Best Day of the Year

Yes, you have your holidays, and I'm sure you think they are fun, but the best day of the year is, in reality, Doggie Dip Day. This is the day when the pools have closed for humans and for one wild, wonderful, wet day, the dogs can play in the pools and the humans have to stay out. 

Our dear friend Sweetpea is a bit afraid of the water. It took my dog Sam setting an example of intense happiness to get him to want to go in and finally to want to go in more than he was afraid to go in. 

There was a light rain. I took pictures anyway, even though my camera is not weather resistant. Then my camera stopped working. I got frightened that I had ruined it. I thought I could take it home and dry it out and maybe it would be ok, and that at very worst at least I have days in which to order a new camera since I couldn't possibly get it fixed in time. I was also astonished that such a light rain could kill it.

When I got home it did resume working although the on/off button is noticeably stiffer. 

Later the rain came quite seriously and it was fun to see my dog, whose response to walking in the rain has always been, "I can hold it, really, we can wait a bit" continue to play.

It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow. This is just as well. For weeks I have had learning how to operate various technical devices on my to-do list and I've found myself stalling in all sorts of ways. This is the last weekend before I go therefore if I want to reliably use these gadgets on the trip I have to learn NOW. 

I have found it very difficult to take a nicely lit picture of both of these dogs. I need to increase the exposure for mine and decrease it for Sweetpea. I haven't tried an HDR because they are usually moving. For this one I increased the exposure on Samuel in post-processing. Any better ideas?