seeing invisible dogs – meaning the thousands of dogs tucked away in shelters, out of sight. Invisible dogs are just as good as other dogs, they just need to be seen.

I did seven shoots for this campaign over the summer. And let me tell you, anyone who says that kids and animals are the hardest to photograph (I don’t really agree with that) has never photographed invisible ones. Now THAT is hard!

Here are a couple shots that our designers stylized with those vintage color filters (they did that for all the ads).

Salt Lake City and New York City were the target cities for these ads (although online ads reached much further). I’ve seen iDog billboards here around SLC, but not with photos. New York City is where all the outdoor photo ads like these seem to be:

For this campaign, I also shot my first video for work. I had just gotten a new camera and the day of a shoot I had scheduled, my boss told me to take a video too. He gave me the story line, and although I came down sick, I shot a video and it turned out pretty cute! And then I found out it was a commercial on Hulu. I kind of lost it then, in a good way. Not bad for the first time!

It was a ton of hard work, quite grueling trying to get something that’s not there to look like a dog, but in the end it turned out pretty cool, and it seems to be a big hit all around the country.

an update from Aramis

Sarah — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:11:36 +0000

I’ve written about Aramis many times before, but not for years. About two and a half years ago, he was adopted by one of our staff members. When I was down at the sanctuary for a week back in September, I caught up with my favorite bird and took this video. He is the best!

Little Red goes home

Sarah — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:05:26 +0000

In January 2008, I officially started working at Best Friends. Two days later, the Michael Vick dogs arrived – 22 of them. Over the years since, I’ve watched those dogs transform from frightened dogs who wouldn’t willingly go near anyone, into happy, playful dogs ready to be adopted. There are very strict rules imposed by the courts for these dogs to be adopted, but so far seven of them have done what it takes to get adopted, and Little Red is the latest of those. A few weeks back, I was down in Kanab working at the sanctuary for week when her adopter came. I will confess that Little Red is one of the dogs I didn’t think it’d ever happen for… she was just so terrified of people. So when I shot this video, I was just in awe of how far she’s come and how much she’s changed. Seeing that transformation was incredible, but watching such a deserving dog finally go home beats just about everything.

We posted this video to the public a little over a week ago, and it already has nearly 25,000 hits. It just goes to prove how much people care about these dogs. To think that they almost never got a chance breaks my heart, but stories like Little Red’s prove what’s possible and hopefully inspire people to give dogs like her a second chance – they certainly deserve it more than Michael Vick does.

Also, while I shot the video and some of the photos, other photos were by my awesome coworkers Molly Wald and Gary Kalpakoff. They rule!

Trail Tails episode 3: Grandeur Peak

Sarah — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:58:17 +0000

Grandeur Peak was actually Pim and mine’s first peak together, and we have a wonderful view of it from our street that has had me practically dying to get up it again. A few weeks back, we opted for an evening hike to take in the glorious summer sunset on the mountaintop, and it was certainly worth the last half hour we had to hike down in pitch blackness. Also, I wanted to get the dogs up it since they did not join us on that first trip. They had a blast, as did we.

Reminder: After you hit play, please click where it says 480p in the bottom right and change it to 720 or 1080. HD is the only way to view it, man!

Trail Tails episode 2: Gobbler’s Knob

Sarah — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:50:49 +0000

If you think my not posting hiking photos anymore means I haven’t been getting out, you would be mistaken. I am just terribly lazy and don’t bring a camera anymore (unless you count my phone). That has changed a little with this new video camera, but also not really. When I hike, I just want to hike, not deal with pictures. But, I lug the new beast around on special adventures like this (actually, Pim lugs it around for me and I just pull it out when I want to shoot… I’m THAT lazy!). Anyway, about a month ago, we hiked Gobbler’s Knob… our first mountain as a married couple and our first mountain of the year (about three months later than last year… we’ve been slacking!). I made a video. I give you episode 2…

Reminder: After you hit play, do yourself a favor and click where it says 480p at the bottom of the player and change it to 720 or 1080. PLEASE! I’m embarrassed for it to be seen in anything but HD.

Trail Tails episode 1: Dog Lake

Sarah — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:39:59 +0000

I’ve been playing with video for a couple weeks now. Earlier this year, I had to start making slideshows in Final Cut, so of course video editing wouldn’t fall too far behind. It’s definitely been easier on me having a little bit of a working knowledge of Final Cut, even though the new version may as well be an entirely different program. Anyway, I digress with geek speak. Trail Tails episode 1: Dog Lake was my first attempt at shooting video as well as editing. Okay, I might take that back. My first attempt was this classic video from last year. But Molly and I shot that on a pocket cam and I edited it in iMovie. That hardly counts, so this was my first real attempt. It’s nothing fancy by any means, but short and simple. I’ve been doing more videos, and slowly getting better, but figured I should start from the beginning. So without further ado, here is episode 1…

Also (and yes, I will probably say this every time), do yourself a favor and after you hit play, click where it says 480p at the bottom of the player and change it to 720 or 1080. Just trust me.

pit bulls and perception

Sarah — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:35:14 +0000

I’ve been photographing a lot of pit bulls this year and put together this slideshow recently. Take a look! Also, once you hit play and see where it says 480p at the bottom of the video player, you should click that number and select 720 or 1080. That will make it look much nicer. I don’t know why it’s not defaulting. Stupid internets.

stuff I found on my phone

Sarah — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 01:56:51 +0000

Yes, I know I still suck at blogging. Yes, I am a lazy bastard. Yes, I will say again that I will remedy this. But no, I don’t think I’m lying this time. I know I’ve said it a million times before, but I really think I will this time! I’m settling into my SLC groove and shooting more, I’m getting out on a ton of adventures (yes, my feet are FINALLY getting better), and I have a new toy coming tomorrow that I’m pretty stoked to play with. Other good news is that my point and shoot camera is finally fixed. It went bonkers during the honeymoon and stopped working. So even though I’ve been getting out on all sorts of truly beautiful hikes, I don’t have much to show for them except photos from my cell phone. Similar to this post, where I had all sorts of fun stuff hidden deep in my memory card, I found tons of fun stuff buried on my phone this weekend. I will keep the pictures pretty and nostalgic-looking by posting the ones taken with the Hipstamatic camera app. I know these things are so overdone these days, but the colors and flaws of them make them seem so much more real than plain old boring shots, even if they are fake. Anyway, here’s a collection of some of the goodies hidden in the innards of the phone… everything ranging from my bridal shower and the honeymoon to hikes and of course dogs.